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I think it is different, 16 year olds have no experience, limited knowledge of the world, and under developed pre frontal lobes. You want experienced leaders with wisdom, much more than inexperienced leaders with a lack of wisdom, they aren't equivalent
Yes, it's obviously a different scenario. The risks are different. But, along with wisdom, you want presidents to be alive.
When Biden took office in 2020, he was 78. The government's actuarial tables say that there was basically a 50/50 chance he'd make it 8 years.
Having survived 4 years, if he's elected again he'll be 82. The actuarial tables say he'll probably still be alive at the end of his term, but he might not make it to the next set of midterms.
Now, Biden is in good health. With his health and the great medical care he gets, he'll probably do better than the actuarial tables say. I'd say the odds are good he'll outlive Trump, even if he's an older man. But, it seems reckless to put a guy into office when there's a very decent chance he'll be dead before the end of his term.
Then there's the matter of his mental sharpness. There are strong signs it's fading. President is mostly a job about delegation, but still, you need to make some decisions, and at least understand what it is you're delegating. Trump, again, is probably as bad or worse, but it doesn't seem good to trust a guy with clearly fading mental abilities to a stressful job that benefits from a sharp mind.
If we all trusted his VP to step in and run things well if there were a problem, that would be one thing, but her approval ratings are even worse than his. Sometimes that happens when a president doesn't want the VP to steal the spotlight. But, in this case you'd think both Biden and Harris would benefit from everybody thinking that she's doing a lot of work, doing it extremely well, and could easily step in as president.
Also, I'm not convinced there are strong signs his mental acuity is degrading. Everything people point out are things Biden had been doing for decades, or since birth. The amount of times I've seen people say look, he is cognitively impaired because he can't get his words out! The guy has had a stutter his whole life, he mixes up some facts here and they're, he's been doing that forever. Memory and cognitive specialists don't seem to think he has some growing problem (see On the Media show this week).. So what are these strong signs, except for the media publishing no led than 45 articles about this, with no facts to justify them?
I think it's clear that he's not as sharp as he was 30 or 40 years ago. But, he was always someone who made a lot of gaffes. But, I think it's not dementia, just a typical lack of sharpness that comes from getting old.
Not that I disagree with you, but what do you base that on? The cognitive experts I've heard on the radio don't seem to agree and they have specialty training.
They don't agree that there's any difference between him 30-40 years ago and how he is now?
I base it on what he was like 30-40 years ago and what he's like now.
Look at him in this video:
https://youtu.be/zTrObD_lnfQ?t=35
Or in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_v00iGJCLY
Compare that to a modern Biden speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia2sy7z1Cqs
I don't think it's dementia or anything, he's just old. I don't know of any person his age who is as sharp as they were 40 years ago.