How many senior moments have we seen the president of the United States struggle through? There was the time Joe Biden tried to shake hands with no one in particular. We saw him keel over on what was at the time a stationary bicycle. Americans watch Joe Biden deliver prepared remarks as they would watch a tightrope walker—through the gaps in between their fingers and with gritted teeth. And no presidential speechwriter ever compelled the president to describe anything as “cumalidefasredsulc.”
Such is the cult of the presidency that the first reaction to these and many, many similar episodes is often to dismiss their significance. If that fails to shame those who notice Biden’s apparent cognitive impairments into silence, the observant are subjected to calumny. “The smear that he’s lost it — that he’s cognitively impaired” is a “frequent explicit refrain within Republican-aligned media,” wrote Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein. “Including Trump.” Implicit in this brushback pitch is that those in elite circles who make note of the obvious jeopardize their status and, it logically follows, their livelihoods.
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