Joe Biden's personal tragedy is also America's betrayal

Globe and Mail

23-05-2025

The withering of former U.S. president Joe Biden – physically, cognitively, and in reputation – has been a tragedy unfolding before the public for years. At times it felt impolite to watch – sort of like you'd be undermining his dignity to stare while he struggled to do up his suit jacket. Yet this man, up until just months ago, was the most powerful person in America and leader of the free world, and so we had to watch to see if he could eventually get the button through the hole.
The news that the 82-year-old now suffers from prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones adds another layer of personal tragedy to a life that has experienced more than its fair share. Mr. Biden has buried two children, his first wife, has watched addiction swallow another child and now has been diagnosed with incurable cancer. Whatever you think of him politically, this news, for most people, should evoke empathy and sadness.
It's reasonable, however, for it also to evoke curiosity: how is it that a man with unlimited resources was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer only last week, after it had spread to his bones? Why wasn't it caught sooner? Is it really true, as a Biden spokesperson claimed, that Mr. Biden was last screened for prostate cancer in 2014, more than a decade ago? Some medical advisory boards, including the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, recommend against PSA-based screening for men age 70 and older (because of increased risk of false positives and other factors), but when the patient is the President of the United States, isn't there an impetus to collect as much health-related information as possible?
Mr. Biden and his people might have been afforded the benefit of the doubt if this cancer diagnosis was the only factor raising questions about his health during his time as president. But we know now that the White House went to great lengths not just to conceal Mr. Biden's physical and cognitive decline, but to actively disparage anyone who brought it up. One forthcoming book, entitled Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, reveals that Mr. Biden's physical deterioration was serious enough for his aides to discuss the possibility of him needing a wheelchair if elected to a second term. Another, entitled, 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, discusses how Mr. Biden's aides decided against having him undergo a cognitive test, despite clear evidence of his diminished capacity. Both expose the various ways that the White House sought to gaslight both the public and legislators about what was happening to Mr. Biden. Cabinet meetings, for example, were pretty much scripted, according to Original Sin. That left cabinet officials disturbed, and yet no one spoke out.
Americans can forgive a president for aging (though polling ahead of the election indicated they weren't prepared to re-elect him because of it), but it's much harder to forgive a political party for actively trying to deceive the public about the effects of that aging. That's not just a problem for Democratic lawmakers; the bulwark against the insanity that has currently overtaken the White House is a strong and credible opposition. Yet that opposition has spent years telling people not to believe what they could see with their own eyes. They insisted that the president simply had a cold when he appeared confused and incoherent in the debate against Donald Trump; they attacked special counsel Robert Hur for describing Mr. Biden as a 'well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,' and they labelled videos showing Mr. Biden wandering or appearing disoriented as 'cheap fakes.'
It is true that Mr. Trump gaslights the American public on a near-daily basis, imploring citizens not to believe what they can see with their own eyes. But there are a few important distinctions between what the Democrats did, and what Mr. Trump does. One: Mr. Trump has a reputation for exaggeration (to put it generously) and thus is more readily forgiven for claiming gas prices are a dollar cheaper per gallon than they actually are. It's not fair, but it's what it is. Two: the lie about Mr Biden's health was not about an issue like taxes or immigration or trade, but the issue that strikes at the heart of American good governance – whether the man in charge is capable of doing his job. And three: people know, instinctively, what aging looks like. They see it in their parents, their grandparents, their friends and neighbours. Indeed, Original Sin includes many examples of people around Mr. Biden recognizing his gait, his memory lapses and his confusion in people in their own lives who they've seen suffer with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. Some Americans might not know instinctively that tariffs are paid by the importer, but they do know what it means when people start mixing up words and forgetting faces.
Mr. Biden's health struggles are a personal tragedy. But the deceit around them has been America's betrayal.