I should have posted something about this yesterday, or earlier today, but....I can't do everything. Still, the polls are open in most states for up to four hours longer, so, here goes.
You should be concerned about the health of presidential candidates. For a historical lookback, consider that Woodrow Wilson was severely disabled by a secret stroke and Ronald Reagan was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease during at least his second term in office. I need not say much about the cognitive problems our current president has; watch any speech from beginning to end, watch the bobbles; compare with film of Trump from the 80s or 90s.
Sanders is 78, had a heart attack last fall, and hasn't released his medical records.
Biden is 77 and I've seen a couple of clips with frightening mental lapses, where he wanders around, starts five incomplete sentences in a row, and doesn't complete any of them. He couldn't recall the name of the Declaration of Independence.
Being president is among the hardest jobs in the world. You need to know a lot to start with, you need the ability to think clearly and calmly, you need to be able to absorb and evaluate a gigantic amount of information on a daily basis. Nobody worried about whether Bill Clinton or Barack Obama could do this. Everybody worries (or should be worrying) about Trump's ability to do this, because we know he doesn't like to read complex information and apparently doesn't read very well.
You also need physical stamina to survive four to eight years of constant stress.
If you have worries about Sanders or Biden, think long and hard about voting for one of them, and if you do, be prepared to demand a young VP.
I've seen articles on Biden claiming that a lot of his word problems are due to his stutter. Like many stutterers, when he gets stuck on a word he will look for a synonym. This creates the impression that he's forgotten the original word, especially if he's quoting or alluding to something.
ReplyDeleteIf correct, that would account for the Declaration of Independence issue. The clip I saw of him saying a few words, then switching to another sentence, and another, and another without completing any of them terrified me. (Especialy since today it looks as though he will be the nominee.)
ReplyDeleteOf course, unlike the Republicans, Democrats will proceed to remove a president from office if he can't function.
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