
SUMMARY: The Biden so Old election controversy features intriguing motivations of the participants in this unprecedented political situation. Unpacking the motivations behind this clash and the media drama that ensued, this post offers a comprehensive analysis of the reason the FOR PROFIT political media have been writing multiple daily stories about it, and the Democrats who feel compelled to publicly call for Biden to withdraw from the race. By examining the possible motivations and goals of both the press and the politicians continuing the controversy, we can motivate ourselves to work for a Biden election and overcome even this large unprecedented and inconceivable obstacle.
KEY WORDS: Joe Biden, Election 2024, Biden So Old, Motivations, For Profit Media, Clickbait, Behavioral Economics, Age-Related Cognitive Decline, Trump Panic
COMMENT: Everyone has a pet theory about what is driving the Biden so Old story. I’d love to discuss yours in the comments!
Being a full-time citizen and part-time bloggers is certainly fraught with advantages and disadvantages, but in the Biden vs Biden election in the hearts and minds of the Democratic Party and the American electorate, it is, on the whole, a disadvantage. There is weirdness afoot here, and it is difficult to ferret out.
When the calls are coming from inside the house, the old horror movie trope tells us, it is time to be afraid, very afraid, especially once the baby sitter says, I know it’s you, you little shit, so knock it off! and they don’t. Right now, that’s the universe we’re in. Why are solid Democratic politicians trying to drown Biden in the bathwater?
The proper response of any professional politician whose job it is to win elections is to support their party’s nominees through thick and thin and not panic like a sixteen year-old hot baby sitter played by a twenty-something actress so the soft porn scenes will be legal, but we can all, you know, oh wait, that’s not where this was going… They shouldn’t be panicking is what I’m saying. They shouldn’t be calling for Biden to step aside.
Good professional politicians should be trying to soft peddle, downplay, and distract from the story. They should be trying to refocus attention on Trump being a felonious rapist who will commit felonies and rape us — figuratively by selling the environment to the fossil fuels industry so the 100 billionaires that run it can become 500 billionaires before the global environment finally collapses and can no longer support the lives of seven billion people, too bad, James Inhofe, the snowball-holding bastard Senator from Oklahoma didn’t live to see what he worked so hard to ensure happened — if he is returned to office. Okay, he’s going to commit felonies and rape no matter where he is, he just won’t be doing it on the Resolute Desk, the Constitution, and the country… as much as he would be able to if he were returned to office.
That there are Democrats, both openly and quietly as in off the record, strongly suggests that something weird is happening within either in the news stories reporting, in the minds of the politicians being referenced, or in the party itself. Here’s the possibilities as far as I can tell:
It is a Non-Story
As reported by several outlets this past week, very few elected Democrats have called for Biden to step aside, and no one with any real power has done so. As friend-o-Ye-Olde-Blogge, Tengrain, over at Mock Paper Scissors points out the FOR-PROFIT PRESS is reporting that Democratic Congressional leaders are calling for him to set aside, when in reality, it is eleven backbenchers in the House and backbencher, Peter Welch, in the Senate.
Maybe this is a story to keep the clicks, likes, and shares boosting profits in the very unprofitable media environment we’re in. Maybe this is all ownership and editorial board-driven BS to make it seem worse than it is. It wouldn’t be the first time profits came before journalistic professionalism.
Maybe this is a story bought and paid for by the MAGA PACs, Putin’s disinformation campaign, and profit-seeking ownership either directly or indirectly. Maybe.
Motivations of the Democrats
What could possibly motivate a Democrat in good standing with the party to call for its incumbent nominee to step aside in July of the election year? It is such a radical thing to do, proportionality bias says that something big must be causing it. What could be so terrible that these backbenchers would stick their necks out and call for Biden to step aside?
Has Biden’s Cognitive Abilities Declined with Age?
There is no doubt that Biden is experiencing real live age-related cognitive decline. He is eighty-something-fucking years old, after all. The truth is, we should all be so lucky as to have his cognitive abilities when we get to be his age.
But, that hasn’t stopped the Biden so old stories, and the maybe we should elect the felonious rapist instead stories. Here’s a good summary of the issues, but I can’t get behind the pay-walls in the stories cited by Eric Levitz in this article on Vox, but I’ve heard about the whisperings about Biden’s memory lapses and in ability to complete sentences.
Meanwhile, a wide array of Democrats and foreign officials have told reporters that Biden’s debate performance wasn’t an anomaly: The president has repeatedly suffered similarly disquieting mental lapses in private. Democratic donors revealed that Biden bizarrely relied on a teleprompter to deliver remarks in the private home of a patron.
The arguments for Biden 2024 keep getting worse by Eric Levitz on 9 July 2024 on Vox
Levitz also cites other concerning events:
- Biden’s disastrous debate performance
- Biden’s two secretly pre-scripted radio interviews
- Biden’s high-stakes interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News in which he had a week to prepare didn’t show him performing much better than in the debate.
- Biden refused to take the Person, Man, Woman, TV, Camera test Trump took.
Sure, more than likely Biden has suffered some age-related cognitive decline. It says it right in the name. Age-Related. We all slow down as we get older, but it’s not like he’s trying to pull a Diane Feinstein on us.
Older adults can be helped to cope with these issues, and his aides have helped him. They’ve limited his schedule. They make sure he gets enough sleep. They make sure there are fewer tripping hazards and he takes the shorter ramp from Air Force One. These are not accommodations that disqualify a person from being president. Thirty-four felonies and being an adjudicated rapist are. I’m just saying.
The question is, can he do the job?
If he can’t, then the system has ways of dealing with it. Amendment 25 comes to mind. We have a vice president for a reason. Simple signs of aging can’t be sufficient to be powering the likes of Lloyd Doggett and Pat Ryan to publicly call for him to withdraw.
Biden’s cognitive abilities or inabilities are not sufficient to cause this level of pearl wringing and hand clutching among the beltway press.
Everyone Hates Taking A Risk Unless It Is To Avoid A Certain Loss
Truly, Trump seems unstoppable, doesn’t he? From the beginning of the Election 2024 campaign somewhere back in November 2023 or even before, Trump has seemed unstoppable. He’s led in the polling. Biden’s favorability rating has been 20 points under almost since day one.
Even with abortion on the ballot and improving economic numbers and feelings among the electorate, the election seemed like it was Trump’s to lose at least according to the for-profit conservative-owned press.
The openly conservative press outlets have been pounding the Biden so old line since 2019 priming us all to over react to signs of cognitive decline in Biden which were bound to become more apparent, but why would a backbencher 20 year vet of the House like Lloyd Doggett (full disclosure, he was my representative before I left the States) who has no where to go but the Old Politicians’ Retirement Home pipe up and say Biden should withdraw? What does that get a steady, make no waves liberal like Lloyd Doggett?
It doesn’t seem like it gets any of them much other than some positioning in the post-Biden Democratic Party, but what would that be? A cabinet position in the 2028 Harris presidency? A run at the senate or governorship with the I said it first, Biden couldn’t win, claim to fame?
How does publicly and openly slagging Biden help anyone even if you truly think he’s not up to the job? If that’s what you thought, then you’d try to get him elected and help Harris 25th Amendment him because absolutely nothing will be worse for the country and the world as returning the pee-hookers of the Felonious Rapist to pissing on the Resolute Desk, the American Constitution, and the rights of Americans. Absolutely nothing.
With a proven threat to human kind and the liberal international world order like Trump is, you have no choice but to do everything you can to elect Biden, unless…
You’ve succumb to the Trump-Russia disinformation campaign about Biden’s chances of winning. As we’ve discussed so many times in these posts, one of the most robust predictors of human behavior is the perception of loss. If a choice is framed as a certain loss, then people will take enormous chances.
The only explanations that makes sense in this mishegas are these:
- THE PRESS is desperate to keep the soap opera-level drama alive to keep grasping at the shrinking profits from news media. They’ve got to flog every dead horse into hamburger in order to quiz just one more click, like, and share out of whatever clickbait they can throw up there. The operative term here is throw up as in I’m nauseated by the role the press plays in our politics nowadays.
- TRUMP PANIC is spreading among Democrats. They saw Biden’s debate performance as the harbinger of disaster, the train speeding over the wrecked bridge, and thought any chance is better than the sure loss the Biden was old man walking towards. They are so sure of the impending loss that they are willingly and knowingly helping Trump win by dividing the party and the electorate with a controversy that shouldn’t exist any longer.
The Biden should withdraw from the election controversy is an unforced error on the side of the Democrats and will likely be the Comey news conference of the 2024 election. It is a stupid shortsighted reaction to an issue that matters little in the larger stakes of Election 2024. It is born of panic over the fear of MAGA and is being stoked by an inside-the-beltway access press that needs drama Drama DRAMA to use as clickbait.
Given the stakes of the election, I’m tired of it being an issue. If Biden is cognitively unfit for the office, elect him anyway and 25th Amendment him to put Kamala Harris in. Electing Trump is an unmitigated disaster for the future of human kind. There is no other way to look at it, especially if you are a tried and true loyal Democrat like most of the ones calling for Biden to step aside are.

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Image Attribution
This image was found on Jump Cut using a DuckDuckGo Creative Commons License image search.







Never one to put all my eggs in one basket I suggest everyone develop a plan B. Joe is going to win because women are not stupid. If Joe’s team can’t handle a “June surprise” what will they do with an October one? You all got on the ride willingly, knowing there were hills and falls and violently twisting turns. You knew when you got on it was “ride til the end”. Two more weeks of this shit and EVERYONE is going to think Joe Biden is old!
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Howdy Ryinger!
My Plan B was and is to vote for anyone but the Felonious Rapist Traitor. But, Plan A is still much better, Joe Biden.
I don’t think this ranks as a surprise. It is a Black Swan, that’s for sure, and it is likely fueled by the Russian disinformation machine. This is more Frankenstein’s monster than anything else. Luckily, Trump got shot, so that’ll be good for at least a news cycle before the press needs to milk more clickbait from #BidenSoOld.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I’ve had some moments to contemplate the idea that there is something we aren’t seeing in motion in this situation, even more than one.
The core assertion of authoritarian populism and fascism is that democracy doesn’t work and a strongman leader is needed.
Neither of those two systems (if they are separate) are owned by just one of the political far wings. The Left can do them as well as the Right.
Our Right Wing has obviously made up it”s mind that it can’t win democratically, so a Strongman led revolution is the way to go (which can then be co-opted by a bunch of raving theocrats).
If there are enough people on the Left side who are convinced that they can’t win democratically, then at least some could be thinking they must fight fire with fire and find their own populist Strongman to fight back with the now much enhanced powers of the Presidency.
I don’t see any of the proposed replacements for Biden acting like the guy on the white horse coming to lead the masses in the hour of crisis. In fact, I don’t see any of them as well qualified for that in skills, morals, or extreme narcissistic ambition. Still, it is possible that there are some Democrats and supporter$ of Democrats who are looking for one quietly behind the scenes.
The real enemies of democracy don’t actually care whether it is replaced by a Left or Right dictatorship. They have the resources to corrupt anybody.
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Howdy Bob!
It is old school ward politics that you are describing. It’s Boss Tweed’s “I don’t care who does the electing, as long as I get to do the nominating” approach to democracy. It is the school of politics that Xi practices. Ironically, it is the way of politics that sprouted up after the fall of Communist totalitarian regimes as they mixed in some market economy with their dictatorships.
I wrote a blog post this morning but I don’t think I’ll publish it because it doesn’t add anything new to the mix. I thought it was going to, but it doesn’t. The whole #BidenSoOld thing is a stampeding herd set off by a truly backbencher Democratic House member, the 77 year-old soon to be retired never really done anything other than collect his House salary, my old representative, Lloyd Doggett, and a desperate beltway media needing to milk the clickbait for every penny its worth.
This is truly an infinite feedback loop that is desperate for another shiny object to come along to wrench us away from it.
The problem with Election 2024 is that there are no Democratic leaders who can challenge Biden. That’s a failure of the party, not of Biden. that there is no one with the gumption, even now that the vacuum is forming, to step up and say, “For the good of the country, I’ll do it.” Speaks volumes. That there is no viable way to get it done, speaks volumes about what a non-story this is and one made up out of whole cloth by the for-profit press and self-serving backbenchers who are looking for a viral meme moment.
Now the snowball is rolling down hill, it is gathering moss, and when it hits the bottom we may have the Felonious Rapist in office, again. And why? Because 100 billionaires should have a shot at becoming 500 billionaires.
Huzzah!
Jack
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I’m hearing that one of the supposed signs that Biden is cognitively failing is his use of a teleprompter. The truth is that professional public speakers all use teleprompters if they can get one and the occasion allows it. I remembered the insight from “On Being Sane In Insane Places” that once someone has a diagnosis, anything they do, no matter how normal, can be seen as a symptom. So, now every stutter, hesitation, misspeaking, etc. is fastened upon as evidence.
Then there is this item of thinking about what is going on:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/7/11/2253316/-I-naively-thought-it-was-Joe-Biden-s-decision-to-stay-in-the-race-Robert-Reich-set-me-straight?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
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This is the thing. No matter how you slice the #BidenSoOld debacle, there is no end game, which makes it a debacle. There was never a clear mechanism for replacing him. There isn’t a consensus candidate to replace him with. And, now you’ve likely so damaged him by continuing the controversy that he’s unelectable.
So, either the billionaire donor class is all in on Trump, which they’re not given that not a single Fortune 500 company CEO has contributed to his campaign, or they just shot themselves and the rest of the country in the gonads by paying Lloyd Doggett to come out and call for him to step aside.
It’s like a lawyer asking a question in the court that they don’t know the answer to. You’re taking a big risk. I can’t imagine what is driving this. If Harris were capable of running a winning campaign and a successful White House, she’d be the nominee. And, since she isn’t, you’ve got to be all in on Biden.
Conventional wisdom says that when the incumbent faces a stronger challenger in the primary, they lose the general. They only face a stronger challenger because they are a weak candidate. This is now the equivalent of a stronger challenger.
It makes no sense. None whatsoever.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It does have a flavor of mass psychosis about it. I’m thinking that the most effective way that Joe can prove he can win is to defeat this panic group attack. His rally in Detroit last night is getting good reviews.
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You’re right, Biden can and must just soldier on. Now, Trump’s been “scratched,” so there’s another monkey wrench in the works.
It’s enough to get you believing in conspiracy theories.
Jack
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The NYTimes is pushing this so hard because Biden refused to bend the knee to their Editorial Board and sit down for an interview; this is their revenge.
The pundits and political reporters are against him because the first Trump administration was so much fun for them to cover. All the juicy leaks, exclusive access, entertaining tweets, and the scandals, all the glorious scandals the ‘new Cabinet Secretary of the Month’ club. Plus, it made a number of them a whole lot of money via book deals based on the information they knew, but did nor report on at the time, because holding it back for their book deal was much more profitable.
They are certain in their bones that the second Trump Administration will be the same.
Won’t they be surprised when the Trump Gestapo comes for them in the middle of the night…
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Howdy Bruce!
Schadenfreude will only do so much as we confront climate disaster after climate disaster and people die by the millions from heatwaves.
Which is to say, I think you’re right. The capitalist thinks no further than their next billion ,and most billionaires think it is unfair that they might not have the chance to become 500 billionaires before the global environment is no longer able to support seven billion people and their profits, so they — meaning the for profit press ownership — NEED all the clickbait their reporters can produce and to do that they need Mexican novella level drama! We all need to be living the Kpop soap life so the clicks, likes, and shares keep the profits flowing to the owners of the failing media outlets.
Which is to say, we’re so fucked.
Huzzah!
Jack
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