"Mark Twain famously wrote that history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. When he wrote that, he probably wasn't thinking in terms of a year or two. And yet here we are: another aging president, another weekend consumed by baseless rumors about his health, another round of gleeful partisan finger-pointing. Over the holiday, online conspiracies claimed President Donald Trump was gravely ill or even dead. It was nonsense, the sort of fact-free whisper campaign that metastasizes in the social media bloodstream."
"If this partisan-cum-ageist attack feels remarkably familiar, that's because it is. Conservatives just spent the past four years mocking Joe Biden as a nursing-home escapee, pointing and laughing at his stiffness, his stumbles, and his verbal detours. Every awkward pause became a Fox News chyron, every misstep a meme. To his defenders, it was cruel and condescending; to his critics, it was proof he was unfit."
History often rhymes with repeated political behavior around presidential age and health. Over a holiday weekend, online conspiracies claimed President Donald Trump was gravely ill or dead, claims he denied despite appearing aware. Conservatives spent four years mocking Joe Biden's age, stamina, and verbal missteps, turning pauses into chyrons and memes and framing decline as unfitness. As Biden's decline became more visible, defenses weakened and mockery shifted away from governance toward ridicule. The pendulum swung back with liberals now relishing Trump's halting speech and odd posts, speculating about his health while some on the right call such talk tasteless.
Read at www.mediaite.com
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