I can’t miss the opportunity to talk about last week’s Presidential debate. In preparation for writing this blog I decided to go back and re-watch the event. Biden started off in good shape – he was engaged, thoughtful, wide awake – and correct. However, after about two or three minutes something happened to him. He became pensive, he started looking down at his note pad rather than directly into the camera, and he seemed to be concentrating on how he might best respond to the insane lies flowing from Trump.

At first it looked to me that Biden was the poster boy for dementia. His slack face, open mouth, drooping eyes all reminded me of some of my loved ones as they sank into dementia and away from reality. However, when it was his turn to speak he looked bright and fully aware, supporting the important things he said. Other than difficulties with his speech resulting from a severe childhood speech impairment (stuttering) that he largely overcame during his adult life, he spoke well and thoughtfully. His demeanor was definitely subdued, especially in contrast with Trump’s bombastic outpouring of lies and insults. However, Biden was NOT having difficulty with thoughts, memory, or understanding. He was just taking his time and considering what he said before he said it (unlike Trump’s approach to speaking).

It would be quite helpful if Biden would release medical information concerning what happened to him. It clearly wasn’t a case of progressive dementia that slowly gets worse over time – it appeared to be caused by his trying to figure out how to effectively deal with Trumps aggressive use of made up information. There was not time in the format for him to identify or correct the torrent of mis-speak from Trump. It would have been interesting if there could have been a real time fact-check to flag Trump’s made up facts. It now easily be done after the fact so that we can more confidently identify the falsehoods from both sides at the point where they were made. However, this is all “water under the bridge” at this point, few would take the time to go back and watch it again looking for lies. I think it might be important for Biden to release information about his health and cognitive state to put the concern of his having dementia to bed. Those of us with aging parents recognize the signs of dementia, and this was not that. He is sharp, coherent and correct most of the time, but tends to think deeply before speaking – given the appearance of not “being with it,” when in fact he is deeply engaged with the issues at hand.

Now what do we do? What is the reasonable path forward? For one thing, the world’s medical experts need to evaluate President Biden to figure out what happened, and what the likely future situation might be. There are a number of doctors offering their opinions of his “condition” ranging from “not-dementia” to possible early Parkinson disease. So far I have seen no opinions that point to anything of immediate concern in the next few years. Perhaps there will be times where he can call “time out” for a while (we could all use a little of that). He has plenty of qualified aids, staff and advisors to support him, no President can do the job by themselves.

There are some real and extremely important differences between the two candidates once they get into office. These differences are not hypothetical, they are real – backed by real experience. Biden surrounds himself with the actual experts in the various fields that he has to deal with. He maintains access to the best, most up-to-date science, his political and social advisors are the most experienced and best in the world – and he pays attention to them. Trump, on the other hand, surrounds himself with people with essentially zero experience or understanding in their various areas of responsibility. They are “yes men” that agree with his every whim, and tell him what he has told them he wants to hear. When they have the audacity to disagree with him, he fires them.

On the other hand, Biden is truthful, honest, compassionate and smart. He knows and works well with leaders around the world, and within the halls of congress. Trump lies so often that it is apparent that he no longer recognizes it as a problem – his approach seems to be “why bother with learning the truth when all you have to do is make up the story that people want to hear?” He lies, insults, demeans, and attacks everyone that he sees might get in his way, and that appears to be just about everyone. There is no reason to know anything if you can change reality and the truth just by saying it is so. That might be almost acceptable if his goals were to support the Nation, Democracy and world peace. Instead, he has a very low intelligence, but thinks of himself as omniscient with the goal of making himself and his cronies wealthier and more powerful. He is a model for the story of “The Emperor has New Clothes.” We need the truth telling boy of the tale who points out the fallacy of the statements.

In the case of Biden, should he embark upon a dangerous and unwise path, his advisors have the credentials and authority to intervene. In the case of Trump no sure protections exist – he has made sure that there are no pockets of power that might inhibit his decisions and quest for power and money. Biden believes he is working for America and democracy, Trump is working for himself and his powerful cronies. He wants to concentrate as much power and wealth as he can, into the hands of as few as he can. He wants to be the emperor of the world.

Assuming I am correct and Biden is healthy enough for the job but looks bad on some occasions (such as during last week’s debate), what should the path forward be? The problem is that millions of voters watched his performance and judged him to be too compromised for the job. My initial reaction was that something (such as a stroke) had happened to him that caused his poor performance. In fact, this blog originally started with the opinion that he degenerated so quickly during the debate that it appeared to be a medical emergency situation and the debate should have been stopped so he could get needed emergency medical attention. Upon re-watching the debate I changed my mind – it appears that he was low on energy (exhausted), but what he said was coherent, to the point, and correct. If you just read the transcripts without the visual cues he was just fine and did a good job with the debate. (That is what people report that only read translations to other languages.) However, most people won’t take the time to go back and re-watch the event, or read it instead of watching it – they will maintain their initial reaction that he is incapable of doing the job based upon his appearance during that debate.
Should the Democrats take the chance that he can improve performance enough in the future to wipe out those initial impressions? Personally, I doubt that he can. Those images are seared into people’s minds. Can they depend upon enough people voting against Trump even though they don’t like the choice offered? Maybe. There are a lot of people that don’t really care what happens as long as Trump doesn’t get re-elected (I fall into that category.) Or will this cause many people to not vote (which is an effective vote for Trump in this election)? That is very likely.

It looks like the best solution is to quickly find a replacement, or at least do an extremely good job at showing how it really doesn’t matter much if Biden degrades even more over the next four years, he has sufficient high quality support to “get the job done” even if he is personally compromised. I believe that is the case, his presence or absence isn’t all that important as long as his aids, staff and advisors continue to do a good job – the position of President is normally pretty much as a “figure head” so it isn’t all that important. (However, Trump demonstrated that it doesn’t have to be a figure head position, the President can load the advisors, courts and agencies in ways that give him incredible power. That doesn’t usual happen, but it does in his case.)

It will be interesting to see how the Democrats change their approach over the next few weeks.