We\u2019ve seen the scolding dissent in the media and on socials alike. It goes something like this\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDemocracy is in danger. There\u2019s a constitutional crisis. If you\u2019re silent, you\u2019re complicit. Wisen up. Get your head out of the sand. You need to pay attention. You don\u2019t really understand what\u2019s happening. Who\u2019s really running the country?! Don\u2019t you care? Are you that blind? It\u2019s time to protest. Time to fight. Resist! The time is now.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And that\u2019s all about Donald Trump being elected as the 47th President of the United States. Many have deep, sincere concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we continue, allow me to reiterate what’s been previously articulated. The Intramuralist is not a Trump, Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris fan. I simply believe there are far more people who would better serve as president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With Trump, no less, elected once more, there exists a very vocal cluster of critics who assume any who do not match the intensity of their perspective is severely misguided. There exists another large cluster in response, who tune those talkers out. Today I\u2019d like to respectfully address one of the most obvious reasons for the intentional tuning out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For multiple years it has been evident that Biden has experienced some sort of significant physical and mental decline. While in office, not always but frequently, he spoke incoherently, wandered aloofly, and ambled awkwardly. No advanced medical knowledge was necessary to discern the decline. As a public, we were lied to; perhaps a better term is \u201cgaslit.\u201d To gaslight means to attempt to deceive through the repetition of an intentionally crafted false narrative. We were told we didn\u2019t see what we saw. We were told our objective observations were wrong. I\u2019m reminded personally of one of the first to dispute my initial, respectful question of competence. \u201cIt\u2019s a stutter, AR,\u201d as if that was somehow all it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason we speak of this today is because the issue has been reignited, now becoming a national conversation due to two primary, recent publishings\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, last week Axios<\/em> published leaked audio from Special Counsel Robert Hur\u2019s interview with Biden from the fall of 2023. The New York Times<\/em> said, “It confirms what many suspected,\u201d acknowledging Biden’s confusion and lack of coherence. And from The Free Press, <\/em>\u201cIt was as bad as you feared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And second, yesterday was the release of \u201cThe Original Sin: President Biden\u2019s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.\u201d The book has become, again according to The Free Press,<\/em> \u201cthe talk of Washington.\u201d Written by CNN<\/em> host Jake Tapper and Axios <\/em>journalist Alex Thompson \u2014 with Tapper playing a debated role in the cover up \u2014 this is, as Politico<\/em> reported, \u201cthe book Biden allies fear the most.\u201d Multiple powerful people and pundits covered up Biden\u2019s decline and lied to the American people because they didn\u2019t want Donald Trump to be elected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us be sensitive to Biden\u2019s recent, publicly shared, cancer diagnosis. We are committed to respect; we also will not ignore reality. Being kind to a president who has cancer and acknowledging the corporeality of his decline are not in competition with one another. The current conversation, too, is less about Biden than it is about all those who lied on his behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This conversation is vital because each of our presidents needs to be held accountable, a role both parties actively, necessarily, partake in. I wish each did a better, honest, objective, nonpartisan job. Yet the reason so many are not paying attention to the warnings Trump critics deliver now is because so many of today\u2019s critics were silent about Biden. The reason so many tune out the the idea of a current constitutional crisis is because if Biden was cognitively impaired, it was a crisis then. The reason, too, so many don\u2019t respond with like intensity about an unelected person having a pivotal role in the White House, is because if Biden was unfit, someone other than the elected president had a pivotal role then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The challenge embedded in the silence of politicians, pundits and a sympathetic media is that they made it harder to hold the current president accountable. Let me be clear: Pres. Trump needs to be held accountable. Yet the refusal to acknowledge Biden\u2019s decline by those who were silent then, pierces the credibility of those who cast aspersions on him now. They have thus done all of us a disservice, no matter who we voted for or of whom we are a fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One last bit of constructive feedback to the Trump critics, as I sincerely believe they have something worthy to be shared: in order for others to actually listen to their concerns, it would be prudent to first acknowledge Biden\u2019s decline and why they could not see it, chose not to believe it, or refused to discuss it publicly. Acknowledgment builds credibility, and we need credibility to hold absolutely every president accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Respectfully\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n AR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve seen the scolding dissent in the media and on socials alike. It goes something like this\u2026 \u201cDemocracy is in danger. There\u2019s a constitutional crisis. If you\u2019re silent, you\u2019re complicit. Wisen up. Get your head out of the sand. You need to pay attention. You don\u2019t really understand what\u2019s happening. Who\u2019s really running the country?! … <\/p>\n