XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, rec.arts.tv, alt.survival   
   XPost: alt.fan.sean-hannity, alt.atheism   
   From: elonx@protonmail.com   
      
   I luv Trump.  He's so soft and flabby!  Everybody likes pinching his belly   
   fat.   
      
   When Trump says he's a stable genius we all believe him cause he never   
   lies!   
      
   Donald Trump has long attacked Joe Biden, his likely opponent at the polls   
   next year, as “Sleepy Joe”, portraying the 80-year-old president as too   
   old and too mentally fogged to occupy the Oval Office. As recently as   
   Friday, the former president attacked his successor for being unfit to   
   deal with Russia and the threat of nuclear war.   
      
   But Trump’s tactics rebounded when he said Biden threatened to lead the US   
   into “world war two” – and suggested that he, Trump, thought he had beaten   
   Barack Obama for the presidency back in 2016.   
      
   There have been two world wars. The first ended in 1918, the second in   
   1945. The cold war, the nuclear standoff between the US and the Soviet   
   Union that often threatened a third world war, ended with the fall of the   
   communist regime in Moscow in 1991.   
      
   Obama was president, and Biden vice-president, from 2009 to 2017. In the   
   2016 election, Trump beat Hillary Clinton.   
      
   Mockery of Trump’s stumbles was immediate and sustained. But it also   
   pointed to an increasingly stark issue on both sides of the aisle: the   
   advanced age of many American leaders, and polling that shows most voters   
   want generational change.   
      
   At 80, Biden is the oldest president ever. Should he win re-election and   
   serve a full term, he will be 86 on leaving office. Polling has shown more   
   than 75% of Americans think he is too old for a second term.   
      
   Trump is 77 but polls show significantly fewer voters think he is too old   
   to return to power. Whether gaffes like those he made in Washington move   
   the needle remains, of course, to be seen.   
      
   Addressing the Pray, Vote, Stand summit, a rightwing event, Trump said   
   Biden was “cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead and … now in   
   charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war”.   
      
   Under Biden, he added: “We would be in world war two.”   
      
   On Monday, the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican   
   congressman, laughed as he said: “It’s almost like it’s the summer of 1939   
   all over again. You know, [Trump’s] father’s going to a Nazi rally or   
   something, or a Klan rally. I don’t know which rally he did or didn’t go   
   to.”   
      
   Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was arrested after a Klan riot in Queens, New   
   York, in 1927. Donald Trump has reportedly expressed sympathy for Nazism   
   and Adolf Hitler.   
      
   “But yeah,” Scarborough said. “You think they may want to take out the   
   ‘cognitively impaired’ part of his speeches from now on.”   
      
   Jonathan Lemire, his fellow host, said: “That’s an attack line the   
   Republicans and Trump love to use [against Biden] but, man, that does seem   
   like he was looking in the mirror just there.   
      
   “I mean … we see these polls that suggest that voters are more concerned   
   about President Biden’s age than Donald Trump’s age. Trump is only three   
   years younger and anyone watching Trump day in, day out says he’s changed   
   too.”   
      
   Biden says he is fit to serve. So does Trump, telling NBC in an interview   
   broadcast on Sunday “there should be a competency” test for presidents, of   
   the sort he “aced” while in the White House. That prompted memories of   
   previous national mirth, when in summer 2020 Trump, then 74, bragged about   
   successfully recognising “person, woman, man, camera, TV” in a cognitive   
   exam.   
      
   But, again, the issue remains a serious one.   
      
   Democrats protest that disproportionate attention is paid to Biden’s age   
   than that of Trump. Last week, Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist, told   
   CBS News: “Joe Biden is getting older, we all know that. But the other guy   
   he’s probably going to be running against is getting older, too. And in   
   the focus groups that I’m doing, old and steady still beats old and   
   crazy.”   
      
   Nonetheless, on Sunday, a new poll from CBS and YouGov said only 34% of   
   voters thought Biden would complete a second term if elected. Asked the   
   same question about Trump, 55% said they thought he would complete a full   
   four years.   
      
   Asked if the two men had the necessary mental and cognitive health to be   
   president, 26% said only Biden did, 44% said only Trump did and 23% said   
   neither did.   
      
   Ninety-one criminal charges and assorted civil lawsuits notwithstanding,   
   Trump leads Republican polling by wide margins. His challengers have made   
   age and cognitive ability an issue but such is Trump’s dominance, they   
   have mostly directed their fire at Biden.   
      
   Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor who is a distant second to   
   Trump, said last week age was “absolutely a legitimate concern” when   
   electing a president.   
      
   “The presidency’s not a job for someone that’s 80 years old,” DeSantis   
   told CBS.   
      
   He did not say if he thought the same about someone who was 77, and who   
   the former Republican party chair Michael Steele called a “dumbass”, over   
   his Washington remarks.   
      
   But DeSantis added: “Obviously, I’m the governor of Florida, I know a lot   
   of people who are elderly, they’re great people, but you’re talking about   
   a job where you need to give it 100%, we need an energetic president.”   
      
   Concern about the age of many US party leaders has spread beyond the   
   presidency, particularly given public health scares suffered by Mitch   
   McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the Senate, and Dianne   
   Feinstein, the 90-year-old Democratic senator from California.   
      
   DeSantis said: “I think that if the founders could kind of look at this   
   again, I do think they probably would’ve put an age limit on some of these   
   offices.”   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)