So, should we not believe our "lying eyes" then?
Anyone who has a memory longer than 10 years sees the decline.
We heard all of the excuses
"Oh, well, he was always a gaffe machine, so this is nothing new"
--no he wasn't, in fact, he was a very good public speaker, and very alert, and could put on a commanding performance back in the day, the videos below will prove that
"It's because he had a stutter"
--oh really? The kind that goes away for 65 years, then miraculously comes back with a rapid onset when he turns 79? (and isn't even really a stutter)
Here's a bit of a "throwback" just to refresh everyone's memories.
Here's Joe back in the day (Peak Biden):
Here's Joe as recently as the 2012 Vice Presidential Debate. (still a very solid speaker)
Here was the Joe we saw over the past few years (confused, rambling, losing his words, and looking like a deer in the headlights)
What surprises me is that people are acting like it's a "wild theory" or "controversial" to suggest that he was experiencing cognitive decline.
Studies suggest that 40-45% of people experience cognitive decline when they reach age 75. That percentage goes even higher at age 80. It's not as if people were suggesting some sort of 1 in a million edge case scenario here. They were just suggesting that he was experiencing something that half of people his age experience.
The DNC realized this as well. If "Biden is fine" was the prevailing thought among the DNC, they wouldn't have pushed him aside to swap him for Harris a few months before the election.
What, do you think that the DNC's first choice was to have to switch candidates at the last minute with very little prep time?