There is no data to support the allegation that he is in cognitive decline.
During a town hall on Fox News Thursday night, Trump once again alluded to the idea that Biden is unfit for office. While the lies about the Bidens and Burisma will likely continue, the Daily Caller
reports that this new line of attack will be a focus for Republicans and the Trump campaign.
All of this feels very familiar. During the 2016 election, both Trump and the Sanders camp attempted to paint Hillary Clinton as corrupt. Now, both sides have teamed up on an attack against Biden.
We’ve all watched Biden stumble with words during debates and extemporaneous speeches. So as people committed to examining facts and evidence, it is important to gather what we know about this particular attack and not simply dismiss it because of the sources from which it is emanating.
In the January/February issue of The Atlantic, John Hendrickson writes that “[Biden’s] verbal stumbles have voters worried about his mental fitness. Maybe they’d be more understanding if they knew he’s still fighting a stutter.”
A stutter does not get worse as a person ages, but trying to keep it at bay can take immense physical and mental energy. Biden talks all day to audiences both small and large. In addition to periodically stuttering or blocking on certain sounds, he appears to intentionally
not stutter by switching to an alternative word—a technique called “circumlocution”—*which can yield mangled syntax. I’ve been following practically everything he’s said for months now, and sometimes what is quickly characterized as a memory lapse is indeed a stutter. As Eric Jackson, the speech pathologist, pointed out to me, during a town hall in August Biden briefly blocked on
Obama, before quickly subbing in
my boss. The headlines after the event? “
Biden Forgets Obama’s Name.” Other times when Biden fudges a detail or loses his train of thought, it seems unrelated to stuttering, like he’s just making a mistake. The kind of mistake other candidates make too, though less frequently than he does.
Biden “digresses and gets tangential, that’s not cognitive decline,” Lynne Meyer, a California psychologist told Yahoo News. “Trump’s cognitive decline or problems are that he doesn’t even seem to have comprehension of reality. That’s what it looks like.”
Reply With QuoteOriginally Posted by Cypress
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