I’m beginning to be persuaded that the Trump years are just an elaborate skit by SNL.
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We really need an eye roll reaction emoji.
No, thank you.
Relevant and a very good article that. I realise that he is very ill now and that this is the “let us protect him” phase, but facts are facts and what happened happened, despite defensive spin that will now come out (Stewart does it in funny way to his credit, though). The situation was terrible and the end of his presidency was beyond horrible. A shameful end.
I google translated it of course.
Unfortunately, a few words get mangled, such as the headline (The Norwegian word dekk becomes tire, while it should be translated to cover etc.).
Crucial take aways:
“This is increasingly emerging as one of the most serious cover-ups by any presidential administration in recent times,” says Professor Hilmar Mjelde.
And no, this isn’t a right wing guy, but a pretty good political scientist from Norway who is a liberal.
But Trump is almost as old, so he comments:
– Is the US at risk of history repeating itself?
– We definitely cannot trust Trump’s medical reports, says Mjelde, recalling how Trump in his first presidential term [was far sicker]( from Covid than the public was told, says Mjelde.
– We should never trust anything the White House says about the health of a sitting president. The staff has strong incentives to mislead us. If the world thinks the president is out of illness, America’s enemies could strike.
And so on.
Instead, in the US media, it’s Dems (protect Biden) against GOP (literally try to kill him).
US MSM is not serious and unable to deal with such an important matter due to partisan group think…
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Personally, I find the spin now being unleashed from non-GOP alligned US MSM revolting (yeah, of course the GOP-alligned media is worse, but that doesn’t matter). The man (a very elderly one that got to live a long fulfilling life) is dying, let him die in dignity. And perhaps be a bit kind to him while he still is alive.
But I lost my father to cancer when I was 11. I lost my stephfather, who only moved in when I was 18, when I was 20.
My beloved uncle, a far better man than Biden, has terminal cancer. His skeleton is full of cancer. He doesn’t have the sharp elbows a man like Biden must have to rise to ultimate power in the super competative US. He is kind and thoughtful, and engineer. His daughter my cousin, just had her first baby. He will not live to see him become an adult. At family events, he looks at his baby grandchild with a deep silent look. No one says anything, but it is clear what he is thinking (he gets angry if I ask him about his illness, he doesn’t want to talk about it).
I cannot take this awful historical revisionism. I just cannot. It is cynical and it is not honest. Social pornography even.
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I am so sorry @Magnus 
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Thank you.
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I feel like I am living in a parallel universe with this story. His age and the diminishment that comes with that was the biggest knock on his candidacy in 2020, but when compared against Trump was viewed as a trade off worth making. Concerns about it stayed with him through all of his presidency, was acknowledged as a key factor in his inability to get his approval ratings up, and this and the public’s concern over it was widely and extensively covered by the press. That only increased once he announced his intention to run for reelection. The public’s acknowledgement of it being an issue was something they were unusually clear on both in terms of numbers and consistency, and again the press was all over that. To the point of only one candidate being examined for fitness for office.
I genuinely don’t know what is supposed to be revisionist about any of this. Almost no one liked him trying to run again, but nonetheless many were willing to vote for a guy who was likely to die in office rather than allow Trump back in if that was our only reasonable option. I think what feels revisionist is the positioning of this book and that dialogue around of that pragmatic attitude to the choices available as being a lack of acceptance of the reality of Biden’s age from the people who supported him.
I think where this book has real legs is on the betrayal to the country, to the party, and even to Biden’s legacy, of the inner circle who tried to shield him and prop him up. I think there is angle here to be explored of how it reveals that parties are not actually the powerful entities they are commonly understood to be and the Hobson’s choice an unpopular president presents for members of his party when he tries to run for reelection - you can stand up to challenge them but you’re likely to lose and in challenging them make it more likely they lose in the general. Is there value in giving back more power to the party to prevent situations like this? How do the Dems balance that against their mission to “protect democracy” and not the public see this (incorrectly) as a contradiction? I understand that version of the book doesnt have the same mainstream appeal as one that says “the press failed you but the Dems are worse”, and the fact they are positioning the way they are feels very cynical to me.
But with that said, given how grave and selfish a decision it was to try to run again and the awful situation it put the party in, positioning his cancer diagnosis as an ode to resilience and not giving up to be in poor taste. There are ways we can respond to this unfortunate news without holding up what in the end was a vice for him as a virtue to now be celebrated in his ill health
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What do you think about my article ?
What do you disagree with ? That I use the word revisionism ? I do, because there are clear attempt at making his legacy significantly better than it is, in my view (much of it because he is now terminally ill, some of it because the other guy is way worse). I was hardly referring to the Age-Question as being “revisionist”. As the article states, his age was covered extensively by the media, albeit there was a clear Cover Up by the White House which can hardly be denied.
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If it is true, it is likely not a political directive, but the company’s leadership clamping down either for marketing reasons or because it’s board hates what he is doing.
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At least it’s not cancel culture, Trump cancelled that
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Don’t want to be cruel, but I find it kind of difficult to feel a lot of empathy for these folks above.
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