I have to admit, as somebody who is in my sixth decade of life, I was easily convinced by discussions of Biden’s debate performance saying he was never a good debater, he has a lifelong history of stuttering, to criticize him on the cognitive qualities of his performance is ageism. For a completely different reason (Sanders attack on Biden’s agreement with Paul Ryan on social security). My own opinion is that Sanders is really pushing the envelope on truth — but that is another issue. I really wanted to understand the dynamics so I went back and looked at his debates with Ryan in 2012. I urge every person to do this. The difference in presentation of self and ideas is night and day. There is no losing his train of thought, his responses are focused, direct and energetic. AND THERE IS NO STUTTERING in the clips that I saw. There is no doubt that Biden has changed. He has much more difficulty pulling ideas — the connection between long term memory and short term memory. He makes mistakes now that did not seem possible eight years ago. His eyes are cloudier, he struggles to bring forth ideas.

When cognitive decline begins it continues. It is not age based but it is based on age. What that means a person does not decline because they are older, but if they are older they are much more likely to experience decline. We do not know how fast cognitive decline will be. Biden may suffer only moderate decline over the next four or even eight years, or he may have speeded up declines over the next four or even eight months.

I urge everybody to watch different videos of Biden. There are many on Youtube. I do not include them because I will just be accused on cherry picking.  I think we need to start talking about this. We are constantly making the argument (on this site) that Trump is in cognitive decline (his decline is merged with other deep psychological problems). We should not avoid this because it is uncomfortable.