Election 2024: The Shoe Fits The Other Foot At Least As Well

Back in the old days -- before Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, that is -- public mention of Donald Trump's advanced age and obvious cognitive impairments was fairly easily hand-waved away as Democratic "whataboutism."

But now Trump faces a 59-year-old, probably not senile, opponent instead of an 81-year-old, obviously senile, opponent.

Quoth Max Burns at The Hill:

At 78, former President Donald Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in American history. If he wins re-election in November, Trump will end his term just a few months shy of his 83rd birthday, making him two years older than President Joe Biden is now. ... comparing footage from Trump’s 2015 presidential announcement to footage from earlier this year shows that Trump isn’t quite the man he used to be. The former president now routinely confuses names when speaking off the cuff -- including the name of his own doctor -- and struggled to finish his sentences during a Nashville rally earlier this year. How can the American people be sure Trump’s stumbles aren’t part of a sustained pattern of cognitive decline? 

The upshot being that if Trump wants to be president again, he should take a cognitive test, either in public or with the results released to the public ... like he said, back in the aforementioned old days, he'd do if Biden did.

Will he do it now that Biden's out? I doubt it.

Will Republicans of "stature" press him to do so? I doubt that even more.

Getting the Democratic Party establishment to hold Biden's feet to the fire on the matter of his age/mental status was a long and difficult process. 

The last nine years of history tells us getting the Republican Party establishment to hold Trump's feet to the fire on anything is likely impossible.

But I suspect that Democrats will make it an issue and that voters will notice.