this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday.

“I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony counts,” Swalwell said, making a reference to President Biden’s age in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” on Saturday.

“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, speaking about the 2024 election. “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”

Swalwell’s comments come after Trump was ordered to pay almost $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case and amid increased scrutiny faced by the president on his age and memory in the wake of a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report noted that Biden had problems with memory and recall.

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[–] cashews_best_nut@lemmy.world 55 points 10 months ago (60 children)

The comments by septics on Biden's age reek of ageism.

His age is irrelevant. Can he do the fucking job?

Yes?

Then vote for him.

The poor bastard is destroying his retirement, health and twilight years to stop the US falling to fascism and all you can do is whine about his age?

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 148 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I don’t think it’s particularly ageist to say that octogenarians should generally be avoided for a 4 year commitment to leadership roles. It’s no more ageist than barring 16 year olds from the job imo.

That said, in a battle between risky to lose competence midway and blatantly incompetent now the former always wins

[–] Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Agreed. That being said it sucks to be stuck choosing between two ppl who won't live long enough to see the ramifications of their decisions and policies.

[–] GoodEye8@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't see how that matters. Do you think Clinton, Bush or Obama made better choices because they got to live to see the outcomes materialize? I don't think so which is why I don't think it matters.

You want a president who makes decisions that benefit the people not a president who makes decision s that benefit them (or a group of elites). In that sense it doesn't matter if Biden won't see the results of his decisions, as long as he makes decisions that benefit the people. When it comes to Trump we can now be pretty certain he will make decisions that benefit him.

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[–] Twentytwodividedby7@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Trump isn't exactly a spring chicken either. He now has a half a billion dollars in judgements that he owes in addition to being within 4 years of Biden's age. The issue is the double standard and blatant disregard for the fact that he has numerous conflicts of interest that should disqualify Trump

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Oh I fully agree and this is absolutely being used to try to give another too old person the same position. Especially considering trump is both already senile and most importantly a fucking fascist who has attempted to overthrow the government after losing an election

[–] DoctorSpocktopus@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

Dark Brandon’s last act will be to bring about the first female US president. Based.

[–] twistypencil@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I think it is different, 16 year olds have no experience, limited knowledge of the world, and under developed pre frontal lobes. You want experienced leaders with wisdom, much more than inexperienced leaders with a lack of wisdom, they aren't equivalent

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes, it's obviously a different scenario. The risks are different. But, along with wisdom, you want presidents to be alive.

When Biden took office in 2020, he was 78. The government's actuarial tables say that there was basically a 50/50 chance he'd make it 8 years.

Having survived 4 years, if he's elected again he'll be 82. The actuarial tables say he'll probably still be alive at the end of his term, but he might not make it to the next set of midterms.

Now, Biden is in good health. With his health and the great medical care he gets, he'll probably do better than the actuarial tables say. I'd say the odds are good he'll outlive Trump, even if he's an older man. But, it seems reckless to put a guy into office when there's a very decent chance he'll be dead before the end of his term.

Then there's the matter of his mental sharpness. There are strong signs it's fading. President is mostly a job about delegation, but still, you need to make some decisions, and at least understand what it is you're delegating. Trump, again, is probably as bad or worse, but it doesn't seem good to trust a guy with clearly fading mental abilities to a stressful job that benefits from a sharp mind.

If we all trusted his VP to step in and run things well if there were a problem, that would be one thing, but her approval ratings are even worse than his. Sometimes that happens when a president doesn't want the VP to steal the spotlight. But, in this case you'd think both Biden and Harris would benefit from everybody thinking that she's doing a lot of work, doing it extremely well, and could easily step in as president.

[–] twistypencil@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Also, I'm not convinced there are strong signs his mental acuity is degrading. Everything people point out are things Biden had been doing for decades, or since birth. The amount of times I've seen people say look, he is cognitively impaired because he can't get his words out! The guy has had a stutter his whole life, he mixes up some facts here and they're, he's been doing that forever. Memory and cognitive specialists don't seem to think he has some growing problem (see On the Media show this week).. So what are these strong signs, except for the media publishing no led than 45 articles about this, with no facts to justify them?

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Also, I’m not convinced there are strong signs his mental acuity is degrading.

I think it's clear that he's not as sharp as he was 30 or 40 years ago. But, he was always someone who made a lot of gaffes. But, I think it's not dementia, just a typical lack of sharpness that comes from getting old.

[–] twistypencil@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not that I disagree with you, but what do you base that on? The cognitive experts I've heard on the radio don't seem to agree and they have specialty training.

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[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I don't think septics is the right word but I am also high

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago

His age is irrelevant. Can he do the fucking job?

His age is the main reason that he can't do the job particularly well.

[–] hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

He can't do the job. He's a terrible candidate and he's not mentally fit. His only qualification is that he's not openly fascist. Definitely vote for the not fascist, but that won't stop fascism in the long run.

Being forced to choose between senile and psychotic is fucking bullshit, and I'm sick of being told to just suck it up.

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, Trump is also senile.

[–] hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I mean, beyond senile. He doesn't even pass for human, he's indistinguishable from a racist LLM. Fuck he's not even an LLM, he's a Markov model.

But compared to Biden, Trump does enough drugs to make him appear like he's less senile. Also probably even more crazy.

[–] twistypencil@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Citation needed for Biden being senile.

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[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/06/an-ominous-poll-democrats-what-it-says-about-biden-alternative/

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/biden-trump-both-underperform-generic-opponents-poll-finds-rcna126098

Biden is putting the country at serious risk of having another Trump term vs if he were to concede to literally any other Democrat.

Voter shaming has never worked as a strategy and has only made people want to be less involved in politics. People need something to vote for, not against.

Also note how both sources strongly lean towards the Democratic Party. Not like I'm citing Fox here.

More evidence of low voter turnout with Biden: https://news.yahoo.com/only-4-registered-voters-show-122000488.html

[–] ickplant@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Biden performs better against Trump than Newsom or Harris. Name another democrat even close to having the name recognition to win the general election.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4470956-biden-trump-harris-newsom-poll/amp/

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[–] hglman@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Age-related cognitive decline is real and inescapable. All people over 80 have declining mental abilities, less ability to handle stress, etc. Old age is fundamentally a handicap and to suggest it isn't is a delusion.

[–] twistypencil@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Being a little slower is so far different from what Trump is that it sounds delusional to even make a deal out if Bidens age and cognitive abilities when there is an actual lunatic with knives running towards us

[–] PrettyLights@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

His age is irrelevant. Can he do the fucking job?

He can barely speak or remember his own major life events and colleagues. His team constantly has to step in and correct "what he meant to say" regarding very important international relations.

His age is relevant.

[–] rdyoung@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

This right here. He didn't have to run again. Right now he needs our support and deserves at least a hardy thanks of appreciation. He came out of retirement to stop trump and the maggats. If I could buy him a beer or a very expensive scotch I would.

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