Almost exactly five years ago to this day, following the first Democratic presidential primary debate of the 2020 election cycle, a then-colleague wrote a column about how Joe Biden was old. “The question has been whether he’s too old-fashioned, too much of another era,” the column read. “After Thursday’s debate, you have to ask whether he’s just too old, period.”

This wasn’t a particularly controversial take at the time. He did look less than his prime fighting self in that debate. In spite of this development, though, Biden would go on to win the primary as Democrats settled on him as the odds-on bet among imperfect candidates to stop Trump. He was—then.

In this run, any mention of Biden’s mental fitness for office—despite its repeated listing as a top concern for voters, who have eyes and ears—has been dismissed by the White House, by Democratic partisans, and by party enforcers as a dishonest smear that, if repeated, will only help to put Donald Trump back in the White House. It is a conversation that has been shot down with prejudice.

Well. How does that strategy of suppression look now? How was that debate for something that will help put Donald Trump back in the White House?

Biden’s performance was such a disaster that it immediately shifted the Democratic conversation to whether Biden should be replaced atop the ticket. Biden sounded terrible, looked terrible, and debated terribly, either whiffing or missing opportunities to hammer Donald Trump, who was there to be hammered. When Biden did have strong points to make, it was frankly difficult to hear what he was saying. His resting mumble would occasionally rise for the recitation of a statistic, and then descend back into the murk. If you didn’t see the debate, it’s honestly hard to describe what went on here: Biden could not speak extemporaneously in a coherent manner for much of the debate. He didn’t look confident, staring down and around, mouth slight agape.

If you........

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