Right-wing fake news groups flood the web with stories of Joe Biden's imagined decay, aided by only slight more nuanced "reporting" from the supposedly professional mainstream media (e.g., "blood came out of the president's eyes as he spoke"). So it's time to consider this major election year crisis in a bit of context. Strap in for a few profiles in courage and one very big profile in nonsense:
Nearly 50 million Americans live and sometimes thrive despite physical and mental disabilities. Our disabled population has included the past U.S. presidents listed below, and probably there are others we don't know about:
Dwight Eisenhower had a learning disability.
Abraham Lincoln lived with depression.
Woodrow Wilson has a series of major strokes while in office that effectively ended his ability to perform as president.
Chester A. Arthur fought nephritis but lost.
Grover Cleveland had an eventually fatal cancer.
James Madison had epilepsy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio in his 30s and while he could walk using braces and walking sticks,, he mostly was confined to a wheelchair while president, a fact that the U.S. press corps avoided photographing or talking about.
John F. Kennedy lived through many severe medical issues including Scarlet Fever, Addison's Disease, and severe, chronic back pain which eventually required surgery. Those and other ailments sometimes curtailed his duties as a U.S. senator and president.
Ronald Reagan developed severe Alzheimer's Disease while in office, a fact only revealed after he left public life.
Joe Biden has worked through problems associated with aging plus a lifelong stuttering problem. He has had regular cognitive tests as president. Results (last released in February 2024) show him aging gracefully but with typical octogenarian ailments including some neuropathy in his legs, which apparently contribute to his occasional stiff gait.
A former president not on the formal disabled list but who arguably should be: Donald Trump, who has insisted over the years that his doctors consider him in tip-top shape (belying his known diet and obvious weight problem) and that he while president in 2018 he "aced" a cognitive test, a fact not supported by documentation.
In recent months Felon45 has fallen asleep regularly while attending his New York criminal trial, and increasingly has made speeches filled with obvious errors and outright lack of cohesion or sensibility. Whether cognitive and routine medical exams have come to any conclusions regarding Trump's apparent narcissism, sociopathy, and other possible mental conditions is unclear; the Trump White House and Trump himself have refused to share full medical reports, apparently pursuing his train wreck of thought that confidential and classified government documents belong to him.
On July 8, Biden's White House physician in a memo released to news media shared results of February tests done on Biden. Excerpt:
“...An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. This exam did again support a finding of peripheral neuropathy in both feet. No motor weakness was detected. He exhibits no tremor, either at rest or with activity. He demonstrates excellent fine motor dexterity.
“… But a subtle difference in heat/cold sensation could be elicited as it was last year. This heat/cold sensation deficit was detected a couple of inches higher on his ankle/calf this year, which is not
unexpected. There may; in fact, be day to day subjective variation of these findings, as during last year’s exam, this area of sensation deficit was actually found to be smaller than the year before….”
I'm never going to be president, and I'm nearly a decade younger than Biden, but that report on him overlaps my own situation. I have good days and bad days physically, and I need prescription glasses and prescription meds for a raft of annoying or potentially deadly diseases; but I remain able to think critically. I can type, I can work out, and I can with a joyful noise dismiss my occasional, embarrassing moment of forgetfulness. Your mileage may vary, but once you get into your 60s and thereafter, don't count on it varying very much.