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"None of these incidents prove that Joe Biden is cognitively unfit to be president or to stand for re-election. "

The only thing you got right. Biden was right to withdraw for himself, for his wife and family, for his party, and for his country. You criticise his wife but, given their closeness, I'm sure she was part of the decision. The evidence you cite for his alleged cognitive decline - his tendency to mix up people's names - does not convince me. When he referred to Zelensky as Putin, he immediately realized his error and corrected himself. When he referred to "Vice-President Trump", it was obvious from the context that he knew perfectly well who Trump and Harris were. When I was a child, I was amazed that my mother (then in her mid-40s) would sometimes mix up the names of her children (there were 4 of us). Years later, when I found myself mixing up the names of my own children (I had 4 also), I understood better. By the way, I've seen cognitive decline at close quarters. I was constantly amazed that my aunt (who lived to be 96) could recall things that happened 80 years previously with perfect clarity but couldn't recall something I'd told her 5 minutes previously. The rest of your evidence for Biden's alleged cognitive decline is based on "anonymous sources" and deserves to be treated accordingly.

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Question: where does this leave Kamala? At risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist nut, I see the unravelling of the Biden presidency as a conspiracy encompassing almost the entirety of the American media. Yet in their unquestioning benediction (I had to pinch myself at Snyder’s telling use of that word) of Biden and coronation of Kamala it feels like we’ve swapped one conspiracy for another. Will it hold until November? My guess is not, and another unravelling awaits.

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But Americans ate far more gushing and overtly sycophantic than Brits. Imagine Blair calling Starmer and Starmer saying how much he loved him and Cherie. People would think he's lost the plot.

Biden was dragged out. By his fingernails. Electoral oblivion or a vestige of historical place and respect. His selfishness lost his party weeks to Trump. The vacillating may yet have lost Democrats the election and opened the Whitehouse to the Gates of Hades. Project 2025 and all its magnificent dystopia neo fascism rides on the back of an elderly bloated narcissistic racist sexist bullying misogynistic criminal who seems able to hypnotise decent people to believe his vile spewing insane rhetoric.

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