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I'll preface this by saying I didn't watch the videos. I don't think there's a point.
I remember how Reagan's obvious dementia was treated as a cultural touchstone, a constant point of mockery and derision, evidence of how screwed up his supporters were. As it happens, he was one of the more successful presidents we've ever had.
I remember when Hillary was clearly dying on the campaign trail. I remember arguing over how she was dragged into a van, toes-down, and people were asking if she was actually going to survive till the election. As it happens, she's still kicking, evidently fully functional.
I remember when the argument was over Trump's obvious cognitive decline, how he was clearly too senile to occupy the presidency and it was time for 25th amendment solutions.
Now it's Biden who's clearly incapable, and Fetterman with brain damage.
A few quick thoughts.
I have never seen this general topic produce a useful result. Opponents think it's clearly necessary to remove the person, supporters think they're fine and the system can take it. This result is monotonously reliable regardless of the facts.
The system can, in fact, take it. We operate under a machine system, and that system can keep on running with an incumbent with brain damage or even deceased and being puppeted by their staff. No, this isn't ideal. It's not how it's supposed to work. Leaders are supposed to be leaders. But is is not ought.
Sympathy for the other side that mainly consists of calling for them to do something highly convinient for your own side is a very unusual sort of sympathy, and not, I think, a particularly helpful one. People should resist the urge to engage in it. Leaders make a variety of sacrifices for their tribes, and tribes accept those sacrifices. It's on a tribe itself to judge when a leader serves them poorly; outside opinions are generally not very productive.
Counterpoint: Reagan, Hillary and Trump were all too old, and all of those criticisms were 100% justified. Cognitive decline ramps up starting at age 62. It's an indictment of our country that we have such a preponderance of septuagenarians on our general election ballots. That things turned out well for one of those presidencies is very thin soup given the sample size of modern presidents. We can and should do better.
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