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So... where's Joe Biden?
I will state for the record that these sort of questions come up fairly regularly. Almost always, the VIP emerges soon enough, seemingly no worse for wear. Kim Jong-un was MIA for a couple weeks, and I think Putin may have disappeared too at one point.
So normalcy bias being what it is, I expect Joe to turn up soon and give some sort of speech.
But, isn't it a bit strange that Biden made his announcement via Twitter of all places and hasn't been seen in public since? We have no idea whether he wrote that statement, or even signed it. The only evidence of him "stepping aside" is a JPEG on Twitter. Personally, I think there is a real chance that he is seriously ill. The stress of the two weeks cannot have been good for his health.
On a more meta level, this seems to pattern match a behavior we've seen from the Democrats a lot. Instead of proactively using openness to refute conspiracy theorists, they seem to double down on secrecy. Why let the rumors swirl? Why not have Joe pop out to say hello?
Whatever happens, I expects some great books and movies to come out about this two week period. To be a fly on the wall in the White House!
Update: 12:20am Tuesday. There are some crazy rumors swirling on Twitter with one source claiming that Biden is in hospice care and might die soon. It's a very low status source, but they correctly called the Sunday resignation. (Humorously they are squabbling with another low status source and have a ban bet going). Back in normiestan, Biden's physician claims that he is nearly recovered from Covid and is performing all Presidential duties (odd statement, that). More facts: Biden was supposed to meet with Netanyahu today but it's been moved to Thursday. Polymarket currently has Biden with a 50% chance of finishing his term - with no movement in the last 24 hours.
If Biden dies close to the Trump assassination attempt we are going to have some wild "shadow war" conspiracy theories.
Shadow war? Maybe. Or the same group behind both. If Biden dies so close to the Trump assassination it raises the possibility that there were more plotters than the shooter related to Trump's assassination attempt. The same way Oswald being killed by Jack Ruby and then Robert Kennedy being killed by an assassin, raised the possibility of a conspiracy.
If Biden is dead it would look like a group might have decided to get rid of Trump in an opportunist and not highly competent manner and when that failed, thinking that Biden will certainly lose, they decided to get rid of him. Now, what about forcing Biden to resign? There is still opportunism there, and certainly culpability in regards to promoting a narrative that painted Trump as existential threat, and the possibility of such plots remain. But Biden's death would demonstrate a higher possibility of people brazen enough plotting to kill Presidents.
People would be correct to come with conspiracy theories that Biden might have met an unnatural fate if Biden is now dead while his twitter account announces the successor and just after the Trump assassination attempt. Events would be mega sketchy.
Do we really need to come up with a conspiracy theory to explain the death of a frail 81 year old? They have like a 7% chance of dying within a year.
This is so accurate I feel like you must have checked the same actuarial table I pulled up; next time add the hyperlink too so your statistics aren't mistaken for hyperbole!
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