I started writing this post last weekend but various events in real life caught up that required immediate attention. Apologies for being two weeks since my last post and I intend to correct that soon.
But the 24 hours since last night, of which we all surely must be aware, have been one of those days when the world forever changes and in a way we did not quite expect, even among the punters most bullish that something would happen to Joe Biden during the debate. Instead of rewriting my entire post, the initial draft is below, with my updated thoughts afterwards.
Hans Christian Andersen is most famous for his Emperor’s New Clothes. For those who don’t know the classic story, an emperor is hoodwinked by a pair of charlatan weavers pretending they can weave an extremely fine cloth. “The clothes made from this wonderful cloth would be invisible to everyone who was unfit for the job he held, or who was very simple in character.” The emperor receives his new “clothes” and goes on parade, and no one, whether court sycophants or the populace, dares tell the emperor they cannot see anything but his naked torso because they do not want to admit they were unfit, a sentiment shared by the emperor himself. Until a young child should ruin the charade by crying “But the Emperor has nothing on!”
The story has passed into the annals of literary history as a wonderful metaphor for the vanities of adulthood. But I am not sure if we have ever witnessed such a real life version in America as we are now.
Consider the following clips:
My father has atypical Parkinsons and the clips of Joe Biden shows someone exhibiting behavioral patterns strongly similar to the symptoms of the onset of Parkinsons. His gait, movement, stumbling, tendency to wander, the slurry speaking, the reliance on sunglasses when no one else is wearing them are all typical symptoms of atypical Parkinsons or even dementia.
And it’s not only these clips. Over the past few years have been additional brief videos showing Biden walking awkwardly, losing focus in the middle of interviews, unexpectedly lashing out aggressively at a reporter’s question, and especially exhibiting the blank facial expressions of someone who isn’t entirely there, which are all classic symptoms of the beginning of some kind of cognitive decline, whether a Parkinsons or dementia, of which there are many variants.
One doesn’t need to get ahold of an unredacted version of the Hur report, infamously withheld by DOJ despite contempt of congress, to know that something is not right with Joe Biden.
In fact, something is very wrong with Joe Biden.
But, as in the case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, we are not allowed to talk about it.
Or rather, official media is not allowed to talk about it. There are no intensive investigations into Joe Biden’s movements, no interviews of neurological specialists in their book-lined studies, no generally frank discussions of what anyone with family members who have declined in their final years can readily see.
Their official truth is what the White House tersely tells everyone: that Joe Biden is just fine and dandy and these clips are all deep fakes, cheap fakes, what you have it, promoted only by a spiteful right wing. Mind you, the same White House also grants the fewest interviews of any modern president and Biden’s campaigning so far has avoided all the usual politicking and engaging with the crowds, there is absolutely no question whatsoever of letting Biden loose into a crowd of students on campuses breathlessly eager to engage in debates and to ask him questions on their favorite policies.
And no one dares compare Biden to other senior politicians of similar age from HRC herself to Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer, who are all still sharp and active. They can’t, because to do so would be to acknowledge something wrong is going on with Joe Biden’s mental health.
What I find both fascinating and sad is this pretension that there's nothing wrong here folks, and to just move along, move along, nothing to see attitude. This isn’t the media of the 1990s, a thoroughly Democratic estate but who wouldn’t refrain from extensively investigating every wart of the Clinton Administration. It’s a media that isn’t, when you get down to it, journalism but guardians of a sacred truth and we peons aren’t good enough to be entrenched with it, in our own good. It's a perfect example of the collapse in institutional trust, and the irony is that the Democrats claim not to understand why.
Oh dear.
“But the Emperor has no clothes on!” cried the boy.
Just this time last week we had Karine Jean-Pierre telling everyone the clips of Biden were deepfakes or cheapfakes and the mainstream media following her lead and scolding everyone for believing them and that Biden was as sharp as a tack. And then even trying to gaslight by claiming it was Trump who was showing signs of dementia.
But now we are in the strange specter of a genuinely post truth world.
The media was the biggest loser last night and the schizophrenic antics of all the mainstream organizations since then has been both amusing and self destructive. The skeptics were always skeptics but now even everyday Democrats even have to face the reality they were consistently lied to by people they are eager to trust.
The most damaging image wasn’t anything Biden did, said, or failed to say. Nor was it Trump’s “I really don't know what Biden is saying. And I don’t think he does either,” which is destined for immortality via the history books.
It was the silhouette of Jill Biden guiding her husband away from the stage after brightly telling him he’d answered all his questions in the infantile tones of a mother to her kindergartener, or a grandchild to his grandmother with dementia.
Joe Biden is not well. God help him. But American journalism, at least the self-declared professional element, is even sicker. Irregardless of your views on Donald Trump or Joe Biden’s policies, that Joe Biden got to this point is a mess, a massive mess made by the Democratic Party. But it happened because American journalism refused to be honest and to do their job as the fourth estate, without which no genuine democracy can survive. God help us all.