[throw0101d]

> The problem isn't just his age, it's his decrepitude, both physical and mental.

"When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club,[1] he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs. "

* Tom Nichols, https://archive.ph/XcMbP / https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/07/the-...

> “Did anyone ever hear of Dana White?” Trump asked during his speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington. “… I said, ‘Dana, I have an idea. Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters, and then you have the champion of your league — these are the greatest fighters in the world — fight the champion of the migrants.’ I think the migrant guy might win; that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much.”

* https://archive.ph/cQ4KA / https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/22/trump-chr...

And it's not like Trump is that much younger than Biden.

[ethagnawl]

Fucking Hell. I need to stop thinking these things are exaggerations or hyperbole. In the past few days, I thought "MASS DEPORTATIONS NOW" and (now) "immigrant fight club" were the stuff of political cartoonists juicing the zeitgeist.

[roughly]

This is the other problem with this election cycle: Trump is saying truly deranged things, but they’re so far outside of what people think would be reasonable for a person to say that he’s not getting the kind of blowback for them he should be because nobody believes he’s actually saying them.

(A contributing factor is that he actually Has been misrepresented a few times by the media - the “bloodbath” comment was very clearly about the auto industry in context, so the right feels rightly aggrieved and the left & media lose credibility.)

[johnnyanmac]

Nothing new, sadly. Comedians during Trump's presidency were saying how they can't top the absurdness that was Trump's reality. Welcome to a slice of the madness they needed to parody somehow.

[aweiland]

John Mulaney's "There's a horse in the hospital" bit was probably the best take.

Warning, explicit language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkZMxgPxXU

[mensetmanusman]

Trump hasn’t changed, Biden is getting worse and worse. People have experience with dementia in their families.

[throw0101d]

> Trump hasn’t changed, Biden is getting worse and worse. People have experience with dementia in their families.

The fact Trump has not changed from acting like a 'deranged street preacher' isn't exactly a point for him…

[hnfong]

If the best argument for keeping Biden in the race despite his senility is "look, Trump!", IMHO the case should be closed...

But looking across the pond, it doesn't look like Americans agree with me. :-/

Fun times, I guess.

[krapp]

On the one hand, abandoning an incumbent President with the all of the strengths that entails just months from the election because you let the other side control the narrative with their "crippling dementia" meme seems like political suicide, and you can usually trust the American left to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

On the other hand, American politics is so fickle and vain that even a minor gaffe on camera can doom a political career (see the "Dean Scream.") Although this standard only seems to apply to Democrats, it's still a factor. What really killed Hillary Clinton's chances wasn't systemic misogyny, or the email leaks, but her expression. She had a memeable crazy face, and that became her entire identity for many Americans. Now "Sleepy Joe" is the identity of Joe Biden.

The only question now is, what will be the meme that they deploy against Kamala Harris? I don't think the tried and true "probably a pedophile" or "crippling dementia" options are going to work, and "blood drinking satanic priestess" has probably worn out its welcome. They'll probably go "crypto-muslim" like they did with Obama.

edit: looks like they're going with "all of this is an attempted coup." A bold strategy by the insurrectionist party, going back to the "stolen election" well, but it seems to be a perennial favorite. Let's see if it works for them.