One of the hallmarks of dementia is an inability to feel empathy.  This study explains that cognitive decline causes significant impairment in identifying with the emotions and experiences of others.  There are many others, as well, that corroborate the observations.

Lead author Muireann Irish says:

There isn't the change in personality, which I think is one of the most jarring things about frontotemporal dementia patients. [This study] gives more knowledge and insight to the caregivers that there's an organic reason for this change that becomes so distressing. Empathy is an abstract concept in a way. It's not as easily quantified as memory loss or changes in language and it can be seen as a personality issue or somebody being deliberately unsympathetic, but this shows there's a region in the brain that changes.

Dare I suggest that the region of Joe's brain that once had a capacity for feeling others' pain is long gone?

Watching snippets (because that was all I could tolerate) of Biden's interactions with the public via the sparse speeches he read off the teleprompter between "resting" at Camp David, and then snippets of his interview with George Stephanopoulos, it's quite clear that the president has lost his ability to relate to the pain others may be feeling.

When asked if the current chaos "was always priced into the decision," Biden gave a simple "yes" and followed it with a delusional series of statements about the Taliban "letting" American citizens out.  Asked about plans to rescue our countrymen — thousands of them — he stated that they were on their own to get to the airport.  Asked about the people who fell to their deaths from departing airplanes, he responded that it was "four days ago."

The fact that it was only two is irrelevant, isn't it?  What really mattered is that he exhibited no empathy in any of these cases, while the rest of us recoiled in horror at the idea that our people had no realistic means to be rescued, just as we did as we watched the awful video of the desperate Afghans who fell to their deaths from our transport planes.

Another telling point came when Stephanopoulos told Biden that an Army Special Forces officer, while agreeing that it was time for us to leave Afghanistan, added, "I just wish we could've left with honor."  The transcript shows that Biden's response was an incomprehensible, rambling exposition about his son Beau's military service filled with factual errors, which drifted from any cogent point, with the only answer seeming to be "what's the alternative?" to a dishonorable retreat.

We will soon face the horrific realization that we have thousands of American citizens whom the Taliban are holding as hostages.  We will watch as the insurgents use our weaponry to murder and maim people on the streets.  We will suffer with the translators who helped us for years, as the Taliban uses our technology and the embassy payroll records we didn't bother to destroy to identify them, and murder them, most likely, with their families executed as well.

We will watch women become slaves or be shot for not wearing a burqa.  We will watch as schoolgirls are taken prisoner and raped, and as a society we lost soldiers to save is summarily destroyed.  We will also realize that the planes, tanks, and ordnance we left behind have been removed to the countries of our enemies, including China.

All of this makes it apparent that we don't have a president who is in charge, much less one with the capacity for empathy.  We assumed that he had staff surrounding him that could keep him from blundering his way into the destruction of the country, and it's apparent we were incorrect.  He obviously was not stopped or even questioned before executing his precipitous, disastrous plan.

We found out as well that Biden didn't communicate with the other countries involved in Afghanistan.  Finally, we saw quickly that Biden didn't even care enough about the crisis he has caused to stay in the White House and pay attention.  He's basically been on vacation since he did it.

We are no longer seen as reliable by our allies but have instead become the object of ridicule, a fallen society more concerned with transgender bathrooms and useless face masks than the safety and well-being of our own populace.  We will be held up as a prime example of a doomed, failed society.  Within our country, it is now apparent that the people in charge care nothing for their citizens, but only for their own aggrandizement and profit, and their presumptive position in the global economy.  Even though the wokesters here can't see it, the rest of the world certainly can.

As the next few days unfold, all of America will hopefully wake up from the dream state of the last eight months, and the sooner, the better.  The only problem is, as I hope we find the wherewithal to exercise the 25th Amendment to get rid of Biden before he does something even more rash (like start a nuclear war), we are faced with an incompetent cackler to take his place.  This is a woman who, as vice president, has abdicated all responsibility within her role, and has demonstrated nearly as bad judgment as Biden, but without the excuse of dementia.

God help us!

Image: Joe Biden.  Twitter screen grab.

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