(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Frustration with the way Biden is dealing with the age issue [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-02-09 With the Special Counsel’s report out yesterday containing multiple comments about Biden’s age and lapses of memory, and the subsequent and predictable reaction all over the media and everywhere on social media questioning whether Biden is too old for the job, it reinforces something I’ve been thinking for months: Biden is doing a terrible job handling the age issue. Specifically, he’s doing almost nothing to deal with it at all! The impression I get is that he thinks people will just judge him by his accomplishments, and that everything else (or almost everything else) is his own private matter. For better or worse, when you’re POTUS it just does not work that way. For better or worse, a lot of people want their POTUS to be a rock star or some other lively and charismatic figure who can stir up the nation with heroic deeds and grand speeches, in addition to getting legislation passed. An 81-year-old typically does not cut it for that. The frustrating part is, us Biden fans know that, while he may be old, he is not feeble and senile. But that’s not what the majority of the populace believes, and if you’re doing nothing to dispel what that majority believes, they’re going to continue believing it. If you want to dispel what that majority believes, you’re going to have to prove to them that they’re wrong (or at least try to). But I don’t see Biden doing anything to attempt to do so. He may have his own good reasons for doing so, such as the aforementioned desire to keep his private life private, but if that is what his desire is he’s doing himself a huge disservice. If, in order to prove these people wrong, he needs to venture outside his comfort zone, then too bad, he should just learn to deal with it and expand that comfort zone. The first — and easiest — thing for him to do would be to dispel the “too fragile” myth. Most of us Biden fans know he works out regularly … so then why the hell isn’t he making a much bigger deal about that?!?! All we get to see is him occasionally riding a bicycle, and on the rare occasion he falls off the bike (as every biker does once in a while), all we hear in the media is that he fell off his bike, not that an 80-year-old was riding a bike in the first place! Check out the video below — only 5 months old — and note what he says at the 19 second mark: If an 80-year-old (at the time of the video) president is doing hour-and-a-half workouts, why in blazes is he not having the entire workout videotaped, and that video plastered all over his campaign website and social media?!?! *smacks head* If you click on the video title and read the comments below the video, you’ll notice a lot of people don’t even believe he did any kind of workout at all, and that the claim was just a lie! This is what he needs to address, but is not. People aren’t going just take your word for it that you work out, you’re going to need to show them that you do indeed work out! Here’s some ideas for things he really should be doing: He should make at least one video showing him doing an entire workout — an entire hour-and-a-half workout, explaining everything he’s doing before he does it, and why he does that particular exercise. If he’s got a trainer maybe the trainer could chime in with insights on each exercise. And then plaster this video all over his social media and campaign website, send out press releases and the whole shebang. Maybe he could make it into a sort-of “working out for seniors” video. Then after each exercise, say, “Let’s see Donald Trump do that.” #1 above is really just a bare minimum of what he should do. A better idea would be, every time he does a workout, invite maybe a half dozen or so members of the press, and turn the workout into a question-and-answer session while he’s working out. And encourage them to take videos of the whole thing. It would be a new kind of informal press conference/interview. He should make a whole series of campaign ads of him working out and bragging about his accomplishments while doing so. He could start them by saying, “People think I’m old and feeble, but ...” and then go into whatever he wants to brag about while lifting weights or riding his Peloton or whatever. And then end each video with, “Let’s see Donald Trump do that.” This next idea would be really cool and funny, though I’m not sure the House leadership would let him do it: For his State of the Union speech, bring some weights and a Peloton up next to the podium. He could start the speech by saying (with tongue firmly in cheek), “Now, first things first. I was so busy this morning working on this speech that I didn’t have time to do my usual workout. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be getting my workout in while delivering this speech.” And then he could give his entire speech while doing his exercises! This would be a great way to troll the “Biden is too old and feeble” crowd! The second part — the memory/cognition issue — is trickier to deal with but it can be done. I have no doubt that, if he and Donald Trump took the exact same memory or cognition test, Biden would trump Trump in the results. So instead of avoiding the issue and letting Trump get away with continually claiming Biden is senile, challenge Trump to whatever memory or cognition test(s) are out there, on the condition that each person taking the test must be videotaped taking it, and the results of both tests be made completely public. You can be sure Trump will avoid the challenge, so then all Biden has to do is to keep haranguing him about it. Trump and the whole right-wing media are continually harassing Biden about this issue, so what Biden needs to do is turn it on its head and do the same to Trump — but up the ante with a challenge. I’m sure there are other ways of dealing with the memory/cognition issue. But the point here is, there are indeed ways of dealing with it, but Biden is doing little or nothing about it. If he thinks he should stay above the fray on the issue by saying nothing, then whether he likes it or not people are going to keep believing something he does not want them to believe. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2024/2/9/2222460/-Frustration-with-the-way-Biden-is-dealing-with-the-age-issue?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/