Ronald Reagan was often called “The Great Communicator” because of his ability to educate his audience using eloquent speech and word pictures to make his point. He used your mind as a canvas, painting it with words to help you visualize what he was saying. To this day, watching his address to the nation after the Challenger exploded still brings a tear to my eye.
It’s hard to forget his words at the end of his speech:
“The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’”
Now, we all know that Reagan didn’t write his own speeches. He had people to do that for him. But, when he spoke, when he read the teleprompter, you felt as if he were speaking directly to you. The words, combined with his delivery method was what made him such a great communicator.
Reagan was formerly an actor, so he knew how to play to the cameras. For the first seven years of his presidency, he played well. The last year, not so much. A couple of years after he left office, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Looking back at his later years as President, there’s little doubt that he had gone undiagnosed for quite a while, and that he was likely ill toward the end of his second term.
Reagan was just a few days short of 70 when he was elected to his first term and he finished his second term just shy of his 78th birthday.
Joe Biden is 78 years old. Think about that. Biden is older than Ronald Reagan was when he finished his second term.
Everyone knows that people tend to lose mental quickness as they age. Sometimes it’s a gradual decline, sometimes it’s more of a cliff. Rarely, though it does happen, do people retain the mindpower they had when they were younger.
If you were to compare old videos of Joe Biden speaking to more recent ones, you’ll see that his mental acuity has obviously deteriorated. A lot.
At least with Reagan, we got a few good years before he started slipping away. Joe was “elected” at about the same age as Reagan was when he started his decline. Except we don’t get any of the “good Joe”, partly because he’s losing his mind but also partly because there wasn’t much “good Joe” to begin with.
Joe’s brain isn’t aging well. It’s not like a fine wine or cheese that gets better with age. No, Joe’s brain is more like that stalk of celery you forgot you had in the bottom of your fridge. You know, the one that’s slowly liquifying into a bag of greenish-brown goop. Now, right now, is the best that celery is ever going to be. Every second that passes turns more and more of it into mush.
But it’s not like Joe started declining yesterday. We all remember before the election when he was quoting the Declaration of Independence. Here’s what he said: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.” At that time, he was being the very best Joe Biden he was still capable of being.
The Joe Biden we currently have is the best Joe Biden we’re going to have as “president”. He’s never going to be any better than he is today. Now, right now, is the best he’s ever going to be.
Ronald Reagan, The Great Communicator, brough the entire world to tears with his moving speech about the Challenger. Listening to Joe also makes me want to cry.
But not because he’s a great communicator, it’s because he’s already “The Great Miscommunicator”. And it’s only going to get worse.
