Media is gaslighting you about Biden’s obvious signs of decline. Here’s why it won’t work
The Left’s media narrative factory is working overtime on its latest and greatest attempt at gaslighting.
OK, here it is, here’s the whopper you have to believe to be an ally of “our democracy” in good standing: President Joe Biden is fit as a fiddle, yes siree.
All those videos you’ve seen of him staring into space, moving awkwardly, falling, garbling words, shaking hands with the air, forgetting names, describing recent conversations with people who’ve been dead for years, and being led around by handlers like a child? Just fake news.
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Here’s White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters Monday that every video you’ve seen of the president looking “frail” and “confused” is nothing but a “cheap fake.” (This was an apparent spin on a “deepfake,” a digitally enhanced video that’s hard to distinguish from reality.)
Jean-Pierre quotes The Washington Post, supposedly to debunk these videos and never actually says that they’ve been digitally altered. How convincing.
I think I’ll personally start using “cheap fake” as a new-fashioned phrase to replace “Orwellian.” It now means that a regime apparatchik is telling me I need to stop believing in something I can clearly see with my own eyes but is demanding I turn off my brain to ignore it.
It couldn’t be more obvious that the White House and its Democrat media allies think that Biden’s health issues — I know I’m not supposed to say that, but bear with me here in the realm of reality — are a big problem politically.
They also know that the crisis is escalating. Sure, sometimes Biden seems sort of all right, but even at his best, the president is noticeably slower than he was a few years ago, even six months ago. The number of odd incidents seems to be growing.
First, The Wall Street Journal published a lengthy, damning piece in early June highlighting that Biden has shown signs of slipping “behind closed doors.”
Now I know what you’re thinking: “What, he hasn’t been showing signs of slipping in public?”
Obviously, he has. Biden’s declining health has been a problem since he ran for president in 2020. It’s been worsening since then, as age-related decline is wont to do.
But when The Wall Street Journal weighs in, it’s different. It’s a signal that media elites no longer can ignore or dismiss the problem outright.
Biden’s media friends went into attack mode in an attempt to smear the Journal, of course, along with pretty much anyone who would dare suggest that something is wrong with the president.
But the bad news kept coming. New videos of Biden behaving strangely have surfaced almost daily.
At an early Juneteenth celebration June 10 outside the White House, the president appeared to be frozen in place with a bizarre grin while everyone around him danced.
Biden looked particularly bad at events in France commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which took place just days after the Journal published its piece.
In one instance, Biden seems to be hesitantly moving to sit down during a ceremony with French President Emmanuel Macron and awkwardly freezing in place. The Associated Press, bless its heart, appears to have a “contextualize all the times Biden looks weird and ancient” beat; the wire service fact-checked video of the incident.
Does the fact that Biden was trying to sit in a chair rather than no chair matter much here?
The problem is that he seemed to hover in a semi-squat onstage for an absurdly long time. He doesn’t look right and anyone watching it can tell.
It got worse.
In another video that went viral, Biden and a group of other world leaders are observing military parachutists land all around them. Biden suddenly wanders off before being gently brought back to the group by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Biden’s media white knights leaped in to “correct” the record, saying that Biden actually wandered off to talk to parachutists just out of the camera shot and that the New York Post and other media outlets were “liars!” for posting the videos without that context.
But the media’s contextualizing doesn’t really make the situation look any better. The problem isn’t just that Biden often seems to wander. It’s the way he wanders and the reactions of those around him.
Then came, in my mind, the most damning and symbolic video.
At a big Democrat Party fundraiser over the weekend, Biden seemed to freeze again onstage. Was he just basking in the adulation and applause of the crowd? I guess that’s one interpretation.
But the weird pause is not the biggest problem here. What makes this video really stick out is the way former President Barack Obama, who many suspect really pulls the strings in the White House, takes Biden by the wrist and essentially leads him offstage like a child.
Anyone who has been around people who are elderly or in physical and mental decline understands what’s happening. Those around Biden are trying subtly to aid the president without embarrassing him, but the signs are hard to hide.
The issue is that Biden isn’t just any average retiree in his twilight years. He’s expected to be the president of the United States, who has awesome responsibilities and whose judgment may decide the fate of millions.
Yet the White House and corporate media are saying, “Don’t let your lying eyes deceive you. He’s fine, I tell you.”
Here’s MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace, parroting Jean-Pierre as she argues that videos of Biden looking awful are all just a product of “right-wing media” that selectively edit videos to mislead viewers.
But there’s no evidence of actual tampering in any of these videos, and in some — like the Obama/Biden one — the full, wide shot looks worst of all.
Biden partisans are even trying to turn the tables by saying that former President Donald Trump is the one who looks old and unwell. Many point out that Trump is only three years younger than Biden, so any age concerns about Biden also should apply to Trump.
But much to the media’s frustration, few are buying that. Not everyone ages the same way. For whatever reason, Biden is slipping sooner. It’s not hard to figure out.
That’s why this whole thing is so devastating and why the Left’s gaslighting about Biden’s condition isn’t catching on. This isn’t a matter of policy or ideas, where one can turn to lies or sophistry to delude the public.
You don’t need to be a constitutional lawyer or a policy wonk to see that Biden is in steep physical and mental decline.
If Biden looks this bad in public, you can bet that the problem is much worse in private, as The Wall Street Journal reported.
It’s why Republicans in Congress are right to demand the audio tapes of Biden’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur over his possession of classified documents from his years as a senator and vice president. Hur decided not to bring charges against Biden because he is an “elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties.”
Just how diminished is he?
Given the demands on a modern American president, we should be concerned. If Biden really is out to lunch, then who is really running the executive branch?
The American people have a right to know.
Originally published at The Daily Signal.
