Not (Just) Age: The OTHER Reason Biden and Trump "Misspeak"

I’m writing this last week, so it’s possible no one’s thinking of Pres. Joe Biden’s speech or memory or gaffes since his widely praised State of the Union address, which so defied right-wing expectations that they’re asserting as fact their speculation that Biden used super-drugs to Algernon him into a mental meta-human. Or since we learned just how badly special counsel Bob Hur misremembered Biden’s memory.

On the other hand, maybe Biden has already undone all of that with another oopsy-doodle.

Or maybe people are turning more scrutiny on former and maybe-future Pres. Donald Trump for his state of brain.

Whatever the case, whenever we return to the topic of presidential brainfarts, the premise will likely be age. At this point every fuckup is seen through that lens. Which is getting old.

So I want to suggest a new window through which to see their mental lapses, one that I’d say deserves considerably more attention and won’t get it.

It’s privilege.

There’s a lot of evidence that maybe their brainfarts aren’t from being old, because their brainfarts aren’t new. Trump and Biden have been saying shit forever that, had they been elderly at the time, would have been attributed to their age. 

Trump’s been touting himself as a business genius for decades. The people who took him seriously were either (a) TV executives, (b) not New Yorkers, or (c) less smart than Trump. And he got away with it because he had money, so too many people didn’t see how ridiculous his assertions were.

In fact, it was the extent of this insanity that made him famous. He said ridiculous self-aggrandizing stuff that would’ve sounded insane from anyone who couldn’t back it up by flashing Daddy’s cash.

This is a guy whose actions were clearly erratic and strange even back in the ‘80s. Had Trump been in his 80s, we’d have said he was losing it. He was, but not due to age.

Imagine an 80-year-old who constantly pitched product lines named after themselves — steaks and ice and wine and a university and an airline and a magazine that you could read on their airline. If they didn’t have credulous lenders to back them up, they would’ve been locked up. Especially if those businesses kept failing.

Trump literally became a political figure by saying something stupid (and racist) about then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL). If an 80-year-old randomly proclaimed that a U.S. senator had faked his citizenship, they’d ship him off to Orangehair Acres.

Bizarrely, the only reason Trump was taken “seriously” was because he kept saying the birther shit — which made him less sane than if he, like a sane person, had retracted it and said, “Sorry, no idea what I was thinking.” Or saying.

Biden, too, was known for using his mouth as a footlocker before he even became vice president. There was the time in 2006, when Biden was still in his mid-60s and discussed the growing Indian population in Delaware. “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent," Biden said with his mouth, also in its mid-60s.

In 2008, the New York Times called Biden “a distinctive blend of pit bull and odd duck whose weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything.”

Biden was so crazy, the Times cited him saying that rich Americans had a “patriotic” duty to pay more taxes. Crazy, right? How’d that slip out?!? “Weak filters,” the Times explained.

Today, however, both men actually seem to be filtering themselves pretty well. Even Trump has been capable of (eventually) complying with gag orders.

And Biden reportedly has been largely successful at filtering in public an ugly temper and demeaning manner of speaking to his subordinates. Meaning, he’s aware and in control of his faculties.

It was only when Biden thought he was off-mike that he called a Fox employee “a stupid son-of-a-bitch.”

And Biden’s demeanor behind closed Oval Office doors apparently is shockingly different than the avuncular persona he adopts on camera. Axios reported that, in private, he yells at his staff:

"How the fuck don't you know this?" 
"Don't fucking bullshit me!"
"Get the fuck out of here!"

(Editor’s note: The Fucking News is fucking appalled by this kind of language.)

Even back in 2008, Biden reportedly yelled at a reporter — in front of other reporters! — “Get the hell out of my way.”

Point being, Biden was like this before, but almost always succeeds in filtering himself publicly today. And with good reason: Because who the fuck speaks to other humans this way? Privileged people.

Another way we know this is privilege is because most people treated that way by most other people would respond accordingly. To wit:

“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!”

That didn’t happen with Biden. Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki says she told Biden, “I'll know we have a really good, trusting relationship when you yell at me the first time.”

That’s privilege! Biden’s staff literally told him beforehand that yelling at them would be okay! They actively normalized it.

No one does that outside a coercive relationship.

Has any boss ever said that to an employee? Parent to a child? Man to a woman?

The Axios report says that White House staffers saw Biden’s treatment as an initiation. A more clear word might be “hazing.” Which is worth addressing.

In loyalty-based systems, there’s a premium on suspending critical thinking. You’re literally rewarded for not thinking. The craziness of the hazing is the point. Feature, not bug.

Wanna join this frat? Here. Eat this Trisket. Wanna know what’s on it? Fuck you, pledge, yer out. Next!

In this dynamic, the crazier and weirder your Leader gets, the greater your opportunity to prove loyalty by not questioning it. The point of hazing is to eliminate the threat that someone might apply critical thinking to the Leader.

Free of critical scrutiny, the Leader’s guardrails atrophy. These Leaders lose the guardrails that make the rest of us consider our words before mouth-happening them. The lack of pushback weakens the filters of people of privilege.

This might explain why Trump can keep his mouth shut when there’s a guardrail — a judge telling him to shut up — but without a guardrail, and facing only future, hypothetical consequences, he keeps on defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.

Now at this point you might be having some doubts (because I can’t fire you). And you might cite the memory and/or word-swapping that led Biden to place Mexico just south of Israel.

It’s a lot tougher to drill into the dynamics of memory because, (a) I don’t know what I’m talking about, but also (b) the science of what the fuck brains do — and what the fuck minds are — is really really new.

So I wanted to ask someone who knows — as well as anyone can be expected to know in a really really new science. I wanted someone with a fancy-ass title like Memory and Plasticity program director, who’s considered a leading memory researcher.

Luckily, a headline referring to a “Leading Memory Researcher” popped up in the New York Times. And looky-here, it was written by UC-Davis Memory and Plasticity program Director Charan Ranganath, a professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Neuroscience!

I emailed Ranganath that I was wondering “whether Biden, Trump, or anyone else might misspeak on occasion not only because of age or because they small-f forgot things, but because for most of their lives they haven't had the same pressures that most of us [have] to make sure we get things right in front of bosses or clients or customers who might fire or drop us.

“In other words, is it possible that some people with privilege might simply not have had the same pressures to get it right that most of us have?”

Here’s his response:

“What I can say as a memory scientist is that people have biases to recall information in a way that conforms to their beliefs, and that, in general, they have a harder time recalling information that is inconsistent with their beliefs. This can be reinforced when people collectively remember the same event, like sports fans recalling a game from their favorite team, or people from a particular political party recalling a debate. Having diverse groups where people are given the space to speak freely can counter those memory biases and allow people to remember more. This would not explain misspeaking, but I think memory biases are a much more powerful force that we should be concerned about, both in the world of politicians and in the political dialogues in society at large.”

So I may be off-track about misspeaking, but might be onto something about misremembering. 

More importantly, Ranganath’s big takeaway: “memory biases are a much more powerful force that we should be concerned about, both in the world of politicians and in the political dialogues in society at large.” [Emphasis added to combat memory biases.]

For what it’s worth, I think history will be incredibly kind to Biden in part because of his age. [Insert Bad Biden Thing here: ________ and insert my stipulated agreement here: ________.] 

At an age when most of his peers are gasionadoes, Biden’s enacted more measures to combat climate change than anyone. At an age when a lot of his peers use canes or walkers, Biden was the first president to walk a picket line since a president who couldn’t walk finally gave unions some power.

But regardless of whether you’re a Biden admirer or critic, we should be looking at how lifetimes of privilege have warped the words and behavior and yes thinking of these men, including whatever synaptic Trump activity most resembles thinking. And yet we won’t.

Privilege won’t get that discussion in part because the people who decide what “we” discuss are people of privilege. I’ve worked with more than one who manifested exactly the kind of dynamic I’m talking about. Even people in power who want pushback have trouble surrounding themselves with people willing to give it.

Which means that privileged people don’t experience the same negative reactions most of us get when we say something dumb, ill-informed, poorly thought-out, or unkind. They never had to fear a boss or a social circle.

What happens as a result? I’ve worked with people who clearly mistook consistent awkward silence or robust obsequiousness as validation and while I obviously won’t name names, some of them mistakenly concluded that they must be smart and therefore justified in mouthfarting their brainfarts and hosting shows like “Up Late w/ Alec Baldwin.”

Privilege shielding privilege is really bad for all of us. (And it definitely doesn’t make those privileged people happier; it’s isolating.)

So we need to insist on pushback. On everyone.

This is not “canceling.” This is adulting.

Which requires us not only to accept and consider pushback that’s addressed to us, but to make it okay for others to admit that they screwed up when they demonstrate a commitment to make amends. If you will be punished no matter your contrition, there is no incentive to change.

Simply passing this issue off as age blinds us to the factors that give us the collected wit and wisdom of the relatively youthful Elon Musk and Ye. And it dehumanizes elderly people and deprives them of the benefits that accrue to all of us when we all collectively watch our guardrails.

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Jonathan Larsen is a veteran reporter and TV news producer, having worked at MSNBC, CNN, and TYT.

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