-7

(Apologies in advance for the extensive quoting, but it’s necessary, as the text is otherwise unavailable.)

In response to the question Why do Americans consider Biden to be too old for president, but not Trump?, I wrote:

“Age” here is a euphemism. Biden’s problems are associated with age, but not inherent in it. Many people much older than him are more fit for public office.

Biden is suffering severe cognitive decline. He misstates people’s names, even when their names are printed on the teleprompter in front of him; he forgets that people have died; he loses his train of thought in the middle of sentences; he constantly has to be guided by aides; he loses his temper over minor slights. Unkind Youtubers have put together long “greatest hits” videos of these problems.

The major media, either out of bias or compassion, have avoided obviously applicable terms like “senility” and “dementia”; since they have conspicuously not avoided terms like “narcissism” and “mania” with Trump, many people including myself suspect bias.

Moderator JJJ responded with

I'm going to delete this per the harmful political content policy of our code of conduct. You make serious allegations which you have not backed up by evidence. Further, we do not allow discriminatory content towards someone's disability (in this case Biden's stutter).

and did in fact (with assent of Joe W) delete my answer. All undeleted answers are some variation of “bias” and “irrationality”.

As for “serious allegations which [I] have not backed up by evidence”, obviously, each of those allegations were based on well-known public events for which I could have, if given the opportunity, and can now, if asked, give complete video evidence, as I alluded.

As for “discriminatory content”, I never referred to Biden having a stutter. I didn’t know at the time that it was claimed he had a stutter and don’t believe it now*. Like 72% of Americans, I am willing to acknowledge aloud that he appears to have senile dementia.

Given the events of the last few days, I think it is almost undisputed that

  1. Biden does have some serious organic condition that raises concerns about his fitness for office
  2. Attempts not just to deny the first fact but to suppress any mention of it are harmful to the democratic process

* To clarify, I have no opinion on whether he ever had a stutter. I do know he has not spoken with a significant stutter while he has been president — perhaps he had one and overcame it — and his problems are unconnected to any speech defect.

Followup: at the prompting of the “moderator” JJJ, I added video citation for each of my statements and submitted my answer for un-deleting. Surprisingly I have received no response whatsoever.

12
  • 7
    My point still stands: your answer makes serious allegations which you don't back up with evidence. In your current post you write "given the events of the last few days" presumably referring to the debate performance last week. However, you ask for an apology for deleting your answer 6 months ago. At any point you can edit your deleted answer to add reference and flag it for moderator attention.
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Jul 3 at 17:36
  • 1
    @jjj — as I alluded to in the original question and stated in this one, I certain can back up allegations almost everyone knew then and admits now to be true. Would doing so get that answer undeleted? Can I assume from your tone that an apology, both for your false allegations of ableism against me and for your minor participation in denialism that brought this country into crisis, will not be forthcoming? Commented Jul 3 at 17:57
  • 6
    Answers that meet the community standard are generally undeleted, yes. If you edit and flag your answer I'll leave it to another mod to decide on that given that you've called me out by name and you accuse me of bias. As for apologizing, I don't see why you are owed an apology. In my view, the answer does not meet the community standards. That's why I deleted it in the first place. Note how your comment, too, refers to allegations. Try to stick to the facts and back them up with references. Saying "almost everyone knew then" doesn't help visitors to the question because it's unverifiable.
    – JJJ Mod
    Commented Jul 3 at 18:22
  • @JJJ — you called me ableist. You can claim that you were foolish rather than biased, but you did it, and you should apologize. (Presumably you are not going to repeat the “he has a stutter / he has a cold / he was jetlagged” plea that has been so widely mocked.). Commented Jul 3 at 18:41
  • @jjj - As for the “community standards” the accepted answer makes six allegation (with bullets), none of which comes with any supporting evidence. Apparently, calling Trump fat and claiming it makes him look more young and vigorous is up to standard but mentioning a fact covered in the New York Times does not. If not, you can delete it. Commented Jul 3 at 18:42
  • 3
    "I never referred to Biden having a stutter. I didn’t know at the time that it was claimed he had a stutter and don’t believe so now" You don't believe he has a stutter..? It's been documented in newsprint since the mid 1980s (via Snopes)
    – bertieb
    Commented Jul 8 at 12:46
  • @bertieb — I have learned (since) that it has been claimed he has a stutter, but as I say, I don’t believe it. I know what a stutter sounds like, and that’s not it. Stuttering doesn’t make you wander away like a toddler; it doesn’t make you think dead people are alive. I believe — as does 80% of the country — that Biden has a degenerative neurological condition, and perhaps his difficulties with speaking were an early harbinger of that. Commented Jul 9 at 6:53
  • 3
    I'm not sure why you included anything past the first sentence, that's not what I was asking as your post makes your opinion about him in 2024 quite clear; I asked the question to clarify as it seemed you were saying in your post that you do not believe Biden has or has ever had a stutter, which it seems you actually don't (if you don't believe it's relevant to his performance today that's a different thing)
    – bertieb
    Commented Jul 9 at 9:50
  • @bertieb — I wouldn’t go so far as to assert Biden has never had a stutter. I haven’t heard him stutter, but he started speaking in public before I was born, so maybe I missed a stutter here or there. What I am saying is the hundreds of gaffes, slips, lapses, falls, and failures that I have observed have nothing to do with any putative stutter. Commented Jul 9 at 18:43
  • 1
    That's quite a different thing, and as such you may wish to consider amending your post as it currently reads like you don't believe he has a stutter at all. That would raise interesting questions about how you regard reporting (which for that dates back around four decades) since it would have implications about what you consider meeting referential standards- and in so doing distract from the actual point you want to make
    – bertieb
    Commented Jul 9 at 21:58
  • @bertieb — I have made an edit that might clarify the text. Commented Jul 10 at 22:13
  • Thanks for clarifying
    – bertieb
    Commented Jul 11 at 11:29

2 Answers 2

1

I didn’t know at the time that it was claimed he had a stutter and don’t believe it now.

This sounds a lot like Trump claiming Biden never had Covid. I'm not sure why you expect an apology, let alone undeletion for content like this.

Anyhow, your claims of prescience etc. aren't that impressive. What people believe/see now and what they saw a year ago can be pretty different. E.g.:

During the Group of Seven nations summit in Italy last month, several European leaders came away stunned at how much older the president seemed from when they had last interacted with him only a year or, in some cases, mere months earlier, several officials familiar with their reactions said. “People were worried about it,” said one person familiar with leaders’ reactions.

Aging is gradual process. And so are the related illnesses. The chance e.g. of getting Alhzeimer's is some 33% at 85 compared to about 5% a decade earlier.

8
  • “This sounds a lot like Trump claiming Biden never had Covid.” So? I don’t believe that Biden has a stutter because I can listen to him speak and he doesn’t stutter. I don’t know what leads Trump to believe that Biden never had Covid, and I don’t care, but it’s not clear why the legitimacy of my statement is lessened by someone else’s different statement. Commented Jul 25 at 18:41
  • “your claims of prescience etc. aren't that impressive” If I were claiming to be prescient, I would have no criticism of people who disbelieved me: most or all claims of prescience are false. In fact, I was simply saying aloud what everyone knew then and admits now to be true. Commented Jul 25 at 18:43
  • @MichaelLorton: "he doesn’t stutter". Apparently he stutters enough for Trump attack/imitate him on that "Then he turned to mocking Mr. Biden, mumbling unintelligibly and saying, “Bring the country t-t-t-t-together.”" nytimes.com/2024/03/11/us/politics/… If you want to make or test extraordinary claims [like yours], you should try Skeptics SE. Commented Jul 25 at 18:48
  • @MichaelLorton: he also stuttered multiple times during the famous debate with Trump, according to observers theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/biden-debate-stutter/… Although that was, of course, not the only performance problem Biden had, on that occasion. Commented Jul 25 at 19:05
  • Again, I want to make this clear: I am not Donald Trump. I believe what I believe; Trump believes what Trump believes. I have heard hours and hours of Biden talking, and he doesn’t seem to stammer more than most people. He loses his train of thought, forgets people’s names, makes absurd claims, talks unintelligible nonsense, and misstates the causes of death of loved ones more than most people. Commented Jul 25 at 19:09
  • But all this is a side-issue. Maybe he does stutter. I’m not a speech pathologist. The point is his “performance problem”, and the fact that the performance is, basic thinking and speaking. Commented Jul 25 at 19:16
  • @MichaelLorton: the issue is that you've been claiming [in some of you mainspace comments] that Biden has been showing signs of 'severe dementia' since 2019, but alas that was not seen as such by the electorate then. So, your theory needs some revising, unless you want to claim you're some outstanding medical professional who can diagnose such things over the internet. Commented Jul 26 at 12:09
  • He has been showing signs since 2019. I don’t know whether “the electorate” could not see them or saw them and found them less worrying than his opponent’s own issues. As for revising my “theory”, I don’t know what theory you are talking about, unless you mean Biden’s intellectual decline, which is a theory in the way that the moon-landing or the Sandy Hook attack is a theory: only disputed by a few eccentrics and conspiracy theorists. Commented Jul 26 at 16:36
-2

Apology? No. Undelete? Maybe.

Regarding the remaining issue, whether stating that Joe Biden's brain is a mush is "harmful political content", my view is that it isn't. It may not be true, but it is not "political misinformation" nor a "widely disproven allegation". Furthermore, I believe the policy is meant to protect vulnerable lower-level politicians for whom misinformation spread on politics.SE may be harmful. Biden, being the most powerful person on earth, does not need that protection and speculations about his mental state should be tolerated.

4
  • Why no apology then? They should apologize to StackExchange generally for a politically motivated deletion (you notice that the misinformation policy was not used to protect Trump in the other answers to the same question) and to me for calling me ableist. Commented Jul 4 at 14:15
  • 2
    It's possible Biden's recent behavior has a medical condition behind it. It is also possible it does not. For example, Sanjay Gupta wrote a piece with that sentiment. So you can say you have evidence, but that evidence doesn't support the conclusion you draw, which is that he certainly has dementia. Commented Jul 9 at 20:49
  • @DoubtingThomas3005 — Gupta’s piece does not have that sentiment. Indeed, beside a medical condition, what explanation for Biden’s “confused rambling; sudden loss of concentration in the middle of a sentence; halting speech and absence of facial animation, resulting at times in a flat, open-mouthed expression” could there possibly be? It might not be dementia, but whatever it is, it’s a problem. Commented Jul 10 at 22:20
  • @DoubtingThomas3005 — a responsible scientist would not assert something he could not prove but... what is your alternative theory? Is there an explanation for confused rambling, sudden loss of concentration, halting speech, and absence of facial animation that is not “something deeper”? It’s just a coincidence? Commented Jul 12 at 14:19

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .