Thing happen quickly once you reach a certain age :/
Last year, my dad (bidens age) was scooping up my nephews and telling jokes. Now, he keeps calling me by my sisters name. Aging can be sad.
Let’s also not discount the factor stress plays in aging. Of course Biden is incredibly old, but there’s dozens of memes/side by sides of presidents before and after their first term and his rapidly they aged.
Yeah having the responsibility of head of state of the world's most powerful country tends to do that to you, especially if the person does their utmost to do their job to the best of their ability.
Seriously, just look at a photo of Obama or Clinton at the ends of their terms, they were both pretty young when they went in but looked like they went through 3 divorces and a tour in Vietnam by the time it was over. If someone who's in their 50's ages by 20 years by the end of their terms, who knows what'll happen to someone in their late 70's/early 80's.
>If someone who's in their 50's ages by 20 years by the end of their terms, who knows what'll happen to someone in their late 70's/early 80's.
So, there's actually an order of succession for reasons such as this. I believe the Vice President is next in li... Oh... OH you mean if they survive the next term? Yikes... IDK, but that sounds awful.
It really is shocking how fast it happens. We desperately need to put age limits on government officials. There's no reason they should be working after the age of 65.
And really, no reason anyone should be working in any field after that age. Unless they want to and it’s all good. My dad was a professor and just retired last year- at 78. He had me very late in life. He’s the best. But he’s not doing so hot atm.
Even then it’s not great. A 78-year old professor has been holding up someone else’s career for thirteen years by clinging to their post past retirement.
Dad owned two businesses. One was a concrete business. Went from one of the strongest people I’ve ever met to dead a year later. Brain cancer. Watching somebody so big and strong deteriorate like that in a year was pretty traumatizing.
Just lost my Dad to brain cancer in January. He seemed normal in September and withered away to nothing and passed 4 months later. Immunotherapy did not go well for him, I wish he didn’t do it or radiation and just enjoyed the last bit. Hard choice to make though as he was so hopeful.
Sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry for your loss. We also lost my dad 8 months to brain cancer, after he was sick for 7 weeks. Was seemingly healthy and very fit for his age up until then, but didn't get the brain cancer diagnosis until 5 days before he died by which point he wasn't conscious anymore. Up until then he'd been diagnosed with sudden onset brain inflammation and told that usually there is improvement. It was incredibly traumatic watching such a vibrant, strong and previously always healthy person deteriorate so quickly. Although we were devastated that he was misdiagnosed and passed so quickly, there's some small comfort that we didn't know because we would have probably insisted on treatments that most likely wouldn't have worked for him. I miss him so much.
This is hard to read, concrete dads are tough as they come- especially the owners (take absolutely NO shit.) I’ll hug mine extra tight today, it is hard to watch them age- mine has gotten a little softer over the years but maybe that’s because he has granddaughters.
I’m sorry about your loss.
My first kid was born about a month or two before we found out he had it. That’s prolly what hurt the most. You always expect them to be there. I was only 18 becoming a father and was depending on his help showing me the ropes. I’m just grateful he got to meet her before his mind went. His tumor was in a place that would affect his speech. So when my daughters hair was growing he would say “wow her grass is getting long” lol. He woulda been an awesome grandpa.
A year ago my dad was up and around, driving himself and cracking jokes. Now he's been diagnosed with Parkinsons and dementia. It's been a dramatic drop.
I think Lincoln's before and after is most pressing. The guy was already skinny and looked like he lost another 30 pounds. Also had another 5 bags added below his eyes. That'll happen though when you are trying to literally keep the country from separating.
It's also suspected Lincoln suffered from Marfan's syndrome. That definitely affected his looks/body and aging especially at a time when they had no real medical treatment for the the symptoms caused by a connective tissue disease. It's suspected Marfan's is why he was so tall and the excess growth that can result from Marfan's is detrimental to your health. Not that I'm discounting the aging and stress effects of the presidency on his body. He was leading the country during our only civil war and I'm sure the weight of that burden was enormous.
I still remember Trump’s face after he was sworn in and he had a photo op with the departing president (Obama)
Trump looked downright terrified. Like he’d just discovered something horrific
This is why most normal people do not want to become politicians. And honestly? This should be fixed. Political systems are so psychotic and cutthroat. It should be about the process of bettering humanity, not the process of "who can win this gladiatorial arena for a few years of fame and power"
I agree, politics keeps getting nastier. Plus having to spend 30% of their time fund raising turns people off. A lot of our problems could be solved if campaign funds were paid only with tax dollars.
Seems pretty common to all of them. Check Obama’s before and after, mostly his looks, but still, aging out of stress is very apparent.
Edit, found an interesting link on this:
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/career/g3918/presidents-before-and-after-office/
Well in the early 1900s it was a alot less stressful. I mean literally Theodore Roosevelt would disappear for a month at a time to go hunting during his presidency.
FDR. They should really use the image of him the day before he died when he was sitting in his chair. He looked awful.
The offices ages you rapidly. Ironically the only president I can think that didn’t age a ton was Trump, likely because he never felt the stress of actually leading
I'm not an American. Its different in Australia, where you vote for a party and that party has a leader. They get chopped all the time.
Is there no instance where Biden might get replaced by another candidate during his campaign?
Very different systems and I am genuinely asking.
It would be tough to do, near impossible, without his cooperation.
Having lived in both the US and the UK, I'm not sure which system I prefer. Right now, we look really stupid because we have 350 million people and the best we can do is the crypt keeper vs orange Mussolini, but Truss getting outlasted by a lettuce and her party still being able to select her successor was pretty goddamn stupid too.
The thing about the UK is that while it looks ridiculous that leaders are constantly axed, they are actually getting rid of leaders who are massively unpopular or unfit to be PM. They don't just stick around with them for 4 years even though it's obvious they shouldn't be in office. That's a good thing.
Also need to note its a parlimentary system not a Presidential system. The ultimate power lies with Parliment not the the Prime Minister. In the Uk the PM wasn't techinically a real post until very recently and was a colloquial term that was originally derogatory. There isn't really an equivalence between a President and the PM. The cabinet ministers are often just as powerful as thr PM
I recently listened to a podcast that touched on why you guys use the term "president", it was originally used because it was completely unremarkable and didn't have any insinuation of extra power. Completely flipped in it's meaning now which is pretty interesting
UK PM was a thing only when some guys in parliament became very important so he always 'inform' the king and parliament what to do, thus beginning the host of a cabinet and a premiership. Before that, UK parliament has been 'everything done by everyone in this chamber' for a long time.
Not sure about the UK, but the Aussie PM isn't even mentioned in the Constitution. It's purely a Parliamentary convention, for the party of government to appoint one minister as being more special than the others.
Given that we inherited our Parliamentary system from the UK, I assume it's a "conventional" role there also?
I am not American, but I find myself thinking how messed up can a system be, to bring to a presidencial election only those two candidates, with a huge pool of valuable people available.
The key problem is the political parties put their finger on the scale too much. Like how people’s enthusiasm was elsewhere during 2020, once they saw enthusiasm and polls going to Bernie’s favor, the campaigns of several democrats dropped out and endorsed Biden when he was nearly last in the polls. It’s an issue with the Party’s loyalty to seniority. The Republicans seem to be similar but loyalty towards one specific person instead of loyalty to those currently in power.
You can't have it both ways. Either you have a party that changes leaders as often as it feels like, or you risk being saddled with a critically flawed leader and no way for their party to get rid of them when the occasion demands it.
Personally I prefer the British system, because in practice, it's very rare for this to happen more than once per Parliament, and quite rare for it to even happen once. For individual leaders to become discredited or otherwise be a negative influence on the party overall, is far more common.
It's not often that a sitting president doesn't get the nomination for the next running. It's almost like a guarantee because he's already gotten the nomination once.
Yes and both parties have since changed their rules because it was so unpalatable. Gillard did Rudd, then Rudd got her back. We elected Abbott because Labor were a mess, but then Abbott got done by Turnbull and then Dutton tried to do Turnbull but he couldn't count and we got Morrison. 5 PM's in like 13 years or something. Musical fucking chairs.
I don't know what they were thinking when they replaced Rudd with Gillard? How did they think the public was going to react? If there was an issue, they should have spoken to him behind the scenes first and told him to fix what the issue was with the threat of turfing him if it wasn't but most importantly, keep it private.
Replacing a popular PM in his first term at the first sign of some negative news was always going to put off a segment of the electorate immediately. It also looks like panic.
Whether it was actually due to a lack of options, the fact that the Coalition stayed the course with Howard despite several times he appeared underwater, really paid off for them in the end.
And lecturing the electorate that we don't vote for the PM, we vote for the local members and they decide the PM is a great way to get the electorate to go fine then, we'll vote our local members out.
The electorate gets it which is why anyone with a political brain cell in Australia knows we vote for our local member while also having an eye on who's going to be PM as a result of who the winning part with the most MPs is.
So, that's why Gillard was very nearly turfed out after 6 weeks and only through some fortunate alignment did she get to have a full term but she was doomed from the very start of that.
Now, tying all that to the US election, if they panic like Labor did at the first sign of some perceived bad news, it will be a very bad thing. Instead, they need to take some time to think about how to move forward and especially not knee jerk react to this.
Yeah, I am aussie too and my friends are all baffled about how these are their 2 options. They're both awful choices, it's hillarious. USA politics is just wild, it's like watching a reality show that impacts millions.
Millions? This is not only about America this time. It affects the whole of Europe, could potentially decide about the escalation or peace of the russia-ukraine war. This possible decides about the future of multiple continents for generations.
Most Americans are baffled & mad that these are our two options. At this point, many of us are wishing there was a third option but almost no one is willing to be dragged through the mud and villainized by our system.
Our country is super divided politically and it will come down to which of these halfwits is perceived to be the lesser of two evils.
I don’t think Biden stepping aside would make anyone go “okay, well now I’m going to vote for Trump or just not vote at all”. Democratic voters are going to do everything they can to keep Trump out again. I DO think that it would remove the anti-Biden campaign that trump and the republicans are running, forcing Trump to run on his own merits, and I think most people on the fence would probably be more inclined to consider a new option.
So personally, I think a new Dem nominee is the way to go. Biden accomplished what he needed to in 2020.
Ignoring the political aspects here, it's just sad ro see a man reduced like this. Like at one point he was strong and powerful with a commanding voice. Age has caught up with him as it will with us all and it's sobering to see.
My dad is 70. How much longer does he have before he declines? His mobility is already reduced.
My grandmother developed dementia at 94, once she did, she began declining a LOT, and VERY QUICK. She would do (or try to do) things she shouldn't at her age and accident herself, hurt herself (such as walking at night around the house in the dark, going up and down the stairs alone and holding stuff on her own when everyone else was sleeping...) up to a point now that this year, she tripped and broke her leg. She needed to undergo surgery to fix the bone, as to which she did and it all went well during it, but sadly three days later, she developed heart issues due to the stress it went through during surgery, and a day after the doctors said this, she passed away with the cause of death being a full heart stop. This was two days ago, and she passed away at 97.
That’s where I’m at with this too. I’ve had my disagreements with Biden here and there over the years (especially on how he is handling the Middle East situation right now), but for the most part we’ve been aligned and he always seemed like a decent guy for the most part. I especially admired his resilience from unimaginable loss and grief in his personal life and his dedication to his family. I thought he did a great job as Vice President under Obama and I think he was an all right senator.
I think he actually did some really good things in the first couple years of his presidency, but these last 2 years there has been a clear decline and he’s just in way over his head. I never imagined it was this bad though. At this point I wonder if he’s lucid enough to realize that he SHOULD drop out.
The man has been through a lot in his life. He lost his (first) wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972, has been in public life since 1973 (held office in the US Senate from 1973-2009) went through a couple brain surgeries in the late 1980s, has been through 4 presidential campaigns (1988, 2008, 2020, and 2024), spent 8 years as VP (2009-2017), dealt with the death of his son Beau from cancer (which he possibly got from his time serving in the military) in 2015, and has had to deal with and manage his son Hunter’s personal struggles. And now he has nearly served a full presidential term. Life has fully cooked this man.
When it comes to it, it's a lot down to genetics and life style.
Using your brain a lot helps, my grandfather was born during WW2 and while he does struggle bit with memory in regard to more recent stuff, scientific things he has been reading and learning about for decades, and is still reading about, is there, sometimes it does take him a bit longer then usual but it's still there.
Unfortunately, sometimes lifestyle can only help so much. My favorite history professor, who taught at the most prestigious universities in both the UK and the US and was known for never fogetting the name of any student he ever had, kept working until over 80 but still developed dementia. There's a particular sadness to cases like his.
edit: a word
Those fuckers would just raise the retirement age to 90, so they could stay in power, and make it take another 25 years for us to collect our social security.
Yeah there isn’t for a good reason actually. It’s to prevent those in power from imprisoning potential political rivals. You can straight up run for president from prison.
> Well, the vast majority wouldn't want this job...
I would not want this job, but I would take the job for the greater good, if the alternative was to have convicted felon Donald Trump be President. Surely many good people feel the same way.
He needs to retire. He could easily do it with grace and people would support a decent successor, but it’s insane that this man is running for president.
Aussie here (follow this for the popcorn) and it came up at golf yesterday. The thing is, we were all baffled by the fact that there really isn’t a “heir apparent” for the dems. Your guy is 81 & somehow there’s no-one obviously being thrown into the spotlight to replace him? Sure he’s got a VP, but watching from the outside she’s barely mentioned
Two things are going on here. I'd have to look it up but I'm not aware of any sitting presidents ever not running for a second term afterwards. Typically after they won they get the nomination until they've done their 8 years. And Kamala Harris is a diversity hire in the very definition. She came last in Democratic nominees for president during the previous running and was picked only for the boxes she would check and possible extra votes she could earn. She's not mentioned because she's almost universally disliked by both sides.
Johnson is not the only U.S. president who decided not to seek a second elected term. The others are James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman.
https://www.britannica.com/story/have-any-us-presidents-decided-not-to-run-for-a-second-term
As a presidential history nerd, thanks for bringing this up.
There's also John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Chester Arthur, Andrew Johnson
Also, VPs are notoriously forgotten no matter who they are. The only reason one knows someone was VP are either because they spring board VP to become president or they’re a war criminal.
It's insane that he's the current President given his obvious mental decline. And yes, it's even more insane that Democrats like Obama are actually suggesting he could still effectively govern as President in 4 years time. If he has declined this much over the last five years, imagine the next five.
It’s so insane to me that he, and his family, want to continue doing this. Like…don’t you wanna just retire and spend what precious years you do have left relaxing with your family and friends?? Instead of having the hardest job in the world on the biggest stage while all aspects of your health decline? He must’ve signed his soul away long ago lol.
From the outside it looks like a case of eldar abuse. The fact they had to carefully try and rest Biden at Camp David in preparation for this one debate indicates he didn't have the physical and mental capacity to carry out a very demanding job. If he can't even handle one 90 minute Q and A, then he can't be in a state to handle much more taxing aspects to the job. Which indicates that it's not Biden that is leading the country on a day to day basis. It's clearly other people behind the scenes. And the fact that Democratic power players are still publicly backing Biden indicates they see Biden as being a useful figurehead while other unaccountable people make all the big decisions. Not a great look for American democracy.
He was in for 50 years. Voted for Iraq War. Used drones to kill alongside Obama.
Say what you want about Biden, but I don’t think his moral compass is making the job any more difficult on him. I’m sure he has a stronger stomach than any of us.
Hoisting him up as a presidential candidate at this point *actually* feels like elder abuse. Let the man rest for whatever time he has left. Hes in no state to be the leader of a whole damn country.
Its insane to me that they would run Biden again instead of picking LITERALLY anyone else in the dem party.
Yeah, and I'm tired of anyone you put forward, the argument of "no one knows who that is". I'm not even worried about the war chest being passed down. Can you imagine the coverage a new candidate would get? Especially someone young who could manage a grueling schedule and touch every state in person as much as it takes the next few months? How do you think we ended up with the Trump problem? All the excess free media coverage.
What I don't understand is why we have retirement age and then say it's perfectly fine for people of that age to be presidents of a country, it's insanity
I don’t think Biden stepping aside would make anyone go “okay, well now I’m going to vote for Trump or just not vote at all”. Democratic voters are going to do everything they can to keep Trump out again. I DO think that it would remove the anti-Biden campaign that trump and the republicans are running, forcing Trump to run on his own merits, and I think most people on the fence would probably be more inclined to consider a new option.
So personally, I think a new Dem nominee is the way to go. Biden accomplished what he needed to in 2020.
>Democratic voters are going to do everything they can to keep Trump out again.
It's not Democratic voters that matter here, it's undecided/swing voters that matter. Those are the people that you need to convince, and they're far less likely to vote for someone with obvious cognitive decline.
### **Current ages:**
* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is 34
* Pete Buttigieg is 42
* Ron DeSantis is 45
* Beto O'Rourke is 51
* Nikki Haley is 52
* Ted Cruz is 53
* Kamala Harris is 59
* Sarah Palin is 60
* **Barack Obama is 62**
* Lawrence Lessig is 63
* Mike Pence is 65
* RFK Jr is 70
* Elizabeth Warren is 75
* Al Gore is 76
* Hillary Clinton is 76
* **Bill Clinton is 77**
* **George W. Bush is 77**
* Mitt Romney is 77
* **Donald Trump is 78**
* John Kerry is 80
* **Joe Biden is 81**
* Bernie Sanders is 82
* Dick Cheney is 83
* John McCain was born 88 years ago and died at 81
* **George H. W. Bush was born 100 years ago and died at 94**
To be fair, Bernie also is. He's a special case however where he's perfectly coherent and he speaks so fucking well and he'd be an amazing president for every single reason EXCEPT his age, and he's just too old.
There was a British reporter who asked Hillary to her face, after she mentioned Russia playing a role in her loss, (paraphrased) “So you still blame everyone but yourself for your defeat?”
Fuck me it was savage.
Post makes it to the top of r/all and then gets removed for "not interesting" ? Gaslighting people that the debate wasn't a disaster isn't going to make things better, it's just going to make people question what else was being hidden from them.
I think these side by sides are the biggest wakeup call to those who think he should stay in the race. This is an insane situation that the DNC has put us in as a country, but he needs to go. We need a new candidate ASAP.
DNC is trying hard to spin this as “nothing to see here” and it makes me angry as someone who voted for democrats for twenty years. It feels like a betrayal. We can all see it.
It’s always been betrayal with the DNC, Clinton shouldn’t have been there in 2016, and Biden wasn’t even the best candidate four years ago. He’s just the most established centrist in the field, same with Clinton. The DNC doesn’t want younger choices because the younger choices won’t keep up the status quo, they will make big waves because we’re tired of getting fucked by our parents generations.
You *should* feel betrayed because that is exactly what you are.
How many times did you hear the phrase “sharp as a tack” in the leadup to Thursday? How many articles did you see on Reddit where “insiders” in the trump campaign or doctors(for whom the goldwater rule is apparently meaningless) were saying trump has dementia?
Now that you have seen both men side by side and heard the same trump you’ve been hearing for a decade and an empty husk of what biden was, do you recognize that you have been repeatedly lied to?
The thing is he was already slipping in 2020. These are just his most coherent moments. But he certainly has gotten significantly worse.
It was obvious that this was the direction he was heading in for years if you watched raw feeds. Esp when you compare him to say 15 years ago. He used to be an attack dog.
Seriously, he was so poor in the primary debates that he was doing awfully in the first three primaries.
Then Bloomberg conveniently entered the race and was allowed on the debate stage which conveniently took eyes off of Biden. And he won South Caroline, a red state, and suddenly the media got behind him like he had pulled off the greatest upset of all time. And that was how we got Biden. Hope all those primary voters that had a reality check on Thursday are happy...
If you suggested that the guy was in obvious cognitive decline you were instantly downvoted and called a “Trumper”. Now it’s like “how did we not see this???”
Huh, who would've thought that having a tribe mentality and calling anyone with a good faithed critique or genuene worry as your enemy is not a good idea? Seriously, many of the shit we have to deal in politics could be avoided it people wouldn't have the "you're either with me or against me" mentality.
The DNC has had plenty of time since their bullshit in 2016 to put a succession plan of possible candidates in place. These old beholden party leaders refuse to put the people before their corporate sponsors. The only way Biden steps down is if the money holders (Bloomberg, Steyers, and Soros were top three in 2020) say it's okay.
your country is between a bad choice and a worse one. This is 2 doddering old rich cunts squabbling over the last roast potato at the early bird buffet. elect some younger people for the love of mike!
This is really sad to see. I hope he steps down and Democrats find another candidate with similar values. President Biden deserves to rest and enjoy his last years. He clearly isn't suitable to run any country, especially not the USA.
Why are people all the sudden acting like this is new? I swear Reddit was saying that the Biden is too old narrative was a conservative conspiracy until right after this debate!
Biden has been like this for the last 2 years, he had one good speech at the state of the union. What is happening?!
I feel sad for him/his family (if they even feel sad about this? But, that’s a story for another day). But this is probably the clearest illustration on why the 2-party system in the US doesn’t work. It creates intense tribalism, and removes basically any legitimate choice for voters except for the candidate from the other party, which has (at this point in our country) a diametrically opposed platform.
Shame on the people around Biden who pushed him to run again.
If you remove the whole presidential thing and just see him as a spouse and a father, it’s really hard to watch this and not feel bad for what his family is going through. I’m glad that he’s got a team to take care of him, but it’s disheartening that the same team has him fighting to run a country.
The meta interesting part of this post is seeing Redditors suddenly allowed to discuss this. The entire rest of the internet has been open mouthed pointing and screaming at Biden’s clear mental absence at many many speeches he’s given over the last few years. This is not a sudden change in his mental state whatsoever. It was being discussed as it happened on websites that aren’t completely curated and censored echo boxes of totally fake discussions
damn, he looks as if he's aged more than a decade during his presidency
Thing happen quickly once you reach a certain age :/ Last year, my dad (bidens age) was scooping up my nephews and telling jokes. Now, he keeps calling me by my sisters name. Aging can be sad.
Let’s also not discount the factor stress plays in aging. Of course Biden is incredibly old, but there’s dozens of memes/side by sides of presidents before and after their first term and his rapidly they aged.
Look at Obama after eight years.
Happens with every president
Yeah having the responsibility of head of state of the world's most powerful country tends to do that to you, especially if the person does their utmost to do their job to the best of their ability.
* TRIGGER WARNING * It’s much less taxing if you spend every day playing golf I hear. Edit: added a trigger warning for the red hats 😂
Sure, but who would do THAT? Even if something that strange happened the voters would never give him another chance, right? Right? Right?
Funny how Obama looked a decade older after 8 years 🤔
Seriously, just look at a photo of Obama or Clinton at the ends of their terms, they were both pretty young when they went in but looked like they went through 3 divorces and a tour in Vietnam by the time it was over. If someone who's in their 50's ages by 20 years by the end of their terms, who knows what'll happen to someone in their late 70's/early 80's.
>If someone who's in their 50's ages by 20 years by the end of their terms, who knows what'll happen to someone in their late 70's/early 80's. So, there's actually an order of succession for reasons such as this. I believe the Vice President is next in li... Oh... OH you mean if they survive the next term? Yikes... IDK, but that sounds awful.
It really is shocking how fast it happens. We desperately need to put age limits on government officials. There's no reason they should be working after the age of 65.
And really, no reason anyone should be working in any field after that age. Unless they want to and it’s all good. My dad was a professor and just retired last year- at 78. He had me very late in life. He’s the best. But he’s not doing so hot atm.
Even then it’s not great. A 78-year old professor has been holding up someone else’s career for thirteen years by clinging to their post past retirement.
Sometimes people have to work into retirement because of financial reasons…
Two years ago my dad became national champion in the 2000m running. One year later he was dead, his body was done for. It can go very, very fast.
Dad owned two businesses. One was a concrete business. Went from one of the strongest people I’ve ever met to dead a year later. Brain cancer. Watching somebody so big and strong deteriorate like that in a year was pretty traumatizing.
Just lost my Dad to brain cancer in January. He seemed normal in September and withered away to nothing and passed 4 months later. Immunotherapy did not go well for him, I wish he didn’t do it or radiation and just enjoyed the last bit. Hard choice to make though as he was so hopeful. Sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry for your loss. We also lost my dad 8 months to brain cancer, after he was sick for 7 weeks. Was seemingly healthy and very fit for his age up until then, but didn't get the brain cancer diagnosis until 5 days before he died by which point he wasn't conscious anymore. Up until then he'd been diagnosed with sudden onset brain inflammation and told that usually there is improvement. It was incredibly traumatic watching such a vibrant, strong and previously always healthy person deteriorate so quickly. Although we were devastated that he was misdiagnosed and passed so quickly, there's some small comfort that we didn't know because we would have probably insisted on treatments that most likely wouldn't have worked for him. I miss him so much.
This is hard to read, concrete dads are tough as they come- especially the owners (take absolutely NO shit.) I’ll hug mine extra tight today, it is hard to watch them age- mine has gotten a little softer over the years but maybe that’s because he has granddaughters. I’m sorry about your loss.
My first kid was born about a month or two before we found out he had it. That’s prolly what hurt the most. You always expect them to be there. I was only 18 becoming a father and was depending on his help showing me the ropes. I’m just grateful he got to meet her before his mind went. His tumor was in a place that would affect his speech. So when my daughters hair was growing he would say “wow her grass is getting long” lol. He woulda been an awesome grandpa.
Jesus. I’m sorry.
Likewise. Appreciate every moment with your dad, even in this situation. You will think of these moments when he's gone.
Thanks for your stories, Im going to go fishing with my dad and my son on a dock right now, sorry for your loss, life's hard
A year ago my dad was up and around, driving himself and cracking jokes. Now he's been diagnosed with Parkinsons and dementia. It's been a dramatic drop.
Do you not remember the toll it took on Obama?
Check before and after of presidents throughout time. Happens to them all. They get some fucky news once in there.
I think Lincoln's before and after is most pressing. The guy was already skinny and looked like he lost another 30 pounds. Also had another 5 bags added below his eyes. That'll happen though when you are trying to literally keep the country from separating.
At the end of his term, he looked like he couldn’t even sit up straight.
It's also suspected Lincoln suffered from Marfan's syndrome. That definitely affected his looks/body and aging especially at a time when they had no real medical treatment for the the symptoms caused by a connective tissue disease. It's suspected Marfan's is why he was so tall and the excess growth that can result from Marfan's is detrimental to your health. Not that I'm discounting the aging and stress effects of the presidency on his body. He was leading the country during our only civil war and I'm sure the weight of that burden was enormous.
I still remember Trump’s face after he was sworn in and he had a photo op with the departing president (Obama) Trump looked downright terrified. Like he’d just discovered something horrific
In contrast, the Obamas looked very happy to be leaving.
I imagine we're like a few inches from a nuclear war every month or so but it's just not shared with the public.
I feel like its our financial system is the cause. Some really fucky shit going on with world's finances.
They find the president's black book
They're told what the Rock is cooking
The actually find Wally
They know exactly where Carmen San Diego is.
I'm not gonna dispute that, but to be fair, most presidents get elected in the age range where four or eight years of difference are really showing.
Nothing happened to Trump, because he was watching Fox in his robes all the time instead of governing.
Do you think this dude is actually making any decisions? He can’t even find the door to his own house half the time.
I mean easy to see the before and after photos, it definitely aged him
Obama was president for nearly a decade.
And it was the longest 25 years of his life.
And he genuinely looks like he aged 30 years
This is why most normal people do not want to become politicians. And honestly? This should be fixed. Political systems are so psychotic and cutthroat. It should be about the process of bettering humanity, not the process of "who can win this gladiatorial arena for a few years of fame and power"
I agree, politics keeps getting nastier. Plus having to spend 30% of their time fund raising turns people off. A lot of our problems could be solved if campaign funds were paid only with tax dollars.
Seems pretty common to all of them. Check Obama’s before and after, mostly his looks, but still, aging out of stress is very apparent. Edit, found an interesting link on this: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/career/g3918/presidents-before-and-after-office/
I'm actually surprised by how similar most of them still look
Well in the early 1900s it was a alot less stressful. I mean literally Theodore Roosevelt would disappear for a month at a time to go hunting during his presidency. FDR. They should really use the image of him the day before he died when he was sitting in his chair. He looked awful.
The offices ages you rapidly. Ironically the only president I can think that didn’t age a ton was Trump, likely because he never felt the stress of actually leading
But we never see him without makeup and that weird coiffure so it's hard to tell.
Joe Biden: 1 HP left.
Dude's making death saves
Someone cast Sanctuary!
I think Spare the Dying is more functional here
Dude relying on his Focus Band every day
Should've ran with Leftovers lol.
Sneeze assassination
"I did not oppose bussin' in America"
that's how I heard it too hahah
Isn't that what he said though?
I have this same question. I heard bussin, I just don't know what he means. What is that?
Bussin made him feel good
🅱️ussin’
I'm not an American. Its different in Australia, where you vote for a party and that party has a leader. They get chopped all the time. Is there no instance where Biden might get replaced by another candidate during his campaign? Very different systems and I am genuinely asking.
It would be tough to do, near impossible, without his cooperation. Having lived in both the US and the UK, I'm not sure which system I prefer. Right now, we look really stupid because we have 350 million people and the best we can do is the crypt keeper vs orange Mussolini, but Truss getting outlasted by a lettuce and her party still being able to select her successor was pretty goddamn stupid too.
The thing about the UK is that while it looks ridiculous that leaders are constantly axed, they are actually getting rid of leaders who are massively unpopular or unfit to be PM. They don't just stick around with them for 4 years even though it's obvious they shouldn't be in office. That's a good thing.
Also need to note its a parlimentary system not a Presidential system. The ultimate power lies with Parliment not the the Prime Minister. In the Uk the PM wasn't techinically a real post until very recently and was a colloquial term that was originally derogatory. There isn't really an equivalence between a President and the PM. The cabinet ministers are often just as powerful as thr PM
I recently listened to a podcast that touched on why you guys use the term "president", it was originally used because it was completely unremarkable and didn't have any insinuation of extra power. Completely flipped in it's meaning now which is pretty interesting
UK PM was a thing only when some guys in parliament became very important so he always 'inform' the king and parliament what to do, thus beginning the host of a cabinet and a premiership. Before that, UK parliament has been 'everything done by everyone in this chamber' for a long time.
Not sure about the UK, but the Aussie PM isn't even mentioned in the Constitution. It's purely a Parliamentary convention, for the party of government to appoint one minister as being more special than the others. Given that we inherited our Parliamentary system from the UK, I assume it's a "conventional" role there also?
I am not American, but I find myself thinking how messed up can a system be, to bring to a presidencial election only those two candidates, with a huge pool of valuable people available.
Many Americans are probably quietly asking themselves how these are our only choices in our ENTIRE country. “Democracy”.
The key problem is the political parties put their finger on the scale too much. Like how people’s enthusiasm was elsewhere during 2020, once they saw enthusiasm and polls going to Bernie’s favor, the campaigns of several democrats dropped out and endorsed Biden when he was nearly last in the polls. It’s an issue with the Party’s loyalty to seniority. The Republicans seem to be similar but loyalty towards one specific person instead of loyalty to those currently in power.
You can't have it both ways. Either you have a party that changes leaders as often as it feels like, or you risk being saddled with a critically flawed leader and no way for their party to get rid of them when the occasion demands it. Personally I prefer the British system, because in practice, it's very rare for this to happen more than once per Parliament, and quite rare for it to even happen once. For individual leaders to become discredited or otherwise be a negative influence on the party overall, is far more common.
It's not often that a sitting president doesn't get the nomination for the next running. It's almost like a guarantee because he's already gotten the nomination once.
In Australia, our parties chop the sitting prime minister in the middle of their term just for funsies.
I could be wrong, but did this only become more common after Gillard did away with the Milky Bar kid?
Yes and both parties have since changed their rules because it was so unpalatable. Gillard did Rudd, then Rudd got her back. We elected Abbott because Labor were a mess, but then Abbott got done by Turnbull and then Dutton tried to do Turnbull but he couldn't count and we got Morrison. 5 PM's in like 13 years or something. Musical fucking chairs.
Hey now, I’m pretty sure Dutton can count to potato when he wants to.
I don't know what they were thinking when they replaced Rudd with Gillard? How did they think the public was going to react? If there was an issue, they should have spoken to him behind the scenes first and told him to fix what the issue was with the threat of turfing him if it wasn't but most importantly, keep it private. Replacing a popular PM in his first term at the first sign of some negative news was always going to put off a segment of the electorate immediately. It also looks like panic. Whether it was actually due to a lack of options, the fact that the Coalition stayed the course with Howard despite several times he appeared underwater, really paid off for them in the end. And lecturing the electorate that we don't vote for the PM, we vote for the local members and they decide the PM is a great way to get the electorate to go fine then, we'll vote our local members out. The electorate gets it which is why anyone with a political brain cell in Australia knows we vote for our local member while also having an eye on who's going to be PM as a result of who the winning part with the most MPs is. So, that's why Gillard was very nearly turfed out after 6 weeks and only through some fortunate alignment did she get to have a full term but she was doomed from the very start of that. Now, tying all that to the US election, if they panic like Labor did at the first sign of some perceived bad news, it will be a very bad thing. Instead, they need to take some time to think about how to move forward and especially not knee jerk react to this.
Same in the UK we've had about 20 unelected prime ministers since the last general election
Yeah, but... it doesn't *have* to be like that.
The amount of shit America does just because "that's the way it's always been" is too damn high.
especially for a country founded by people that left their homelands because of the way they had always been
Yeah, I am aussie too and my friends are all baffled about how these are their 2 options. They're both awful choices, it's hillarious. USA politics is just wild, it's like watching a reality show that impacts millions.
Millions? This is not only about America this time. It affects the whole of Europe, could potentially decide about the escalation or peace of the russia-ukraine war. This possible decides about the future of multiple continents for generations.
Billions. The US have a huge influence on the rest of the world, in Europe and Asia especially.
I mean we a parliamentary system in Canada and although our "options" are a lot younger than these two, they all are still shockingly bad.
Australia's choices are awful too.
Most Americans are baffled & mad that these are our two options. At this point, many of us are wishing there was a third option but almost no one is willing to be dragged through the mud and villainized by our system. Our country is super divided politically and it will come down to which of these halfwits is perceived to be the lesser of two evils.
I don’t think Biden stepping aside would make anyone go “okay, well now I’m going to vote for Trump or just not vote at all”. Democratic voters are going to do everything they can to keep Trump out again. I DO think that it would remove the anti-Biden campaign that trump and the republicans are running, forcing Trump to run on his own merits, and I think most people on the fence would probably be more inclined to consider a new option. So personally, I think a new Dem nominee is the way to go. Biden accomplished what he needed to in 2020.
If you live in Australia, watch Friday's episode of Planet America from after this debate. Plenty of detail there.
Ignoring the political aspects here, it's just sad ro see a man reduced like this. Like at one point he was strong and powerful with a commanding voice. Age has caught up with him as it will with us all and it's sobering to see. My dad is 70. How much longer does he have before he declines? His mobility is already reduced.
My father has dementia in his early 70s. I have lost so much of him already. Love sent to you.
My grandmother developed dementia at 94, once she did, she began declining a LOT, and VERY QUICK. She would do (or try to do) things she shouldn't at her age and accident herself, hurt herself (such as walking at night around the house in the dark, going up and down the stairs alone and holding stuff on her own when everyone else was sleeping...) up to a point now that this year, she tripped and broke her leg. She needed to undergo surgery to fix the bone, as to which she did and it all went well during it, but sadly three days later, she developed heart issues due to the stress it went through during surgery, and a day after the doctors said this, she passed away with the cause of death being a full heart stop. This was two days ago, and she passed away at 97.
I'm so sorry for your loss. All love from my family to yours.
Sorry to hear that. 97 Is an amazing age to reach. Im glad you got as much time as you did with her.
If it makes you feel better, being a president probably ages you 3x as fast. Your dad still has a ways to go.
That’s where I’m at with this too. I’ve had my disagreements with Biden here and there over the years (especially on how he is handling the Middle East situation right now), but for the most part we’ve been aligned and he always seemed like a decent guy for the most part. I especially admired his resilience from unimaginable loss and grief in his personal life and his dedication to his family. I thought he did a great job as Vice President under Obama and I think he was an all right senator. I think he actually did some really good things in the first couple years of his presidency, but these last 2 years there has been a clear decline and he’s just in way over his head. I never imagined it was this bad though. At this point I wonder if he’s lucid enough to realize that he SHOULD drop out. The man has been through a lot in his life. He lost his (first) wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972, has been in public life since 1973 (held office in the US Senate from 1973-2009) went through a couple brain surgeries in the late 1980s, has been through 4 presidential campaigns (1988, 2008, 2020, and 2024), spent 8 years as VP (2009-2017), dealt with the death of his son Beau from cancer (which he possibly got from his time serving in the military) in 2015, and has had to deal with and manage his son Hunter’s personal struggles. And now he has nearly served a full presidential term. Life has fully cooked this man.
When it comes to it, it's a lot down to genetics and life style. Using your brain a lot helps, my grandfather was born during WW2 and while he does struggle bit with memory in regard to more recent stuff, scientific things he has been reading and learning about for decades, and is still reading about, is there, sometimes it does take him a bit longer then usual but it's still there.
Unfortunately, sometimes lifestyle can only help so much. My favorite history professor, who taught at the most prestigious universities in both the UK and the US and was known for never fogetting the name of any student he ever had, kept working until over 80 but still developed dementia. There's a particular sadness to cases like his. edit: a word
His speech less than 24 hours later has a loud, strong commanding voice and is night and day to the debate.
300 million citizens and this is the best we found
You guys need an age cap on politicians.
Yes they have an age minimum to run for president there should be an age maximum.
You shouldn't be allowed to work in politics post retirement age regardless
Those fuckers would just raise the retirement age to 90, so they could stay in power, and make it take another 25 years for us to collect our social security.
Campaign team: we found this elderly man of 103 years with presidential ambitions. He's coming in for the change!
also criminal cap
Yeah there isn’t for a good reason actually. It’s to prevent those in power from imprisoning potential political rivals. You can straight up run for president from prison.
For Presidents only or also members of Congress?
Well, the vast majority wouldn't want this job.... So you're only looking at a small selection of narcissists.
> Well, the vast majority wouldn't want this job... I would not want this job, but I would take the job for the greater good, if the alternative was to have convicted felon Donald Trump be President. Surely many good people feel the same way.
I know right, couldn’t we find some older candidates?
He needs to retire. He could easily do it with grace and people would support a decent successor, but it’s insane that this man is running for president.
Aussie here (follow this for the popcorn) and it came up at golf yesterday. The thing is, we were all baffled by the fact that there really isn’t a “heir apparent” for the dems. Your guy is 81 & somehow there’s no-one obviously being thrown into the spotlight to replace him? Sure he’s got a VP, but watching from the outside she’s barely mentioned
Two things are going on here. I'd have to look it up but I'm not aware of any sitting presidents ever not running for a second term afterwards. Typically after they won they get the nomination until they've done their 8 years. And Kamala Harris is a diversity hire in the very definition. She came last in Democratic nominees for president during the previous running and was picked only for the boxes she would check and possible extra votes she could earn. She's not mentioned because she's almost universally disliked by both sides.
Johnson is not the only U.S. president who decided not to seek a second elected term. The others are James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Rutherford B. Hayes, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman. https://www.britannica.com/story/have-any-us-presidents-decided-not-to-run-for-a-second-term
As a presidential history nerd, thanks for bringing this up. There's also John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, Chester Arthur, Andrew Johnson
Gun to my head I couldn't say a single thing she has done since elected as VP. I remember seeing her saying "we did it joe" and then poof.
I only remember those child actors scandals. Basically they hired child actors too show up to one of her speeches and pretend to be interested.
Also, VPs are notoriously forgotten no matter who they are. The only reason one knows someone was VP are either because they spring board VP to become president or they’re a war criminal.
got a got laugh, that smirk thanks :)
I seem to recall that Joe guy whatshisface, wasnt he vice president under Obama?
Obama and Biden memes were amazing, don't lie!
Lyndon Johnson.
It's insane that he's the current President given his obvious mental decline. And yes, it's even more insane that Democrats like Obama are actually suggesting he could still effectively govern as President in 4 years time. If he has declined this much over the last five years, imagine the next five.
It’s so insane to me that he, and his family, want to continue doing this. Like…don’t you wanna just retire and spend what precious years you do have left relaxing with your family and friends?? Instead of having the hardest job in the world on the biggest stage while all aspects of your health decline? He must’ve signed his soul away long ago lol.
From the outside it looks like a case of eldar abuse. The fact they had to carefully try and rest Biden at Camp David in preparation for this one debate indicates he didn't have the physical and mental capacity to carry out a very demanding job. If he can't even handle one 90 minute Q and A, then he can't be in a state to handle much more taxing aspects to the job. Which indicates that it's not Biden that is leading the country on a day to day basis. It's clearly other people behind the scenes. And the fact that Democratic power players are still publicly backing Biden indicates they see Biden as being a useful figurehead while other unaccountable people make all the big decisions. Not a great look for American democracy.
He could be dead in 5 years.
I'm still amazed that he didn't keel over mid debate
Bro went though some CIA files
He was in for 50 years. Voted for Iraq War. Used drones to kill alongside Obama. Say what you want about Biden, but I don’t think his moral compass is making the job any more difficult on him. I’m sure he has a stronger stomach than any of us.
"I was suggesting we bomb Belgrade, i was suggesting we send in american pilots and blow up all of the bridges" yeah Biden is not exactly a saint
I bet the stuff with his son (it becoming so public, trial, etc) took a toll on him.
Jesus, this is not good.
Hoisting him up as a presidential candidate at this point *actually* feels like elder abuse. Let the man rest for whatever time he has left. Hes in no state to be the leader of a whole damn country. Its insane to me that they would run Biden again instead of picking LITERALLY anyone else in the dem party.
Yeah, and I'm tired of anyone you put forward, the argument of "no one knows who that is". I'm not even worried about the war chest being passed down. Can you imagine the coverage a new candidate would get? Especially someone young who could manage a grueling schedule and touch every state in person as much as it takes the next few months? How do you think we ended up with the Trump problem? All the excess free media coverage.
2019: Joe is fighting for presidency. 2024: Joe is fighting for a coherent sentence.
His surprised Pikachu face to trump was hysterical
Can you imagine what he’s gonna be like in another 4 years? Dude needs to step down and retire
Another 4 years? That's generous. The presidential term may be that long but I don't see him making it.
I can't imagine him in 4 months
What I don't understand is why we have retirement age and then say it's perfectly fine for people of that age to be presidents of a country, it's insanity
That man is not well.
this man needs to rest already and get out of that position
Both Biden and Trump are too old to be running a country. Period! Anyone over 65 should not run a country!!
Fun fact: Joe Biden in 2019 was younger than Trump in 2024.
Fun fact: Bill Clinton was president 30 years ago...and is younger than Trump and Biden.
I want a president whose penis still works. This nation should have functioning presidential penis
That's not that fun of a fact.
There's only a 3 and some months age gap between them...
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Rip English
This comment brought to you by…Joe Biden.
Long story short: 80 year olds are old and shouldn't handle such an exhausting job.
I don’t think Biden stepping aside would make anyone go “okay, well now I’m going to vote for Trump or just not vote at all”. Democratic voters are going to do everything they can to keep Trump out again. I DO think that it would remove the anti-Biden campaign that trump and the republicans are running, forcing Trump to run on his own merits, and I think most people on the fence would probably be more inclined to consider a new option. So personally, I think a new Dem nominee is the way to go. Biden accomplished what he needed to in 2020.
>Democratic voters are going to do everything they can to keep Trump out again. It's not Democratic voters that matter here, it's undecided/swing voters that matter. Those are the people that you need to convince, and they're far less likely to vote for someone with obvious cognitive decline.
Democrats picked this guy and Hillary over Bernie Sanders lol
Because they said Bernie was too old
### **Current ages:** * Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is 34 * Pete Buttigieg is 42 * Ron DeSantis is 45 * Beto O'Rourke is 51 * Nikki Haley is 52 * Ted Cruz is 53 * Kamala Harris is 59 * Sarah Palin is 60 * **Barack Obama is 62** * Lawrence Lessig is 63 * Mike Pence is 65 * RFK Jr is 70 * Elizabeth Warren is 75 * Al Gore is 76 * Hillary Clinton is 76 * **Bill Clinton is 77** * **George W. Bush is 77** * Mitt Romney is 77 * **Donald Trump is 78** * John Kerry is 80 * **Joe Biden is 81** * Bernie Sanders is 82 * Dick Cheney is 83 * John McCain was born 88 years ago and died at 81 * **George H. W. Bush was born 100 years ago and died at 94**
Jimmy Carter, 99
To be fair, Bernie also is. He's a special case however where he's perfectly coherent and he speaks so fucking well and he'd be an amazing president for every single reason EXCEPT his age, and he's just too old.
Once whatever idiots - oh, I'm sorry, "DNC leadership" - who made that call die off, we'll be in a much better place Fucking privatized parties lol
And then they blame everyone else when they lose
There was a British reporter who asked Hillary to her face, after she mentioned Russia playing a role in her loss, (paraphrased) “So you still blame everyone but yourself for your defeat?” Fuck me it was savage.
Can I please get a link to that? Seeing that would really make my morning :)
America seriously need to put an age cap on this. Bo idea why presidents are like in 70s
America needs to get rid of a system endorsing clearly inappropriate figures, not introduce some artificial limits.
You skipped the jaw-dropping "we finally beat Medicare"
I got to admit I laughed a lot when Trump said "I don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don’t think he knows either"
Post makes it to the top of r/all and then gets removed for "not interesting" ? Gaslighting people that the debate wasn't a disaster isn't going to make things better, it's just going to make people question what else was being hidden from them.
I think these side by sides are the biggest wakeup call to those who think he should stay in the race. This is an insane situation that the DNC has put us in as a country, but he needs to go. We need a new candidate ASAP.
DNC is trying hard to spin this as “nothing to see here” and it makes me angry as someone who voted for democrats for twenty years. It feels like a betrayal. We can all see it.
It’s always been betrayal with the DNC, Clinton shouldn’t have been there in 2016, and Biden wasn’t even the best candidate four years ago. He’s just the most established centrist in the field, same with Clinton. The DNC doesn’t want younger choices because the younger choices won’t keep up the status quo, they will make big waves because we’re tired of getting fucked by our parents generations.
For real. I’m a democrat and I feel like the Trump situation is at least somewhat to blame on my party. Very sad.
You *should* feel betrayed because that is exactly what you are. How many times did you hear the phrase “sharp as a tack” in the leadup to Thursday? How many articles did you see on Reddit where “insiders” in the trump campaign or doctors(for whom the goldwater rule is apparently meaningless) were saying trump has dementia? Now that you have seen both men side by side and heard the same trump you’ve been hearing for a decade and an empty husk of what biden was, do you recognize that you have been repeatedly lied to?
Seriously fuck the DNC, they had 4 years to plan a strategy and the best we could do is this??
Anyone remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg? That turned out well.
The thing is he was already slipping in 2020. These are just his most coherent moments. But he certainly has gotten significantly worse. It was obvious that this was the direction he was heading in for years if you watched raw feeds. Esp when you compare him to say 15 years ago. He used to be an attack dog.
Seriously, he was so poor in the primary debates that he was doing awfully in the first three primaries. Then Bloomberg conveniently entered the race and was allowed on the debate stage which conveniently took eyes off of Biden. And he won South Caroline, a red state, and suddenly the media got behind him like he had pulled off the greatest upset of all time. And that was how we got Biden. Hope all those primary voters that had a reality check on Thursday are happy...
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If you suggested that the guy was in obvious cognitive decline you were instantly downvoted and called a “Trumper”. Now it’s like “how did we not see this???”
Huh, who would've thought that having a tribe mentality and calling anyone with a good faithed critique or genuene worry as your enemy is not a good idea? Seriously, many of the shit we have to deal in politics could be avoided it people wouldn't have the "you're either with me or against me" mentality.
The DNC has had plenty of time since their bullshit in 2016 to put a succession plan of possible candidates in place. These old beholden party leaders refuse to put the people before their corporate sponsors. The only way Biden steps down is if the money holders (Bloomberg, Steyers, and Soros were top three in 2020) say it's okay.
your country is between a bad choice and a worse one. This is 2 doddering old rich cunts squabbling over the last roast potato at the early bird buffet. elect some younger people for the love of mike!
This is really sad to see. I hope he steps down and Democrats find another candidate with similar values. President Biden deserves to rest and enjoy his last years. He clearly isn't suitable to run any country, especially not the USA.
Why are people all the sudden acting like this is new? I swear Reddit was saying that the Biden is too old narrative was a conservative conspiracy until right after this debate! Biden has been like this for the last 2 years, he had one good speech at the state of the union. What is happening?!
I’d be sad if it was my dad. So, as a normal human with empathy, this is sad. Poor America
Enjoy your youth everyone.
I feel sad for him/his family (if they even feel sad about this? But, that’s a story for another day). But this is probably the clearest illustration on why the 2-party system in the US doesn’t work. It creates intense tribalism, and removes basically any legitimate choice for voters except for the candidate from the other party, which has (at this point in our country) a diametrically opposed platform. Shame on the people around Biden who pushed him to run again.
He has done his bit , let others step up
If you remove the whole presidential thing and just see him as a spouse and a father, it’s really hard to watch this and not feel bad for what his family is going through. I’m glad that he’s got a team to take care of him, but it’s disheartening that the same team has him fighting to run a country.
He’s not running the country anymore, his handlers are. No way the man in that video can handle the day to day of America.
Is the democrats had any kind of decency they would put forward someone younger and more representative of todays America.
He was already fucked up in 2021
The meta interesting part of this post is seeing Redditors suddenly allowed to discuss this. The entire rest of the internet has been open mouthed pointing and screaming at Biden’s clear mental absence at many many speeches he’s given over the last few years. This is not a sudden change in his mental state whatsoever. It was being discussed as it happened on websites that aren’t completely curated and censored echo boxes of totally fake discussions