In their desperation for a president they could manipulate and in her zeal to be FLOTUS, the Democrat Party and Jill Biden offered Joe Biden as a sacrificial lamb to gain power -- forcing the rest of us to watch, in real time, the disintegration of a human being suffering from dementia.  As far as I’m concerned, this is elder abuse that ranks right up there with the criminal actions of Democrat governors in sending tens of thousands of seniors to their early graves via COVID. 

They can prop Joe up, but he increasingly stumbles in interviews, his public appearances are shorter, his press conferences nonexistent, and his jogs up to the dais have been replaced with him tottering off stage like Tim Conway’s Duane Toddleberry.

Not only does Kamala escort him off stage after standing legs athwart, masked in black like the Hand of the King, but Jill, the quintessential helicopter spouse, is ever-present, holding his hand.  They call it affection but it is really for backup. 

This is astounding behavior for a POTUS and FLOTUS but common among spouses in denial or trying hide what is happening at home.  Jill is the latter -- clearly by his side for reinforcement and to whisk him away when the time is right because he won’t know when to leave a situation, where to go, or how to extricate himself -- as we saw when he asked for questions at a House Democratic Caucus event and the live feed was abruptly terminated.

We saw Jill swoop in when he faltered in a Univision interview about kids in “facilities” on the border.  She interrupted clarifying they were “shelters” and insisted it was being handled “in a more humane way.”   Turns out that Jill has been tasked with supervising immigrant family reunification at the border -- appearing more co-president than dutiful First Lady. This goes way beyond the routine reading, online bullying, and diet initiatives of recent First Ladies.  With life imitating art, one wonders if 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue isn’t starting to resemble House of Cards?

This is not okay.  The President is indisputably on the decline and no one seems to care about his well-being or the nation’s security.     

Stress and anxiety don’t cause dementia but can exacerbate a dementia patient’s confusion. It can be brought on by something as mundane as a large family gathering, a change in routine, a fall, a visit to the hospital, or stress from a job.  While “sundowning” or decompensating after a family event are common fallouts from stress, the real challenge is the accumulation of stress and anxiety over time that leads to confusion and, ultimately, delusions, which, in turn, can foster increased levels of anxiety that can exacerbate the confusion experienced and result in even more delusions, and so forth and so on.  It’s a hellacious cycle.

It goes without saying that the daily pressures of being POTUS dwarf anything we normally experience.  On a given day, Biden will encounter bustling mobs tending to daily White House routines; multiple meetings; travel; calls with congressional members, party leaders, governors, and leaders of foreign nations -- all disruptive and potentially triggering to an elderly dementia patient.  We already see, only six weeks into his presidency, that early bedtimes, calming fires, strict routines, limited schedules, and lowered expectations for public appearances, cannot fend off the effects of this disease.  As POTUS, there is no escape from the stress on which dementia feeds.    

It doesn’t take much for these daily stressors to snowball into the kind of monster that sometimes can only be controlled with heavy-duty medications like Seroquel, which is basically a pharmaceutical lobotomy, or Depakote to control outbursts and agitation, both of which cause incredible fatigue and listlessness.  A president cannot function taking these medications.

For Joe Biden and every other dementia patient, this disease doesn’t improve, stabilize, or go into remission.  The remaining days of those afflicted are a downward spiral of “new normals” to which loved ones have no choice but to adjust. 

The real issue for Biden isn’t what we see, but what is happening behind the scenes. He might pull off a ten-minute address reading from a teleprompter -- albeit with increasing difficulty and such strain on his face and in his voice that it hurts to watch.  But afterwards and behind the Oval Office doors, is when the bedlam begins -- repeated questions about where he is, what is going on, who is with him; difficulty recalling events; garbled speech; and temper tantrums.  Some withdraw; others become belligerent. Speech is nonsensical, anxiety acute, and paranoia common.

As Biden himself would say:  this is serious business, folks.  No joke.

How does this end?  Biden will be forced to resign probably within six months, a year at the latest.  If the powers that be meet any resistance from the Bidens, they’ll threaten to 25^th Amendment him and Congress will determine his fitness to hold office.  That requires a 2/3 majority vote each in the House and Senate -- a higher bar than the alternative of impeachment, which requires a majority in the House and 2/3 of the Senate to convict/remove.  While impeachment is a viable alternative, it requires high crimes and misdemeanors.  Thus, to force Joe’s hand, those in charge will circle back… to his Ukraine and China “dealings.” 

Faced with tying up Congress with a messy 25^th Amendment process that puts his health on full display or an ugly impeachment with all that implies, Joe will capitulate and resign, and Kamala will be president.  Under the 25^th Amendment, her pick for VP requires a majority vote of the House and Senate.  If they wait until the mid-terms to force Joe’s resignation and they lose the House, House Republicans could stonewall vote after vote and the VP position could remain vacant.  Not only would we lack a VP, but there wouldn’t be anyone to break ties in the Senate -- all the more challenging if the Senate remains at 50-50 or close to that after 2022.

Then again, even if Kamala is installed before 2022 and the House approves her VP, it’s highly likely the Senate vote would be tied… and there won’t  be a VP to break the tie!  According to the Senate website, in the absence of a VP, the President Pro Tempore presides over the Senate but authority to break ties lies strictly with the VP.    

I’m not sure if this constitutes a constitutional crisis or just a conundrum, but it would be choppy nonetheless.  Congress would likely craft legislation to fill the vacant veep position.  That would raise hotly debated amendment concerns but, given the last four years, we should be used to the extraordinary when it comes to the Constitution and political warfare.

I don’t foresee any whistleblowers revealing the behind-the-scenes truth about Biden’s condition, but that’s okay. It won’t be long before the cat’s out of the bag and Joe is out of the White House.  We’ll just have to wait-and-see what happens next.

Image: Gage Skidmore