Ignoring Joe Biden’s Unassailable Fact: A Serious Deficiency of the Debate Analysis

 

The Debate uproar continues largely at a very superficial level.  That level is basically that Joe Biden is too old and feeble to be President and therefore he needs to step down and the Democrats need to run another candidate for the sake of “not losing the office.”  This is being spun at multiple levels.  We are hearing stories about White House Staff being conflicted, the President offering cookies to members of Congress, the plausibility of sleep deprivation as an explanation, and even provided with a list of 10 possible Democratic candidates. Whenever supporters of the President come forward the wisdom of loyalists is being questioned rather than what they describe.  The actual content of the debate continues to be ignored as if Joe Biden did not provide any. 

I came up with the following diagram to put things into perspective.  It consists of Trump’s hyperbole about Joe Biden and the single Biden response that effectively cancels that hyperbole across multiple dimensions.  Instead of hearing anything about that response the news media continues the endless speculation about Biden’s Presidency and who should replace him.  The excerpts in the table below are taken directly from the CNN transcript that is easily accessible.  For the sake of simplicity – I eliminated Biden’s point-by-point responses to the Trump hyperbole that were more than adequate and included only the responses that included his reference to the Presidential Greatness survey.

Trump	Biden
“He also said he inherited 9 percent inflation. No, he inherited almost no inflation, and it stayed that way for 14 months. And then it blew up under his leadership because they spent money like a bunch of people that didn’t know what they were doing. And they don’t know what they were doing. It was the worst – probably the worst administration in history. There’s never been.”
“But look, we had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border in history. There’s never been anything like it. And people are dying all over the place, including the people that are coming up in caravans.”
“Nobody had been worse. I had the highest approval rating for veterans, taking care of the V.A. He has the worst. He’s gotten rid of all the things that I approved – Choice, that I got through Congress. All of the different things I approved, they abandoned.”
“First of all, our veterans and our soldiers can’t stand this guy. They can’t stand him. They think he’s the worst commander in chief, if that’s what you call him, that we’ve ever had. They can’t stand him. So let’s get that straight. And they like me more than just about any of them. And that’s based on every single bit of information.”
“His presidency, his – without question, the worst president, the worst presidency in the history of our country. We shouldn’t be having a debate about it. There’s nothing to debate.”	“The idea that veterans are not being taken care of, I told you before – and, by the way, when I said “suckers and losers,” he said – he acknowledged after it that he fired that general. That general got fired because he’s the one that acknowledged that that’s what he said. He was the one standing with Trump when he said it, number one.   Number two, the idea that we’re going to be in a situation where all these millions and millions, the way he talks about it, illegal aliens are coming into the country and taking away our jobs, there’s a reason why we have the fastest-growing economy in the world, a reason why we have the most successful economy in the world. We’re doing better than any other nation in the world.   And, by the way, those 15 Nobel laureates, economists, they all said that if Trump is re-elected, we’re likely to have a recession, and inflation is going to increasingly go up.   And by the way, worst president in history. 159 presidential scholars voted him the worst president in the history of the United States of America.”
“He caused inflation. As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border. They’re taking black jobs now and it could be 18. It could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”
“Did you fire anybody? Did you fire anybody that’s on the border, that’s allowed us to have the worst border in the history of the world? Did anybody get fired for allowing 18 million people, many from prisons, many from mental institutions? Did you fire anybody that allowed our country to be destroyed? Joe, our country is being destroyed as you and I sit up here and waste a lot of time on this debate. This shouldn’t be a debate.”   “He is the worst president. He just said it about me because I said it. But look, he’s the worst president in the history of our country. He’s destroyed our country. Now, all of a sudden, he’s trying to get a little tough on the border. He come out – came out with a nothing deal, and it reduced it a little bit. A little bit, like this much. It’s insignificant.”   “He wants open borders. He wants our country to either be destroyed or he wants to pick up those people as voters. And I don’t think – we just can’t let it happen. If he wins this election, our country doesn’t have a chance. Not even a chance of coming out of this rut. We probably won’t have a country left anymore. That’s how bad it is. He is the worst in history by far.”	“Number two, the idea that we’re talking about worst presidents. I wasn’t joking. Look it up. Go online. 159 or 58, don’t hold me the exact number, presidential historians. They’ve had meetings and they voted who’s the worst president in American history. One through best to worst. They said he was the worst in all of American history. That’s a fact. That’s not conjecture. He can argue the wrong, but that’s what they voted.”
“Just you understand, we have polling. We have other things that do – they rate him the worst because what he’s done is so bad. And they rate me – yes, I’ll show you. I will show you. And they rate me one of the best. OK.”
“All my life I’d grow up and I’d see politicians talking about cutting taxes. When we cut taxes, as I said, we did more business. Apple and all these companies, they were bringing money back into our country. The worst president in history by far, and everybody knows it.”
“But he hasn’t cut the tariffs because he can’t, because it’s too much money. But he’s got the largest deficit in the history of our country and he’s got the worst situation with China. China is going to own us if you keep allowing them to do what they’re doing to us as a country. They are killing us as a country, Joe, and you can’t let that happen. You’re destroying our country.”
“Then he came along. The numbers – have you seen the numbers now? It’s not only the 18 million people that I believe is even low, because the gotaways, they don’t even talk about gotaways. But the numbers of – the amount of drugs and human trafficking in women coming across our border, the worst thing I’ve ever seen at numbers – nobody’s ever seen under him because the border is so bad. But the number of drugs coming across our border now is the largest we’ve ever had by far.”

 

What do I conclude from this analysis?  Far from being feeble – Joe Biden presented solid information that (as far as I can tell) was ignored by all the talking heads.  Trump’s characterizations of Biden as the worst President are strictly hyperbole. Biden’s response points out that according to a survey of 154 Presidential scholars Biden is ranked #14 and Trump is dead last at #45.  Beyond that obvious fact – Biden is ranked higher than Reagan (#16), George HW Bush (#19), and George W Bush (#32).  In a follow up article it was noted that Trump ranks lower than William Henry Harrison (#41) who died 31 days after taking office.  There seems to be no doubt about where Presidential scholars rank Trump.

The implications of this transcript are clear.  There is always the possibility that Biden has suddenly developed severe problems by per my previous post – but I doubt it. Anyone should be very skeptical about the stories coming out of the press at this time.  Ageist bias is so prevalent that it affects all these stories.  The associated lack of criticism of Trump by comparison is telling. There have been stories suggesting that Trump “lied” anywhere from 30 to 50 times.  I checked these lies against the transcript and they are there. The problem with that analysis is that Trump gets a pass by the MAGA crowd and most of the media whenever he does lie.  The best example is the stolen election lie. Any interview about this typically results in Trump repeating the statement until the journalists stops asking the question.  That strategy is obvious even in the debate transcript.

Another consideration is misinformation and how that affects the ongoing debate spin. The standard MAGA misinformation channels should be ignored.  There is undoubtedly a more insidious effort by enemies of the United States to create additional misinformation on social media.  It is obvious that Russia and Putin see the election of Trump as more consistent with their interests because of Trump’s lack of support for Ukraine and NATO.  Russia clearly supports groups hacking and extorting American businesses.  Threat analysis suggests that Russia, China, and Iran are actively interfering with US elections by misinformation that includes generative AI based approaches.  It should be clear that these countries would prefer a President who is isolationist, does not back Ukraine or NATO, and one who they believe they can manipulate.  Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton believes that Putin knows he can easily manipulate Trump.

All of this information is being ignored in the face of the Presidential debate and the fact that Biden basically looked bad even though he easily produced content that countered Trump’s hyperbole and advanced his own case.  This is not the first-time appearances at a debate were considered a deciding factor.  As I have written in the past, I don’t generally consider the economy to be determined by Presidents – they either take credit or get blamed even though most of the economy is outside of their sphere of influence.  There is plenty of misinformation out there about the economy and the fact it is a motivating factor for people to vote for Trump. There is no doubt that the Biden economy is better and his policies will strengthen the economy in the future.

There is a big interview between Biden and George Stephanopoulos coming up this evening.  We will see if Biden can present in a way to reassure the voters – but all things equal they are still going to hold his age against him.  It is unfortunate that there is little rational discussion of the issue at this point – including the points that Biden made in the debate.   

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

Addendum:

The Joe Biden - George Stephanopoulos Interview:

I watched the entire brief interview this evening.  I thought it was an exercise in gotcha journalism.  Biden responded with reasonable answers to why he wants to continue to run and why he is the best person for the job.  His response about whether or not he would take a "cognitive exam" was also reasonable - basically that his job is a cognitive exam every day.  Stephanopoulos' interview technique was controlling and trying to get Biden to respond to hypotheticals that he eventually stated he would not respond to.  He also asked Biden to respond to uncorroborated speculation.  I thought that overall it was a very poor interview and Biden handled it as well as anyone could.  In many ways it was an interrogation rather than an interview. Another disappointing aspect of the interview was the additional four journalists that Stephanopoulos discussed the current situation with. They all clearly had a fixed agenda that Biden should withdraw for various reasons and seemed to be trying to create news rather than report it.  That seems to be the basic problem for Biden at this point.  The news media is more critical of him than Trump - despite Trump's massive deficiencies. As an expert on cognitive testing of the elderly I can add that the "cognitive test" that Trump brags about - is really a screening test that is not sensitive enough to pick up anything short of a moderate to severe problem.  They are easy for anyone who is not cognitively impaired.  Trump has also been noted to brag about his results on this screening test as well as inaccurately describing the test - specifically the naming tasks and word recall task.  All of those details as well as this quote are from reference 1:

"It's a very, very low bar for somebody who carries the nuclear launch codes in their pocket to pass and certainly nothing to brag about," said Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington School of Medicine &Health Sciences.

If there is a cognitive contest between Biden and Trump - and I am sure that will never happen - testing should occur in the same manner, given by the same examiner and it should be recorded for outside validation purposes.  It should also be a more rigorous screen - like the test battery given to physicians in some centers if they want to practice past the age of 75.

But at this point Biden's fate appears to be predetermined by a media bias against him that does not exist for his opponent.

References:

1:    Parker A, Diamond D.  A ‘whale’ of a tale: Trump continues to distort cognitive test he took.  Washington Post Jan 19, 2024.

Graphic Reference:

Presidential Greatness Project - see rankings at this site.  Biden #14  Trump #45 

Disclaimer: 

As previously noted I am not now and have never been a member of any political party in the United States.  At the same time, it is clear to me that the Republican party, their Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and their partisan Supreme Court are an unprecedented danger to the United States that I have known all of my life and that they should be defeated. It is also clear that they have a level of organization that resulted in political advantages over the opposition and that their rhetorical strategy is to blame the opposition for what they in fact are doing

Supplementary 1: 

The following Tweet today from Norman Ornstein:

He does a good job capturing the media bias against Biden.  There is also more than a little conflict of interest at the NYT - since their editorial board has already said that Biden should step down.  Practically every journalist I see - even after the Stephanopoulos interview is either explicitly or implicitly suggesting that Biden should step down, that Democrats will tell him to step down, or that he will lose the election if he doesn't.  That kind of stacks the deck against you in polls - especially when almost all of the polls quoted are poorly characterized to the point that they may lack validity.   There have been comparisons with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who is often faulted by the left for not stepping down in time for President Obama to appoint a successor.  She is an easy scapegoat for a party who failed to win the Senate or maintain any countermeasures for right wing activism that seeks to appoint as many federal judges as possible.  Comparing a life long appointment in the case of Ginsburg to being elected President and according to experts doing a better than average job lacks equivalency.  There is also a clear asymmetry in the criticism with Trump getting a complete pass despite his abysmal rating as a President.  Instead of even mild criticism in Trump's direction - I expect the press to continue to portray Biden's presidential bid as a scandal and look for any evidence to back that opinion up.  

Supplementary 2: 

Conclusory language is discouraged in many formats in psychiatry like evaluations for civil commitment, guardianship, and conservatorship.  The idea is that conclusory language short circuits uncertainty and statutory requirements and can prematurely lead to a wrong conclusion.  Even routine psychiatric evaluations should avoid conclusory language in favor of probability statements or statements about the inherent uncertainty in medical evaluations.   

All of the press that I have seen comment on the debate or the Stephanopoulos interview have been using conclusory language or suggesting that they have a source who will provide that language.  Needless to say that is all highly prejudicial against Biden.

The Times They Are A-Changin’ – or Are they?

I was walking around last week at dusk on a couple of nights. For the first time I decided to listen to some music as I walked. I would never do this if I was cycling because you need to hear the tire noise of approaching vehicles and I was using noise cancellation headphones tied into my music library. I also decided to use shuffle mode and that is also unusual – I typically repeat tracks until I get tired of them and that often takes a long time. For some reason, my phone kept playing Dylan songs. It reminded me of how I really did not like Dylan when I was young and listening to Hendrix and the Who. My interest peaked when he got the Noble Prize for Literature. It peaked again when I heard him interviewed and he talked about how easy it was to write music when he was younger. The music just seemed to flow and all he had to do was write it down. It was how mathematicians were described in Nasar’s biography of John Nash. Young mathematicians typically produced most of the ideas that advanced the field.

A lot of the songs were melancholy tunes about relationships gone bad.  Some were lessons in how not to be codependent. I was acutely aware of being an old man dressed in black listening to this music and free associating to similar events in my life from long ago. Before it got too maudlin - The Times They Are A-Changin’ came on:

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'

I could have sworn that what I heard walking around in the dark was a direct reference to the United States in that song. But looking it up later - it was not there. The song snapped me out of interpersonal reflection and into the current threat to American democracy.  For the past several days I had been responding to social media posts about the disconnect between what appears to be going on in national presidential politics and the reality of the situation. Just that day I responded to a poster questioning why Christians appear to be in lock step with a candidate who does not appear to have similar values and how Biden has done very well in the White House but seems to be struggling in the polls against a candidate with a known poor record who orchestrated an insurrection against the US government? A candidate who has been charged with 91 felonies. Even more mysteriously, the entire Republican party with rare exceptions is supporting Trump and most want his endorsement in local and state elections. How can a candidate with that many flaws still be in contention at this point and dominating a party that was originally abolitionist and got Lincoln elected as their first President before the start of the Civil War?  It does not make any sense and I will look at the hypotheticals below.  I tried to put as many as possible into the graphic at the head of this post – but only the coarsest details are possible:

1:  A general lack of critical thinking:

It has been a long time since I took a high school English class, but from what I recall even back in those days there was very little emphasis on rhetoric. Critical thinking generally involved the decoding the author’s intent, detection of symbolism and defending an opinion on a theme: “Do you find Lord of the Flies to be optimistic or pessimistic and why?”  Rhetoric was largely confined to debate teams that a small percentage of students participated in.

It has never been more important for the average citizen to be informed and aware of what might be rhetorical distortions. There used to be some level of assistance from professionally edited news, but that is no longer reliably available. Today it is possible to get all your news from a site that you agree with on ideological grounds – no matter how far from reality that site gets. Apart from these echo chambers on the Internet, the main street news offers minimal assistance.  You might find stories about the polarized electorate with no discussion of what that means or if one side is more polarized than the other.  Threats and overt violence were introduced into the political scene with no comment that this is almost an entirely right-wing phenomenon that is often tied in with gun rights and bragging about who owns the most guns. The right wing owns both moral and gun extremism in the US and yet there no criticism of this in mainstream media. Most importantly, political violence against specific groups should be unacceptable in the US and it is increasingly apparent.

2:  President Biden is too old: 

This seems to be a popular trope in both campaign propaganda and as material for comedians.  Bill Maher for example, will often detail the accomplishments of the Biden administration as being some of the most significant in decades only to incorporate polling questions about his age and conclude he should step down and let someone else run. No suggestions about who that should be and judging from the declared candidates there is no one of suitable name recognition or accomplishment who could run and expect to get support equal to Trump’s locked in MAGA constituency. If you look at my graphic – any candidate the Democrats advance will not have the amount of leverage with the voters based on the factors listed.

But backing up – is 80 years old – too old?  I saw President Biden on the bike and I saw him fall. It was clearly a mistake that people make when they are not used to toe clip pedals. The part that most people seem to ignore is that he got up with no problems. That is not the mark of a feeble old man and neither is the current schedule he has been keeping. More to the point – he has an awareness of how things need to run in the Executive Branch, how information needs to be managed, how consultation with staff is a critical function, and how to manage alliances.  There is minimal evidence that his predecessor has that level of awareness.  

There is certainly no current evidence that Biden cannot do the job given his list of accomplishments and some high-profile incidents – most notably his performance at the last State of the Union address. Ageism is certainly a prominent cultural bias in the US.  If I were a foreign actor wanting to manipulate the American electorate – I would use it, especially if I knew the opposition party could easily be convinced to use it.  The current group of Republicans could be expected to jump on it even though some of their members of Congress are older than Biden.

3:  The Republican base has been manipulated and brain washed by culture war tropes: 

This is undoubtedly a factor at some level.  I have written on this blog about how the GOP has become a party of gun and moral extremists – not out of some strict Constitutional interpretation or religious belief, but out of political expediency. It is easy to manufacture some ideological position to elicit emotional responses from some voters and get them to believe they are in a morally or Constitutionally superior position. Fortunately, that is not how democracy works but it is how the current crop of Republicans want it to work. In the meantime, public safety, education, and women’s health have all been compromised. On the day I am typing this a Constitutional Amendment for reproductive rights was passed in Ohio blocking attempts to pass restrictive abortion laws. Whether this can be a rallying point against moral extremism is an open question at this point.

4:  Fragmentation among Democrats: 

There is some concern that progressives within the party have gone too far in areas of social consciousness particularly social justice issues involving race and the LGBT community. The concern is amplified by the Republican’s rhetorical use of the term woke as a pejorative. That has allowed them to indiscriminately use the term to criticize health care, educational, social, and economic policies as being too woke (translation politically correct) and simultaneously suggest that most Americans would not find it to be acceptable. That can range from books in a high school library that were read by several older generations to college admission policies to protests about excessive use of force by the police.

The current war between Israel and Hamas is a similar flashpoint. One analysis suggests that progressives see the world though a simple lens of colonizers and victims. That has been spun into Israel starting a genocidal war in Gaza or even the US starting or backing such a war. In the most extreme case, social media was abuzz with young people supporting a letter allegedly written by a famous terrorist, blaming the United States for terrorist attacks. That has also led to protests and threats to Jewish college students in the United States. All of that misses the point that violence is being incited against US citizens who happen to be Jewish and that Hamas clearly started the war and clearly stated their ongoing goal is to destroy Israel and kill their citizens.

5:  Activation of far right white supremacist and antisemitic groups:  

There is no doubt that fringe groups that were essentially silenced for many years were activated during the Trump administration and actively support him. In my own neighborhood there was widespread dissemination of white supremacist literature for tens of miles in all directions.  That has never happened in the Midwest during my lifetime. Further investigation linked the same group spreading that literature to antisemitism.  Investigation by local officials and law enforcement did not identify the specific perpetrators and no charges were ever filed.

6:  Activation of antisemitism in younger generations: 

The facts are not disputed and various theories have been proposed. The history is forgotten explanation seems to have a lot of traction.  At least it seems to have garnered the most speculation. In other words, with less exposure to Holocaust survivors and the history of World War II, younger generations are unlikely to believe the actual historical events – a clearly documented genocide against the Jewish people. That seems to minimize any role of activated antisemitic hate groups and social media. Many of these groups are now at the point that they show up in public demonstrations and are attempting to recruit new members from suburban neighborhoods. The wave of antisemitism in the younger generation has had far reaching effects on college campuses, in some cases to the point that departments and administrations failed to condemn the recent terrorist attack against Israel or an obvious problem of antisemitism on their campuses. This generation uses TikTok as a preferred social media site. In a recent press release they described removing tens of thousands of antisemitic posts.  Just how long that posting has occurred is unknown.

I think it is also useful to recall that political violence directed at minority groups is a well-known tactic of fascist and totalitarian states.  In the early days of the Internet online discussions often became heated to the point that accusations of Naziism were often made.  This led to Godwin’s Rule or as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.  That is basically nerd speak to say that analogies to Nazis based on Internet discussions is probably absurd. What I have seen lately suggests to me that we are beyond the absurd stage when people are injured and living in fear.  If it walks and talks  like a Nazi….

 7:  The social media propaganda machine:  

Social media seems to always be in the news. The common topic is how it is a malignant force in the lives of teenagers and children. There is concern that you can get “addicted” to rapidly scrolling and clicking on too many sites. People talk about the dopaminergic effects of this activity – like the neuroscience is known. Even though we had a foreign government actively interfering in the last Presidential election through social media and email hacks – nobody seems focused on that happening again. US Intelligence agencies predicted that it would happen again and it would probably be more vigorous than the last time. It is also more difficult to detect because the foreign actors are all using servers within the United States. Several agencies are responsible for detecting and monitoring this activity – but 1 year out none of them are reporting on what they see or what kind of misinformation is being posted. You don’t have to be a secret agent to think about who these foreign actors are. Russia was clearly involved in the last Presidential election and given the situation in Ukraine – they would clearly prefer Trump over Biden.  Putin has actively encouraged Russian hackers at all levels including those who steal money from average Americans.  Trump has made it clear that he would not support Ukraine and he clearly had a negative impact on NATO.  Biden has been able to reverse most of that damage and unify NATO.  Iran, China, and North Korea also have an interest in a Trump presidency.  These countries either have a direct interest in supporting Trump based on his probable policies or just weakening the US by more divisiveness in the electorate.

 8:  Uncritical voters:  

I heard Iowa voters asked about why they are voting for Trump and why he is so popular in their state.  I heard the following responses:

 “He is a businessman.”

 “He says what is on his mind.”

 “I don’t care what he has said or done – I am voting for him.”

These responses and his previous performance – all indicate that many Trump voters are not focused on any policy.  It would probably be difficult because most of the policies that Trump seems focused on at this point have to do with revenge against his perceived enemies.  That is typically a low bar – they are people who either disagree with him or want accountability.  That leads me to a previously stated conclusion I made that a lot of Trump’s base are nihilists who just want to burn the system down. It is difficult to find more nihilistic behavior than orchestrating an insurrection against the US government and refusing the peaceful transfer of power.

Given the above analysis – I think the negative sentiment about President Biden is primarily the product of foreign actors manipulating the American electorate. That also explains the disconnect between many of the demographic features of Trump voters and their candidate.

I do not want to put all of this on young voters.  There are clearly older voters who demonstrate similar levels of cluelessness, probably borne out of long-standing biases.  It is up to voters of all ages to not believe what you see in social media echo chambers, clear propaganda from hate groups, and similar attitudes that may have existed in your culture for generations. We cannot turn the United States over to a man and a party of extremists who have proven time again that they have no vision for the country or where it is headed. In Congress the Republican majority has clearly demonstrated that they cannot govern. We cannot be influenced by groups seeking to divide Americans and destroy the values that this country was founded on.

We all must start swimmin’ to save American democracy.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

References:

1:  Hotez, Peter. "On Antiscience and Antisemitism." Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 66 no. 3, 2023, p. 420-436. Project MUSE, https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2023.a902035.

2:  Scherer, Nancy & Miller, Banks. (2009). The Federalist Society's Influence on the Federal Judiciary. Political Research Quarterly - Polit Res Quart 62. 366-378. https://doi.org//10.1177/1065912908317030. 

Graphic Credit: I made this graphic 

Supplementary 1:  Why I wrote this post - this post is not an analysis of the psychiatric status of either candidate.  I am on record on this blog that the role of assessing the President's fitness to work in that office is supposed to be assumed by lay people working with him or her.  Many people working with Trump have provided scathing critiques of what they observed. I have not seen any from the Biden administration. 

This post was written basically as an exploration of how a candidate who seems so intellectually, emotionally, and temperamentally unfit for the office (as determined by multiple independent assessments by non-mental health professionals) has such a draw with the electorate. It seems mystifying until you look at the diagram and realize that more of the factors that leverage the electorate are stacked against Biden rather than Trump. In fact - replacing Biden in the graphic results in minimal gains. If I had to speculate on the biggest effect I would see it as all of the factors impinging on the social media on Trump's side.  

For the record, I am not a life long Democrat and in fact ran as an Independent in 2000 for the US Senate from Minnesota. As a life long skeptic of both major parties, that was an eye opening experience. I am currently highly motivated to write about political extremism that I see from Republicans and the fact that it is only getting worse.  Giving Trump the job again when we already know what happened the last time is a clear mistake.  Allowing the Republican Party to maintain a nongoverning, culture wars, nihilistic response is also a massive mistake for the Republic.   

 

Supplementary 2:

Will add some examples to highlight the graphic as the I see them on a day to day basis:

Taylor Lorenz - excellent example that I saw today on TMZ is this interview.  Before this the TMZ crew showed Biden's attempt at humor with a birthday cake and they continue this into the interview like he is trying to win young voters with jokes.  Ms. Lorenz of course jumps on the opportunity to point out that Biden has not been focused on what Millennials or Gen Z want.  She cites an example of student loan forgiveness was not a focus apparently forgetting that his $430B student loan forgiveness plan was shot down by the right wing Supreme Court.  All three justices appointed by Trump (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) voted against the plan in a 6-3 vote (Biden v. Nebraska).  Instead she praises Trump for being "authentic."  With brilliant analyses like that Biden does not stand a chance. 

Adam Kinzinger - seems like a rare positive force in American politics today.  I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher last week where he clearly stated that there was only one pro-democracy political party in the US and it was the Democrats. The former Republican Congressman clearly described why fanaticism is a negative coercive force in politics and that is why it needs to be eliminated. He also founded the Country First PAC as a way to distance himself from right wing extremists and conspiracy theories. 

Gen. Mark Milley - questioned about President Biden's performance by 60 minutes.