725 Comments
⭠ Return to thread

I agree!!! I heard him the other day, and I said what are people talking about! We MUST counter this narrative! And re: his speech on democracy and the MAGA's.... he's spot on! WHY do these MAGA's not get it??? Ugh! We need more and more of his words to overload the MAGA's in the crazy Faux news ecosystem that we all exist under. NPR even makes me crazy now cuz they keep going over Biden and his age. It's so interesting... no other group can we chastise and make fun of..... except folks that are getting old. It's ageism people and it's wrong. Just wrong.

Expand full comment

Remember the mantra for Biden: savvy, seasoned, and sane!

Expand full comment

And kind

Expand full comment

And the irony is everyone will age. While not everyone will one day be black, or female, or disabled or any other ‘protected’ category, one day EVERYONE will be old. You’re right—it’s ageism.

Expand full comment

I am going to start flaunting my age to let people know how good being in your 80s can look! & how competent I am. Defy stereotypes!

Expand full comment

When i hear the rant about Biden being too old i just remind folks Mick Jagger is 80 too.

Really all the rolling stones are about that age . It makes people stop and think

Expand full comment

Good reply!

Expand full comment

Trump is old too but he is showing it.

Expand full comment

Trump is mostly too crazy!!!

Expand full comment

I saw a picture of him that must have slipped by the censures. Looking older-lot older. Maybe he didn't have his make up on.

Expand full comment

His diet is a killer.

Expand full comment

not quick enough.

Expand full comment

Yes, Yes, Yes, I'm a few years older than Biden, so know he's up to the job.

Our biggest mistake would be to not keep him our President after all he and his administration have given those of us that know what the hell is going on!

Expand full comment

Bravo!

Expand full comment

You go girl!

Expand full comment

I’m with you!!

Expand full comment

I do that. I let people know I’m 73 and still going strong.

Expand full comment

Give me a month to catch up. I was 68 participating in my first door to door campaigning. Never paid any attention to politics before then. Actually I slept better before that, but lack of sleep will not keep me away

Expand full comment

I'm constantly telling people my age: 84 (in October, I always skip ahead)...I think, I shouldn't do that; people may think less of an old person.

But, actually, I think it's a gas! Imagine that: 84!!!

Expand full comment

I"m right behind you at 78!!! What a great idea! Thanks, Carole!

Expand full comment

Death and taxes eh?

While Trump has to die like us all, he's done a very good job, up to now, in avoiding paying his fair share of taxes.

Expand full comment

There is nothing on record about President Biden’s having failed to pay his taxes. There is not even a suggestion that he has failed to pay his taxes.

Expand full comment

He even showed his income taxes in a timely manner. Hopefully the draft and tax dodger will not slip out of his New York verdict

Expand full comment

It's the only flaw they can find for him to be president. And, yes, it's discrimination.

Expand full comment

NPR is guilty of repeated age discrimination against Biden. Over and over I hear its stories about his age that make it seem as if he stumbles and falls regularly. It's grotesque coverage and beneath any quality news organization.

Who in the hell doesn't occasionally trip on stairs, no matter their age? And does NPR ever comment on Trump's obesity and fast-road-to-death unhealthy diet? Or ill health effects of his non-stop rage?

Maybe NPR is angling for a pass when Trump, if elected, starts his dictatorial rule by shutting down news organizations.

Expand full comment

Shoot, I’m 55 and sitting here in a cast because I failed to notice a pothole as big as the Grand Canyon, tripped and broke my wrist. If stumbling, tripping or falling is a symptom of old age, I’m in big trouble, lol!

Expand full comment

Yikes! I broke my wrist back when I was 57 and it hurt like mad! I’m so sorry for the pain you are going through. Heal quickly and no, you are not old, you are younger than my daughter.

Be proud of your successes and continue fighting for democracy.

Expand full comment

We all age differently. While some octogenarians are infirm, others are vigorous well into their nineties.

Expand full comment

On the other hand, Biden seems to make up for this in assigning a lot of women and blacks, Hispanics, even LBGT people (Pete) in his cabinet. Trump had Ben Carson. Jerome Adams was Surgeon General starting in July of 2020. His challenges were that he had to work in a somewhat racist atmosphere as well as one where science was downplayed. He had to deal with a president who refused to wear a mask during the pandemic. I don't know if the Surgeon General is appointed or not.

Expand full comment

[ It can hurt like hell when you've written about age, you've lived it, you're living it here and now, you want to share the experience for the best reason possible -- because you have just witnessed a masterful display of the wealth that age and experience can bring -- and the program deletes your thoughts...]

More writing on water...?

Let's go, anyway! I'll post and edit as I go along...

*

[There, the invisible censor has struck again. I must post what I draft more frequently...

Not to worry.

If, next week, I find myself still alive as I set out on my 85th year, I'll write this celebration of age and dedicate it to the man who inspired it today, President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, back to MLMinET.]

Yes, we all age, but some who live the fullest, most meaningful lives, don't live long. So its falls to older, maybe lesser men and women to continue

the work they began.

*

Lives truncated.

Here, it's nothing but words... Normally, you should have had a complete item hours ago... Yet circumstances force me to leave you now.

I shall return.

Expand full comment

With age can come wisdom, which is more than beauty, a fast tongue, knowledge, or experience. It is something more than such pieces or their sum. Who has not realized that they will never be the smartest or best looking among their peers, but would gladly settle for being the more thoughtful and wisely comported? When I hear Mr Biden speak, fumble with some words, and speak off-handed, I hear the traces of his lifetime of experiences and mistakes addressed and learned from; considered thoughts absent smoothness of the naively certain.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Fred, for saying all these things, which I wanted to. But Biden inspired me to want to write a panegyric not only for him but to sing the virtues and advantages of age and experience -- all experience, errors, even disgrace, can become compost for fruitful growth.

And once again to plug my strong feeling that there's a crying need for alliances between young and old.

Expand full comment

Do write on, Peter. Last paragraph might be your beginning.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Fred.

At this moment, we all need every possible encouragement, especially the young, especially the children.

If we'd all thought first, not of ourselves but of the children, with the love and care they need and deserve, we'd never have come down to this hard place.

Expand full comment

You better, Peter. You are one of the people that keeps me coming here!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Annie.

Expand full comment

That is if we're lucky. We will age. The other irony is that Biden and tfg are in the same generation. While Biden is in peak health, tfg isn't and yet he isn't criticized for being too old.

Expand full comment

Yeah, like what happened to the notion of the old wise sage?

Expand full comment

Then do 60% of democrats want BIDEN not to run again?

Expand full comment

Some cultures idolize the elderly for their wisdom. The USA as a young nation we have had a tendency to idolize youth and in doing so we have had a bias against getting older. We have a vast industry devoted to making people who are aging to look younger than their years, not to mention the burgeoning longevity field.

Expand full comment

We have a very unfortunate tendency to idolize the very rich and famous, no matter what they did to become rich or famous.

Expand full comment

Yes, Not Old. Tfg should be famous for having THREE government shutdowns in his administration. Why do we conveniently forget or minimize all those important facts. Tfg loves chaos. He is the darling of the media and I will never understand why. He’s not news. He is incompetent, corrupt and dishonest. Lock him up already because he will never even come close to normalcy. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/09/26/when-was-the-last-government-shutdown/70969554007/

Expand full comment

EIGHT (8) government shutdowns under Reagan!! The "god" of the R Party (before tfg). How about that? The most ever...

Thanks, Gigi for that link.

Expand full comment

I can remember what it did to the National parks. Trash everywhere and very unsafe.

Expand full comment

What does that say about us - "citizens" who cant or wont even pick up after themselves unless there's a guard to make us? The kind of childish mindset that reacts that way.

Expand full comment

And the bathrooms need to be cleaned and not locked.

Expand full comment

I have never admired the rich and famous.

I do admire the ones that were famous, like Robert Redford, Meg Ryan who have used their wealth and fame to help those in need. I know there are many others.

It’s the greedy rich that I abhor.

Expand full comment

Why do the MAGA's not get it?? It may have something to do with their cognitive decline.

Expand full comment

Anyone can have cognitive issues early on.. Trump certainly has. One can be quite coherent and wise later in life too. People age differently, but values experience and education matter a lot.

Expand full comment

I agree. Trump has no values, principles or ethics. He is deeply experienced in the art of the con, and his education is "iffy' at best. He is a nut job.

Expand full comment

". . . you can’t love your country only when you win.” Thanks yet again to HCR for giving us most of Biden's speech rather than sound bites. The FG and his beasts are ready to "burn it all down." No shame, only idiocy that helps no one. Work now, for the night is coming. VOTE.

Expand full comment

I believe he is mentally dysfunctional but so normal-like at times that people can get on his wave length and get conned and "charmed" by his charisma.I believe he is amoral, without morals...maybe immoral (evilly disposed?)They then adopt his hate and vindictiveness, his views, the nicknames and slogans he uses and this becomes a cult. He is very very dangerous.

Expand full comment

“ but so normal at times”?? I’m sorry but, I must have missed those “times”.

Expand full comment

😀granted he sounds alot more off lately. He’s a wiounded animal. But he did make some sense at times. He fooled alot of people.

Expand full comment

Charisma?? Trump has no charisma..

Expand full comment

dictionary definition:

"A charismatic person attracts, influences, and inspires people by their personal qualities. "

Maybe not for you, nor me, but for many obviously. This is not a positive or negative assessment.

Expand full comment

Sometimes I wonder if repeated bouts of Covid have contributed to their collective mental decline.

Expand full comment

It's repeated bouts of LIES, CONSPIRACY, and PROPOGANDA from Trump, FOX, and the rest of his despicable supporters that has caused the collective mental decline. This is so sad.

Expand full comment

It is a long history of all the things that death star represents and the fear that being white, male, and heterosexual is somehow losing the power to lord it over all of us. I am not excluding female aiders and abetters here either.

Expand full comment

Wow! Michele, I hadn’t thought of that, but it says a lot.

Expand full comment

I read a lot of history and as recommended by a couple of us Fever in the Heartland, about the KKK in Indiana in the 1920s. Also Saving Savannah about that city pre, during and post Civil War.

Expand full comment

Decline, or maybe they just flat-lined a long, long time ago Debbie.

Expand full comment

I figure it’s lack of education and/or they have an agenda. It’s amazing how the poorest vote against their own interests.

Expand full comment

Yes. That's why Trump likes the uneducated. They're easily swayed.

Expand full comment

Or cognitive impairment!

Expand full comment

Agreed! Trump is almost as old as Biden but there is never a comparison on age. Biden is sane and mentally sharp, Trump is a psychopath and mentally ill. Biden is trim, fit and exercises daily, Trump is obese and drives around in his golf cart. There’s no comparison as to who is healthier mentally and physically.

Expand full comment

Disappointing to hear NPR getting pushed over by propaganda.

Expand full comment

What in the name of [insert name of deity here] are you talking about? Do you even know?

Expand full comment

Hey fresh mouth smarty pants- I am talking about NPR being reported here as talking about Biden's age as well. They could be talking about the age and mental capacity of others.

Expand full comment

You make a good point that media are responding to the situation by using the MAGA framing of the situation, when they should be celebrating the achievements and continued competence of a seasoned politician and a decent human. However, NPR is not the only one doing it. It is a general shortcut taken by all media, and we must find a way to reframe the debate.

Expand full comment

Gee, I missed that. Somehow I thought that today's letter was devoted to Biden's extraordinary speech yesterday. Well, maybe I'm getting old.

Expand full comment

Getting old? You are using that as an excuse and smarty pants sarcasm again for being plain rude including when it is not necessary. Some are hopeless because they do not hear themselves and don't understand the reaction they get- Not to mention that SOME don't know how to have a conversation or what is actually related to it. Yeah you missed a lot.

Expand full comment

Well, you didn't answer the question.

Expand full comment

My God Harrison Ford is old, Clint Eastwood is old.... But no one cares.

And guess what tRump is old too. And a horrible human being on top.

Expand full comment

I used to go to the library to read “Vital Speeches”.

Are you that old?

Expand full comment

Yes, ageism is wrong. Learned about the wisdom of the aged as a child and am still surprised (and infuriated) to experience it in America. But many Americans “die” at 60 from poor diet and insufficient exercise and medical care. Body and brain are one--something we don’t take into account.

Expand full comment