Nobody believes in Joe Biden anymore

“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Donald Trump, for all his flaws, has always had a knack for expressing what everybody is thinking. With those words, delivered on the CNN debate stage last night after Joe Biden had stumbled and mumbled through yet another answer, he all but buried the 46th presidency. 

‘Joe you did such a great job,’ Jill Biden said, as if she talking to a small child

Biden might stagger on through the Democratic National Convention in August. But it’s hard to see how his presidency can last much longer. Either he must stand down, be brushed aside, or the American public will soon put him out to pasture. At this rate of decline, he might not even live to see 2025.

Over the last four years, in the face of often increasingly overwhelming evidence, the Democrats and their cheerleaders in the media have insisted that Joe Biden is fit as fiddle, that all talk of decrepitude is Republican scuttlebutt. The videos that clearly showed him struggling were “cheap fakes,” we were told. Behind closed doors, Biden is more acute than ever.

Last night, those lies finally died. Biden had a cold, Democratic sources were quick to say. And, in fairness, he did sound more hoarse than usual. But his meandering sentences and his vacant stares were all too familiar. He needed to use the debate to prove to the American people that he could serve another four years. He did the exact opposite. 

On the economy, Medicare, abortion, foreign wars, on immigration — on every topic Biden sounded incoherent, confused and feeble. Trump wasn’t exactly Cicero — he too sounded muddled on certain topics and scored a few own goals: “On January 6 we were respected all over the world,” he said, referring to the day his supporters rioted on Capitol Hill. That statement clearly invited derision. 

But Trump did manage to contain his tendency to rant and insult. He didn’t need to be good because Biden was so bad. The debate format, which Republicans felt CNN had designed to help Biden, ended up aiding Trump. Candidates’ microphones were muted when they weren’t speaking, which stopped Trump from being his more obnoxious self. He couldn’t keep interrupting like a petulant child. The split screen also emphasized Biden’s frailty — he often looked a million miles away as Trump spoke. 

It was sad to watch. Democrats are now in full panic mode. There are urgent rumors that party bigwigs and the Obama family are initiating their plot to shake Biden off the ticket before the convention in Chicago in less than two months time. Perhaps that was the plan all along — hold an early debate to establish clearly whether or not Biden can function, then move against him if he fails.

Joe’s wife Jill, it is often said, is the only person who could persuade him to resign. But Jill seems determined to battle on, no matter how humiliating the fight might be for her and her husband. 

At a post-debate event last night, the first lady addressed the crowd alongside her husband. “Joe you did such a great job,” she said, as if she talking to a small child. “You answered every question!” The eighty-one-year-old grinned inanely. It was another sad spectacle. Nobody believes in Joe Biden any more. 

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.