Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made headlines on Wednesday afternoon after he froze up for 30 seconds during a Capitol press conference before staff escorted him away from the podium.
Speculation about the reason for McConnell’s blank stare and uncomfortable silence swirled on social media. Approximately 15 minutes after he was hurried away, however, McConnell returned to reporters and declared, “I’m fine.”
“The president called to check up on me and I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell later explained, jokingly referring to President Joe Biden’s onstage spill at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation in June.
Much like Biden, McConnell also tripped and fell earlier this month as he attempted to disembark from an airplane at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Before that, he was hospitalized for five days after suffering a rib fracture and concussion following a fall at an event.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer offered McConnell thoughts and prayers from the Senate floor following McConnell’s March accident.
The power of prayer should never be underestimated. The same can’t be said about Americans’ tolerance for its declining leaders.
Our nation is run by a faction of physically and mentally frail figureheads. The politicians responsible for representing Americans and the U.S. are so old and fragile that they often struggle to form coherent sentences and can’t keep both feet on the ground.
Inadequacy isn’t a phenomenon that only affects McConnell and Biden, whose increasing irritability and building bewilderment has become more apparent in recent years. It’s a pandemic that has completely cursed the public-facing echelon of America’s political class.
It’s time for that to change.
A Gerontocracy?
More than 6 in 10 Americans agree that Biden does not possess “the mental sharpness or physical health to serve effectively as president.” More than 4 in 10 Democrats say Biden is “too old to be president.”
Americans’ assessments make sense. To simply survive public addresses and events, the gaffe-prone grandfather in the White House is handed cue cards, teleprompters, and even pictures of the reporters he’s supposed to call on during his infrequent appearance press conferences.
The same can be said about legislators like McConnell and others in Congress. To advance their political agenda, Democrats are relying on incapacitated senators like Dianne Feinstein, who spent three months away from her job due to physical complications only to return to Congress as an incoherent bag of bones in a wheelchair, and stroke victims like John Fetterman, who checked into Walter Reed medical center for his depression mere weeks into his congressional tenure.
Even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is struggling to keep up nowadays.
These aren’t just bloopers that can be discounted as one-offs. They are embarrassing mistakes that the people representing our nation should not be repeatedly making.
When Americans criticize the overseers of the government for failing to execute their basic job duties without embarrassing themselves and the country, however, the afflicted administrators rush to defend each other against “ageism.”
Corporate media are also quick to cover for their preferred politicians’ dwindling. In May, shortly after Biden overpromised about a “major press conference” that had already happened, The New York Times’ Charles Blow insisted that your “Panic Over Joe Biden’s Age Is Manufactured.”
What NYT and the Washington Post lack in coverage, the White House makes up for with covert transcript changes.
[RELATED: ‘Repeat The Line’: White House Retroactively Alters Transcript To Smooth Biden’s Gaffe]
There is a clear double standard when it comes to discussing Democrats’ ineptitude. The bigger double standard, however, lies in the fact that the rulers who think you’re stupid are the ones who are losing their minds. The walking corpses in the White House, Senate, and the House are making decisions that, simply put, they won’t have to live with. You, on the other hand, will.
Age Is But A Number
Solutions for curbing frail rulers often include age limits for Congress or impeachment under the 25th Amendment for decrepit presidents like Biden. Regulations like these, however, still don’t account for the feeble like Fetterman, who, at 53 years old, seems to spend more time wandering Capitol grounds than in the Senate rotunda.
Nor do they account for the few healthy and robust. At 89 years old, one year younger than Feinstein, Sen. Chuck Grassley is still giving cognizant floor speeches about Biden family corruption and famously running multiple miles nearly every day.
His addresses and interactions aren’t plagued with the gaffes and blunders that torment his colleagues and the man he’s investigating.
Clearly, capability and competency are key. Yet somehow, the infamous “big guy” who refused a cognitive test on the campaign trail became the one in charge.
There is a time and place for those in clear mental decline, and that’s not the White House or on the Senate or House floor. The best thing for those struggling with senility is living in a comfortable and safe place surrounded by family.
Keeping incompetent, mentally compromised leaders around puts their health and safety at risk. More importantly, it puts our nation’s health and security at grave risk. Afflicted politicians like Biden and McConnell clearly have no intentions of retiring, which is why Americans like me and you must do it for them.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
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