Not a good night for Biden.
It was not a proud night for Trump.
A sad night for the United States.
That’s my impression after watching the presidential debate, but I didn’t watch it alone. I recruited three experts on aging to share their observations. I focused on a single question as I watched President Biden debate former President Trump. At their advanced ages (Biden at 81, Trump at 78), are either of them up to the task of running the country?
This has been a hot topic for months, with many people convinced that Biden has lost his mental acuity. (Not that Trump’s mental state hasn’t been questioned.) I asked my three experts not to offer a political analysis or a medical diagnosis, because, as I’ve written more than once, it’s a complicated process that can’t be done remotely.
California is on the cusp of a wave of aging, and Steve Lopez is taking advantage of it. His column focuses on the blessings and burdens of old age and how some people are challenging the stigma associated with older adults.
What I wanted was his vision of command, consistency, competence, composure, reason, and communication and articulation skills. Aging takes a toll, physically and mentally, but you can be a 60-year-old and an 85-year-old because everyone ages differently.
Biden was paralyzed from the start. He couldn't find a word he was looking for while talking about the national debt and seemed lost.
One of my experts, Dr. Zaldy Tan, director of the Memory and Aging Program at Cedars-Sinai, emailed me to tell me that a televised debate can be like a “cognitive stress test” and that it “will cause subtle changes.” , although normal, in age.” -Related changes in mental agility.
However, it seemed to me that with a hoarse, weak voice and a sometimes vacant look in his eyes, Biden might be in trouble.
But both he and Trump seemed quite agile during an exchange in which they took off the gloves and got down to business.
“You have the morals of a stray cat,” Biden said, staring down his foe as he listed some of Trump's many transgressions.
“I did not have sex with a porn star,” Trump insisted, and if there is a political campaign button with that claim, I would like to buy a bushel of them.
The candidates took turns accusing each other of being criminals, which reminded me of another low point in American politics, when Richard Nixon insisted, as his presidency was in flames, “I am not a criminal.”
Former President Trump and President Biden took turns accusing each other of being criminals during the debate.
(Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)
Another observer of my debate was Dr. Myron Shapero, an emergency room physician in Beverly Hills. I wanted his perspective because he is much older than either Biden or Trump. Shapero is 90 years old and thought Biden did not have a good night.
“I think it’s obvious that Biden is no longer Biden,” Shapero said. “What Trump needed was someone sharp, confident, strong, who could fight back — and Joe always had that ability.” On Thursday, “he didn’t have it.”
Shapero said the word that came to mind, as the night went on and he studied Biden's performance, was “nervous.”
“It’s the aging process and everyone deals with it differently,” Shapero said. “He was absent, he wasn’t fully present and it was painful to watch.”
Dr Tan was more lenient in his assessment.
“In addition to the speech impediment,” he said, referring to a condition Biden has long suffered from, “he may have experienced mind wandering, more commonly known as losing one’s train of thought. The tendency toward mind wandering increases with higher levels of stress, lack of sleep, and taking certain medications.”
Caroline Cicero, an associate professor at USC's Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, said she saw a sitting president who was not at his best.
“Viewers surely noticed that President Biden did not inspire confidence in his performance,” Cicero said. “Their blank looks at him made me wonder if his strategy was not to react and keep an impassive face, so as not to look like a grumpy old man.”
Cicero said he wondered why Biden sometimes didn't respond “more directly” to Trump's attacks. “Reaction times slow down with age,” he said.
Tanzella Young, left, Crystal Blakley and Jason Sanford watch the presidential debate at the M Lounge in Chicago's South Loop.
(Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)
Early in the debate, when Biden was speechless, Trump said, “I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either.”
According to Dr. Shapero, Trump set out to kill the enemy.
“Smelling blood made it more unpleasant and pathological,” Shapero said. “I feel that in terms of substance, [Trump] It was full of lies, but stylistically, I think it came out stronger because it was less manic” than it usually is.
One wonders whether Trump, a man aggressively removed from truth and civility, is fit for office. And Biden scored some points by exposing his opponent's many obstacles, including the fact that he is a convicted felon.
But what I saw in Biden was a decent man and a career public servant whose prime has passed.
What I saw in Trump was the usual bluster and bragging, with no apparent ability or desire to control his worst instincts.
They ended the debate by arguing about who had the better golf handicap.
Lord help us.
