The Mask Fully Slips. GeroDoc's Post Debate Debrief.
People are now openly talking about Biden having dementia. My post-debate thoughts and reaction.
As some of you might know, I initially went into the debate last Thursday resolving I wouldn’t watch it, particularly after hearing about how the rules of the whole business were being set up. On CNN? Bizarre rules with mike-muting, no audience, no opening statements - two minutes each? It seemed like it would be artificial and silly. I wrote about it here:
But against my better judgement, even after resolving to myself (and to my X audience) that I wouldn’t watch the debate, I broke down. In the end, I listened to the debate on X.
I recognize that listening to the debate, as opposed to watching it, denied me the ability to scrutinize Trump’s orangeness, and Biden’s apparently rather ashen pallor, or comment on the lighting, or etc. (which, honestly, has nothing to do with anything important). In the end, I think listening to the debate was the best choice - it allowed me to hear those two in their pure, unedited, raw form.
GeroDoc’s Take on the Debate
Reportedly, prior to the debate, Biden was cloistered away with a team of advisors and debate coaches, for five days of what were initially reported as intense “debate prep”1
The first question of the night went to Biden, something about inflation. Almost immediately, after he opened his mouth, it was apparent that Biden was in significant trouble. His voiced was hoarse. It seemed like he was having trouble actually speaking with any volume, and he spoke haltingly. Although his answer to the initial question wasn’t objectively terrible, it sounded at best canned, scripted, and unspontaneous.
I actually just looked at the first few minutes of the debate, watched the raw video. It’s true - you could see it in Biden’s face. He was exhausted, spent - probably because the only thing they could do w/ even minimal success was to force-feed canned lines into him, via brute-force repetition.
It quickly went downhill from there, with Biden struggling at times to even make sense - at around the 12 minute mark, he bizarrely talks about how his administration “beat Medicare,” after he clearly and painfully appeared to lose complete track of what he was even speaking about. Watch:
This was a disastrous moment - and although Biden arguably improved marginally as the extremely painful night went on, Biden continued to display lapses - significant ones - that were impossible to gloss over. He spoke of how America had a “thousand trilionaires.”
He confused the Paris Peace Accords with the Paris Climate Accords.
His closing statement was jumbled, halting, and messy - he struggled to get words out.
One of his probably most disastrous points in the debate was when he gave a generally incoherent response about border security, to which Trump, apparently unable to help himself, reponded with the killshot “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”
Biden’s Voice Problems and his “Stutter”
Regarding his voice - throughout the debate Biden was throat clearing and speaking with a hoarse and often less-than-audible voice. Because I didn’t have the benefit of video - there were several points in the debate where I struggled to even understand what Biden was saying.
But of course, here is the response to that, which we have been hearing for at least the last couple of years:
Now, yes, it’s the “Daily Kos,” which is a pretty significantly ‘left-leaning’ media outlet - but a quick search on Google News using search terms “Biden stutter” or “Biden debate stutter” and you’ll see what I mean.
Here is probably one of the best responses to this “it’s just a stutter” canards that I’ve heard, and it’s a brief essay from the great Dr. Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF, where he deals with both the “it’s a stutter” and “it was just cold medicine” excuses that have been circulating since the debate:
Dr. Prasad says “A med student would fail for diagnosing an 81 year old man who loses his train of thought with a stutter.”
Absolutely.
My ‘Gut Feeling’ Expectations Going into the Debate
My gut-feeling expectation going into listening to the debate was that Biden was going to perform adequately, perhaps struggle at times, but deliver enough aggressiveness and good lines that he will be declared to have held his own. Part of this was because his State of the Union Speech (SOTU) in March was delivered without much of a hitch. I wrote about it here:
Now, objectively - I noted in my article, above, that if (I emphasize if) you presume Biden has some sort of progressive cognitive impairment or dementia (which, of course, no one knows for certain unless he is given a proper examination by a trained professional) - then, depending on what severity his dementia is, the SOTU speech may in fact not be the best ‘test’ of his abilities.
Namely, he was reading a presumably well-rehearsed speech, off a presumably very large-type teleprompter, in front of a familiar audience in a very, very familiar location (the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building). Remember that Biden is a 50+ year career politician, and that reading pre-rehearsed speeches off pages or teleprompters is probably as close to “automatic processing” as you can get - simply by dint of the fact these are extremely overlearned behaviors. Biden can basically read speeches off a page in his sleep.
At least, for now.
Anyways, regardless of the objective reservations I noted in the article about the soundness of the SOTU speech performance as a true test of Biden’s current functioning, I was lulled into having some expectations of Biden going into the debate that turned out to be higher than they should be. I mean, after all, I thought, Biden had a team of highly skilled debate prep coaches working with him. He would have many days to rest up and prepare, and yes, he’s an 81 year old man with some documented medical issues, but heck, probably this would be enough time to make sure he’s optimized medically so he can perform well at the debate.
And for another thing, regarding Trump:
Trump has been subjected to unending legal prosecution, dragged into courtrooms, etc. - I expected him to be relatively bedraggled going into the debate himself.
I was wrong.
In fact, I almost fell out of my chair after the first few minutes of the debate.
I can say without any hesitation that the 2024 debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump was probably the most gripping and incredible spectacles I ever have witnessed in my life.
What the Democrat Party, the Media, and the entire USA is Going Through Now is Very Familiar to Me
On Twitter / X, I responded to a post by a Dr. Harlan Krumholz, who is a Yale cardiologist with what appear otherwise to be dazzling credentials. Krumholz authored a brief article for Newsweek, where he argued, and rather desperately in my opinion, that Biden’s disastrous debate performance might have been because of “cold medication.”2
What is going on currently within Biden’s inner circle, within the “oligarchs” that run the Democrat party and the current administration, and within the media and the public writ large is, in fact, a nationally-scaled version of what I’ve seen in my almost 20 years in the field played out over and over again.
What happens when grandpa or grandma can’t work anymore? Who takes away their car keys? What happens when there are sons, daughters, extended family, work colleagues, etc. who deny their loved ones’ or friends deficits - often to the point of desperately grasping at straws?
I’ve seen this issue tear families apart. I’ve seen it result in massive financial losses, car accidents, horrific work-related and social incidents that could have been avoided were the problem honestly acknowledged much earlier. This is not new. This is something families deal with and grapple with on a fairly routine basis across America now as the population ages (and remember - the #1 risk factor for developing dementia is advanced age).
Remember that no one really knows Biden’s medical condition. It’s possible that even whoever is his official doctor doesn’t actually fully know.
The people that surround Joe Biden, his son, his wife, his cabinet, his “oligarchs,” etc. etc. - there are a web of financial, occupational, and most certainly - deeply emotional interests that militate against grappling honestly with the possibility that Joe Biden may be incapacitated.
Of course, there’s also Biden himself - he’s clearly a proud and stubborn man (and I say that with no criticism - you have to be stubborn to do his job). It’s not easy to take away grandpa’s keys. He’s been driving his entire life. It’s his identity. It’s who he is.
That’s what make this all so difficult, and what might make this drag on far longer than anyone thinks.
Again, I’m pretty certain I have seen this all before.
We learned later that Biden’s “debate prep” had a schedule that was very accomodating to his need for extensive amounts of sleep and rest; he apparently didn’t start formal prep work prior to 11am and required at least one midday nap daily.
Ironically, the White House Press Secretary later confirmed that Joe Biden was not, in fact, on any cold medication that may have interfered with his debate performance (although Karine Jeanne-Pierre refused to confirm whether he was on any other medication that may have interfered with his debate performance).
who runs the USA? Sheik Imam Barack Hussain Obama. So sad to see, the positive is the whole world is LOL on his surreal debate . And the language used, what a decadence! Worse, it is contagious all over the west.
Appreciate your informed perspective on this!