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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Joe Biden

268 replies

Helendee · 23/07/2021 12:55

Genuinely interested in what people think of him and his presidency thus far. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Trump was considered lower than a worm’s privates on Mumsnet but there seems to be little or no excitement about JB, is he really that meh?

OP posts:
IncorrigibleTitmouse · 28/07/2021 18:35

@ZZTopGuitarSolo Bah! The northern utopia! I am constrained by DH's commitments. Even the most liberal city in TX is not that liberal... You'd never believe it to hear my neighbors complain though. Austin has been ruined and become Cuba, apparently... Grin

Warsawa31 · 28/07/2021 18:43

He seems like he is way to old and infirm to be carrying any kind of responsibility- trump was an egomaniac, Biden is just a puppet from what I've seen to be honest

sleepygnome · 28/07/2021 19:14

He's a complete joke but he's not Trump so everyone loves him.

ZZTopGuitarSolo · 28/07/2021 20:01

@Warsawa31

He seems like he is way to old and infirm to be carrying any kind of responsibility- trump was an egomaniac, Biden is just a puppet from what I've seen to be honest
I find this such a bizarre viewpoint. My stepfather is Biden's age. He goes on 15 mile mountain hikes, does the Telegraph cryptic crossword every day, has a very active social life, and often gives me excellent business advice.

I'm not sure why Biden being 78 automatically means he's old and infirm other than it's a rumour spread by the opposition and people have bought into it.

Zotter · 28/07/2021 20:02

A view his presidency as a time to breathe. Trump was open to dictatorship in my view.

mathanxiety · 28/07/2021 20:04

Have you lived in the states? I've lived in the USA and UK... Much much higher quality of live in USA than in UK. Don't feel sorry for americans, they are richer, with bigger homes, more of basically everything, and much higher quality of life.

@Shelddd
I've been in the US since Ronald Reagan was president. I'm sitting here in my armchair right now, considering the possibility that you may well have spent your time in the US in some beige suburb a long way from the lives and too early, often violent, deaths of millions of Americans.

I've lived through trickle down economics and I've seen the so-called benefits. I've seen the big city next door to me collapse under the combined weight of lack of funding for public housing and the 'war on black families drugs'. I've seen the rich get considerably richer and the poor stay exactly the same, only with fewer supermarkets serving them in their neighbourhoods.

My son worked for a while in a medical clinic serving mainly the elderly poor on Medicaid. He saw people with very limited education who migrated from the deep south in their youth, who worked manual jobs all their lives, who have no pensions, who depend on paltry social security payments and food stamps, whose struggling bodies told a story of poor nutrition, lack of health care when they were younger, lack of dental care, lack of attention to mental health, stress and anxiety, and lack of time off jobs to see doctors when they were ill - people suffering from the cumulative effects of longstanding dire poverty, high blood pressure, diabetes, mental illnesses, asthma, heart disease, and problems associated with life in rodent infested, roach infested housing, including bed bugs. The medical office had to call Terminix frequently.

I live 10-15 minutes on foot from the impoverished neighbourhood of the city where those poor people live, and I might as well live on another planet. There is open air prostitution, drug dealing, drive by shootings, car-jackings. The area houses more registered sex offenders than any other neighbourhoods in the city. The schools suck. There's gang graffiti everywhere, liquor stores that sell a few overpriced groceries as well as alcohol instead of supermarkets. There are swathes of empty lots where there were once solid old brick apartment buildings. There are miles and miles of neighbourhoods like this in the city. There are hundreds of thousands of little boys playing on the sidewalks today who are guaranteed to spend a portion of their lives behind bars.

I feel very sorry for Americans, because there will be a reckoning for the crushing of the poor.

Zotter · 28/07/2021 20:04

Typo above, should be ‘I view’ not ‘a view.’

Reading this week law enforcement officers describing fearing for their lives during the January attack on the US Capitol was chilling.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/27/house-us-capitol-attack-investigation-pelosi-republicans-boycott?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Zotter · 28/07/2021 20:08

Thanks mathsanxiety for your informative comments. I fear U.K. govt since 2010 is taking us down a similar path. Less and less for the poor and disabled.

mathanxiety · 28/07/2021 20:10

I'm not sure why Biden being 78 automatically means he's old and infirm other than it's a rumour spread by the opposition and people have bought into it.

This^^

I think there's a good deal of rumour-spreading on this thread actually.

Either that or several people here frequent websites where rumours are spread and have not spent much time on critical analysis of what they have read there.

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 28/07/2021 20:14

I'm not sure why Biden being 78 automatically means he's old and infirm other than it's a rumour spread by the opposition and people have bought into it.

For me, it’s nothing to do with his age, it’s the fact he doesn’t seem to be able to formulate sentences or keep a thought in his head.

I’d be equally concerned if he was 45 and displaying this level of confusion.

mathanxiety · 28/07/2021 20:29

I would love to know what coverage of Biden y'all are watching. Many of you seem so sure of your facts.

theconversation.com/faked-videos-shore-up-false-beliefs-about-bidens-mental-health-145975

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 28/07/2021 21:59
AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 28/07/2021 22:05

I saw some of the live stream of this press conference and I’ll just say, the BBC editing is very charitable here

Shelddd · 28/07/2021 22:05

[quote mathanxiety]I would love to know what coverage of Biden y'all are watching. Many of you seem so sure of your facts.

theconversation.com/faked-videos-shore-up-false-beliefs-about-bidens-mental-health-145975[/quote]
It's more about mental cognition than health. He clearly isn't all there. To say otherwise just shows your heavy heavy bias.

mathanxiety · 28/07/2021 23:18

www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2021/03/25/bidens-first-press-conference-gets-quick-reactions/?sh=7a51d81ed4a2

Timely reminder on bias here...

More than 80 million people voted for this man who is apparently so lacking in the mental cognition department, despite multiple TV appearances, interviews on the campaign trail, several TV debates, and Trump-generated comment on his cognition. It seems 80 something million people disagree with you.

mathanxiety · 29/07/2021 00:24

The complete press conference is here, unlike the heavily edited piece posted at 21:59:51. It's one hour and five minutes long. You will see the difference between the previous very puzzling video and this one.

The BBC piece was a long way from 'charitable'. The musical accompaniment, the weird captioning wrt reporters names and other details - wtf? The attempt to portray him as some sort of clown?

First time presidential press conferences always feature a list of reporters' names, and the president calls on reporters by name. Presidential press conferences all tend to be stage managed.

The caption 'Called..from a list of names' as if this was something strange is an example of the BBC being unfamiliar with how the US works.

As to 'He relied heavily on notes' - after four years of a president who pulled his remarks to reporters straight out of his ass and wouldn't recognise a fact if it jumped up and punched him in the face, it's refreshing to return to a president willing and able to offer facts, figures, and responses based on reality.

You should expect better from a news organisation once renowned for its rigour. Clearly its glory days are long behind it.

UsedUpUsername · 29/07/2021 06:36

@mathanxiety

I'm not sure why Biden being 78 automatically means he's old and infirm other than it's a rumour spread by the opposition and people have bought into it.

This^^

I think there's a good deal of rumour-spreading on this thread actually.

Either that or several people here frequent websites where rumours are spread and have not spent much time on critical analysis of what they have read there.

It’s not a rumour. Joe has been in politics for a long time. We know how he (used to) speak. He was actually quite eloquent. And his gaffes were sort of dorky and lovable, not confusing as they are now.

Just because you think he’s gone through a mental decline doesn’t mean you’re GOP. It’s disappointing people insist on framing it this way

AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken · 29/07/2021 07:05

@mathanxiety

The complete press conference is here, unlike the heavily edited piece posted at 21:59:51. It's one hour and five minutes long. You will see the difference between the previous very puzzling video and this one.

The BBC piece was a long way from 'charitable'. The musical accompaniment, the weird captioning wrt reporters names and other details - wtf? The attempt to portray him as some sort of clown?

First time presidential press conferences always feature a list of reporters' names, and the president calls on reporters by name. Presidential press conferences all tend to be stage managed.

The caption 'Called..from a list of names' as if this was something strange is an example of the BBC being unfamiliar with how the US works.

As to 'He relied heavily on notes' - after four years of a president who pulled his remarks to reporters straight out of his ass and wouldn't recognise a fact if it jumped up and punched him in the face, it's refreshing to return to a president willing and able to offer facts, figures, and responses based on reality.

You should expect better from a news organisation once renowned for its rigour. Clearly its glory days are long behind it.

He was very slow and many of his answers trailed off to nothing. I found it to be rambling and difficult to grasp his points at times. Not in the usual evasive politician way, but in a way that makes it seem (to me) that even he has lost track of both the question and his answer. I think it’s clear he isn’t as sharp of mind as he once was.

You’re more than welcome to disagree of course but that’s how I see it.

Imagine he came to interview at your place of work and he answered the questions like this. He wouldn’t get the job. Yet here he is, a world leader!

How about instead of comparing him to an equally terrible president, you compare him to one of the better ones? Why are you accepting “not the worst” as a leader of the world?

It’s bizarre

ZZTopGuitarSolo · 29/07/2021 13:54

It’s not a rumour. Joe has been in politics for a long time. We know how he (used to) speak. He was actually quite eloquent. And his gaffes were sort of dorky and lovable, not confusing as they are now.

How odd that you seem to assume you’re the only person on this thread who has paid attention to US politics over the last few decades.

UsedUpUsername · 29/07/2021 16:43

@ZZTopGuitarSolo

It’s not a rumour. Joe has been in politics for a long time. We know how he (used to) speak. He was actually quite eloquent. And his gaffes were sort of dorky and lovable, not confusing as they are now.

How odd that you seem to assume you’re the only person on this thread who has paid attention to US politics over the last few decades.

I know there are Americans here as well as British expats. Not sure what in my post made you believe otherwise.

But there are people here that cannot accept that he is obviously not as mentally sharp as he used to be (and we have videos to pretty much confirm that).

I don’t know why you can’t just admit it. It’s not a stutter. It’s not gaffes. He gets easily confused and lost mid-sentence. He has less control over his anger, and lashes out at reporters. He never had a reputation for any of this before.

ZZTopGuitarSolo · 29/07/2021 17:15

Certainly on this thread we have lots of doctored videos that reinforce the rumour. I've been watching his speeches, debates, etc for years, and I voted for him perfectly happily based on his recent performance, as did millions of other Americans. Perhaps you're just seeing what you want to see.

UsedUpUsername · 29/07/2021 17:24

Just because you voted for him doesn’t mean you should ignore obvious mental decline.

plodalong12 · 29/07/2021 17:28

There’s a number of these videos on YouTube, in different cities/states. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first watched one, I had no idea (poor) America looked like this. To the poster who said the UK has a lower quality of life, well, that’s your opinion but I’ve never seen such desolation like this anywhere in the UK

mustlovegin · 29/07/2021 17:45

I find it a relief to not have US politics shoved in my face endlessly

Of course they still are, it's just more subtle and underhand e.g. identity politics

ZZTopGuitarSolo · 29/07/2021 17:57

@UsedUpUsername

Just because you voted for him doesn’t mean you should ignore obvious mental decline.
I voted for him because there was no evidence of obvious mental decline, having watched a lot of US politics very closely over the last few decades.

There was on the other hand an enormous campaign by the right wing to spread a rumour of decline, both physical and mental, using carefully edited videos, exploiting his stammer, and generally undermining confidence - his debate performances and press conferences quickly dispelled those for those of us paying close attention.