Well, color me shocked! Are you trying to say that fellow Dems, running against Biden in the 2020 primaries, would stoop to questioning his cognitive abilities? And here I thought they were above such machinations.
For C's sake, it was no more "orthodox" then than it is now; it was the same damn thing. Throw it out there and hope it sticks.
It was "orthodox" in the sense that it could be made part of the conversation and not produce howls of outrage.
Now bringing it up gets you called one step shy of a "useful idiot for the other side."
But what's your point? Because they did so that somehow absolves Sanders supporters from continuing this tactic? That it somehow makes them more true? Booker, Castro, and Ryan didn't present anything more in evidence than you, or Oxy, or any other "Bidens's got dementia" fan.
My point was to share the information I shared.
Accept or deny the information on its own merits rather than based on what "the point" of sharing it was. Attempting to connect the information to a hidden agenda of some kind seems like laying the groundwork for confirmation bias.
To claim that 12 former Dem candidates truly think Biden has dementia but are planning to make him POTUS anyway is a conspiracy theory no matter how you try to normalize it.
I wasn't trying to normalize it and again I emphatically disagree. Tens of thousands if not millions of people every day savagely exploit whole swathes of the world and subject them to misery. But they don't have a secret bat signal or a hotline number to call for their latest orders.
We conquered 2 entire countries and subjected their populations to brutal oppression and sustained campaigns of extrajudicial murders with high collateral damage counts. It wasn't a conspiracy. It was massive numbers of people doing what their environments and institutional systems conditioned them to do.
By the way, I, and no one else I've seen ever seen, said it started with Russian bots. I said the memo released the day after Super Tuesday COULD have come from a Russian misinformation campaign as no one has been able to find its origin. Stop misrepresenting what I said. It's dishonest.
Okay, I can only reference arguments made right on this forum from now on. Understood. Could you please have the mods update the ToS to reflect this new requirement?
Couldn't help but notice that you have no issue twisting my words around and then ending your post having made it about you and your victimization at my hands.
So let's drop all the emotional frontery.
Do you accept the information that this concern (or "attack", makes no difference to me, really) is not only from <insert person or group you don't like here>, shouldn't be dismissed on those lines anyways (poisoning the well analogy), and has been a discussion point since long before Biden's recent successes at the polls?
I do have a "point" or "agenda" and that's to put lie to the idea that this criticism can be dismissed solely by impugning the motives of those saying it.
My absolutely relevant concern is exemplified by his recent showing in St. Louis. It actually isn't the flubbed "re-elect" line, either. It was leaking Kamala's endorsement.
We don't need another President who blurts stuff out that is supposed to be confidential in the wrong settings. Doing so to puff up the ego or doing so because of being just daffy doesn't make a difference in impact.
ETA: I should also add, I don't even need him to have dementia to have a reason for concern, so I reject that entire framing and regret buying into it at all. I don't care what the explanation is and I'm not emotionally invested in one. I don't think he's "there" enough to do this job.
