The disastrous performance of Joe Biden during the first televised debate with Donald Trump has brought the issue of the very poor mental clarity shown by the current American president into the spotlight. Many journalists and commentators have suddenly become aware of a problem that is not new at all but that, in fact, has been on the table since before Biden take office in the White House in January 2021.
In May 2019, confused in public Theresa May with Margaret Thatcherwhile – in February 2020 – he did the same, exchanging Xi Jinping For Deng Xiaoping. Not only that. During the same 2020, Biden was wrong, claiming he was running for Senate rather than President of the United States. Also that year, the then Democratic candidate did not remember the name of Mitt Romney: the Republican who, in 2012, had challenged that Barack Obama of which Biden himself was vice president. It is no coincidence that during 2020, the question arose as to why the current president had not undergone a cognitive test, to dispel doubts about his mental condition. In August of that year, a journalist from CBS he asked him specifically if he had taken that exam: a question to which Biden he replied piquedly, “No, I didn’t take a test. Why the hell would I?”
All this to say that obvious problems had already clearly emerged before the 2020 elections. Then, after the inauguration, the situation gradually worsened: from falls on the steps of Air Force One to frequent slips, passing through various moments in which the president appeared disoriented. In 2022, for example, during a ceremony for the twelfth anniversary of theObamacare, Biden he suddenly appeared disoriented and confused.
Yet, the topic of his mental clarity has always been either hushed up or downplayed by a certain press. And to say that it was a question of decisive importance. An American president remains in office at least four years: which is why it is important to understand if a presidential candidate has any problems in terms of health (especially mental). It is not a matter of making inferences, but of simply respecting the duty to report. Some argue that, in the absence of an official medical report, one cannot speak or hypothesize about the presence of any illnesses. A somewhat paradoxical thesis, this.
Of course, in the absence of a medical report it is not correct to attribute a certain type of medical problem to someone. However, it should be the duty of a journalist to take note of objectively worrying symptoms and behaviors by a public figure, on whom – due to the role he or she holds or is about to hold – an important part of the world’s destinies depends. Limiting oneself to saying that everything is fine because the White House says so, instead means relying completely on the news that comes from the press offices, pretending to ignore that the press offices have an interest in fueling certain narratives to the detriment of others. Here, in 2019 and 2020 it would have been enough to pay the right attention to the worrying behaviors of Bidenwithout risking diagnoses or specific medical hypotheses. It would have been enough to describe those behaviors as they appeared rather than hushing them up or minimizing them. Many have chosen to do the opposite. And now they pretend to be surprised by what emerged from Thursday’s televised debate.
