It's now clear: Democrats have lied for four years about the President's cognitive status.

From the moment that Joe Biden shuffled onto the stage in last night's debate to the time he had to be helped off of it by his wife, the president confirmed every suspicion about his age and cognitive decline. He stumbled through his opening answer; he stumbled through his closing statement. As CNN's split-screen showed, Joe Biden appeared to have trouble paying attention during Donald Trump's answers, and kept falling back on barely enunciated platitudes and verbal tics to organize his thoughts to any level of coherence.

This was not just a debate loss for Biden. It was an utter humiliation, arguably elder abuse perpetrated on those around him who spent a full week at Camp David attempting to make Biden look competent. Either it did not do any good at all, or -- worse yet -- it might indicate that Biden is in fact much, much worse when not given over a week of R&R to handle the job.

For most of the last four years, Democrats and the media have insisted that Americans disbelieve what their own eyes and experience made plain as day. Elected Democrat officials such as governors and members of the House and Senate kept vouching for Biden's youth and vitality. The White House press office kept claiming that no one over the age of 40 could keep up with him. Protection Racket Media talking heads regurgitated these claims and cast those questioning Biden's capacity as either conspiracy theorists or heartless partisans. 

Remember how the media called doddering Biden clips "cheap fakes" to discredit critics?

Now there's no hiding the fact that Biden is incompetent now, not just for the next four years. Chuck Todd says there's now a "panic" among Democrats, but it's not just about this debate:

CHUCK TODD: "Biden looks like the caricature that conservative media has been painting ... you saw it before your eyes!" pic.twitter.com/Cogjqddf7w

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 28, 2024

CNN's own panel looked positively funereal after the debate was over. John King introduced it thusly:

CNN: "Right now, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party. It started minutes into the debate, and it continues right now. It involves party strategists and involves elected officials.

It involves fundraisers, and they're having conversations… pic.twitter.com/0yaCJjFkpG

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) June 28, 2024

Sure, they're panicking over the election prospects. And well they should. But that's not the only reason Democrats -- and the American media -- are panicking after last night.

It's because all of their lies have been exposed. Tens of millions of Americans knew the emperor had no cognitive clothes, only to be castigated for believing their own eyes and lectured about how vital and sharp Joe Biden supposedly is. 

Now all of these liars will have to explain themselves. And they know it.

The CNN analysis included mainly Democrats, including David Axelrod and former Biden comms director Kate Bedingfield, as well as Van Jones, who looked nearly in tears. Every single one of them posited that Biden would likely need to step aside and open the convention. Axelrod warned Republicans that a new candidate would make Trump much less electable, too.

Why? Because Democrats will assure us that the replacement is also youthful, smart, engaged, and up to the job?

None of the people on that panel understood the scope of the disaster last night. Biden just exposed a vast cover-up, nearly universal among elected Democrats and almost as much within the US national media, designed to keep people in the dark about the president's mental capacity. 

They spent the last four years foisting a near-senile old fool onto a nation at a moment of dire crisis. That includes Axelrod. It includes Bedingfield. It includes Van Jones. It includes the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN, and practically every other establishment media outlet. It also includes Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, every Democrat governor and member of Congress (except Dean Phillips), and most especially Jill Biden, who had to rush the stage to pull Joe off of it:

BREAKING: Just as the debate came to a close, Jill Biden rushed to the stage to lead Joe Biden off, worried he would freeze up and forget where he was, meanwhile, Trump walked off like an accomplished man pic.twitter.com/2HS4VANrOY

— George (@BehizyTweets) June 28, 2024

Democrats now want to pull a switcheroo and hope everyone forgets all about this breathtaking cover-up and corruption. That includes all of those Democrats who voted for Biden in primaries this year on their word that Biden was up to the task -- and whose votes will count for nothing in any scenario that changes the ticket. Talk about betrayal!

We'll game that out separately, but that won't solve the appalling credibility destruction that took place and which applies to all of the above. Elected Democrat officials from Kamala Harris on down participated in a scheme to defraud American voters, not once but twice, and the media aided and abetted it both times. 

This demands accountability -- first at the ballot box, and then by investigations into how these frauds were run and perpetrated. It reminds us that we need to make sure we elect people who will pursue those questions and hold people responsible for their attempts to gaslight Americans and con them into voting for an old man who clearly can't perform this job now, let alone for another four years.

And we shouldn't stop pursuing these questions until we get an answer to who has been in charge of policy and decisions in the White House. Because it's clear that Biden clearly is not in charge of anything. 

Last night's appalling display reminds us again of the crisis we face in public life. All of the institutions dominated by the Left have betrayed America, as Doddering Joe proved last night. Democrats and their Protection Racket Media allies are preparing new spin today to attempt to extend the cover-up a few more weeks for another con of the American electorate, and Big Tech co-conspirators will soon begin enforcing the new spin on advertising and moderation to enforce silence on Biden's cognitive collapse. To wit:

No one who watched this debate could possibly believe that Biden was "relying on minutiae" and "over-prepared." Biden could barely babble out platitudes in between his verbal tics ("the idea!", "here's the deal", etc). He wasn't over-prepared; Biden is incompetent for the task. https://t.co/0jGuqYZD0a

— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) June 28, 2024

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