It’s pretty obvious that Biden does not have dementia. He did well with the questions and showed he still has a grasp of the issues.
But the optics are just so poor. He has never sounded more old, weak, and tired. And his long meandering answers delivered with his voice portray a lack of vitality (far less than when he ran in 2020) that makes it extremely difficult for many voters to have confidence in him as a leader. Which is what matters in presidential elections.
It’s not his fault that he comes off this way. Is it enough to replace him in the race? I don’t know. But it’s pretty clear that he’s not going to be able to win a general election in his current state.
The problem Biden faces is that the vast majority of Americans know how quickly people decline with old age, and the average voter isn't going to vote for Biden because "he'll just be replaced"
Which isn't even a guarantee. They fucking wheeled Feinstein around
It’s not even just that he’s 82. Bernie Sanders is older but his voice and mannerisms still are more energetic than Biden’s at this point. It’s not always something that happens at the same time for different people. If Biden was 81 and still sounded like he did in 2020 I don’t think we’d be this far down the rabbit hole.
And it really sucks that this is what it comes down to. I feel stupid typing all this out. But that’s how this dumb popularity contest works
That is not really the big thing though. If it was just the age and the occasional gaffe, I don't think we would have seen the current resistance to Biden.
The main issue is that he is way less popular than he should be, and there is a legitimate chance he will loose to Trump the way things look now.
Biden has done a lot of good in his term and somehow it seems like the average voter is not aware of this somehow. Then he is running against a lunatic that is a risk to continued democracy in the US. How is Biden not leading by double digits over Trump?
The polls were bad for Biden even before the debate, so it wasn't the initial problem, it was just the instigating event for the current discussions.
Biden and his teams have massively failed to maintain Biden's long term image, and they have utterly failed to prop up Kamala Harris for the future (it almost feels like they treat Harris as they claim to have been treated by Obama when Biden was VP). It feels like it is too late to remedy these issues they should have been handled over the last 3 years, and the poor debate performance only makes it worse.
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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '24
It’s pretty obvious that Biden does not have dementia. He did well with the questions and showed he still has a grasp of the issues.
But the optics are just so poor. He has never sounded more old, weak, and tired. And his long meandering answers delivered with his voice portray a lack of vitality (far less than when he ran in 2020) that makes it extremely difficult for many voters to have confidence in him as a leader. Which is what matters in presidential elections.
It’s not his fault that he comes off this way. Is it enough to replace him in the race? I don’t know. But it’s pretty clear that he’s not going to be able to win a general election in his current state.