2024 is the year of treading old ground. We’ve gotten three spectacular remakes of old beloved games in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Persona 3 Reload, and Dragon’s Dogma 2. X-Men The Animated Series from the 90s is back, and better than ever. Jon Stewart is back on The Daily Show. Mean Girls got a crappy musical remake film, and everyone in Gen Z has been traumatized finding out the horrific circumstances behind their favorite childhood shows.
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any spice to this year, however! Just look at the hotly anticipated election where we get to see … the same crusty old men from last time?
Just when we thought that creativity was dead in the modern age, this has only pushed the nail into the coffin, because WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE. I know we have been obsessed with nostalgia recently but I thought we all agreed that we never wanna think about 2020 again. From the leader of the “free” world telling its citizens to inject bleach to get rid of COVID-19 to the excessively annoying debates around Joe Exotic or Carol Baskin, this is a time that NONE of us wanted to revisit.
And yet, here we are. We’ve got a rematch between the old grandpa who forgot where the remote went and the other grandpa who also forgot where it went while also going on a racist tangent because he saw one too many non-white people in Target. We once again have to choose between an unsalted Pringle and an overcooked sweet potato, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we find neither option appetizing.
For years, Joe Biden’s mental faculties have been a source of concern. Even before 2020, people on both sides raised questions about his age and whether he is fit to have the most demanding job on the planet. He often mumbles his way through speeches and frequently forgets pivotal information. According to a special counsel report, President Biden struggled to recall basic information such as when he was Vice President or when his son, Beau, died.
I don’t mean to sling mud, but stuff like this is legitimately concerning that the leader of the free world is having these cognitive issues and is now facing another four years. Biden will be 86 years old by the end of his second term. At that point, I’m less concerned by his cognitive abilities and more worried about the over 300 million Americans committing elder abuse by making him do such a stressful job at that age.
While Biden’s doctor said he was “fit for duty,” these memory issues are still clear to the American public. At the end of his term, Biden will have outlived all but seven presidents. With the cascade of clearly visible cognitive issues, especially after the special council report, how can the American people truly feel safe and secure keeping this man in the Oval Office for another four years?
You very well can say, “well, look at the other guy,” as if that’s supposed to assuage our concerns. Yes, I think Trump is much, much, much worse, but that does not mean that we should not hold the people we ideologically agree with to a high standard. Saying “look at the competition” doesn’t mean all of these concerns are just null and void because one person is worse than the other.
That said, Trump is no spring chicken, either. By the end of his second term, he would be 82 years old. Do not fret, however! He is a “very stable genius,” according to … himself. The right loves to pretend that Trump is this sharp and witty man who will say it like it is, but that is just not true.
According to The Washington Post, Trump made over 30,000 false or misleading statements in public throughout his presidency. That means that he was telling approximately 20 lies in public per DAY. Not even accounting for what he said about the 2020 election, Donald Trump consistently has had an issue with the truth when it’s not convenient to him.
In the 2016 election, he outright refused to accept the election results if Hillary Clinton won. After the election, he claimed millions of people illegally voted for Clinton with absolutely no evidence to back that up.
He’s forwarded conspiracies about Barack Obama’s and Kamala Harris’ citizenship, vaccines causing autism, wind turbines causing cancer, denying the existence of asbestos poisoning, the concept of global warming being created by the Chinese, Senator Ted Cruz’s father helping with the assassination of JFK and many more. Donald Trump and the truth are two things that are fundamentally opposed to each other.
He doesn’t “tell it how it is;” he constructs his own view of the world without evidence to show and then refuses to admit any wrongdoing. He may “say it like it is” but he refuses to SEE it like it really is.
We may all have concerns about Biden’s mental fortitude, but Trump’s is nothing to sneeze at either. The man can hardly ever keep a straight story, and now experts from Cornell and Harvard are expressing concern over Trump exhibiting early signs of dementia, which notably runs in his family.
Both of these men are not long for this world nor are they really that far apart in terms of age. Trump may make fun of Biden for being old, but he is only four years younger, and concerns over his cognitive abilities were raised all the way back in 2016 when he was first elected.
This is a rematch that absolutely no one besides CNN and FOX News wanted to see, and both of these candidates lend credibility to some very serious and valid concerns. I know we live in a polarized time, but we as a country need to hold our politicians to a higher standard and level of accountability, even if they are on the same ideological side as you.
The United States is currently suffering from what Jon Stewart describes as “electile dysfunction,” and I don’t think taking a giant Viagra will improve anything.
