All Partisans are Lemmings

Partisans see things through partisan lenses, while imagining only the other side does so.

Morning Consult shows the effects of this in its latest polls on the government's COVID-19 response. Among Republicans, 84% say they are either "confident" or "somewhat confident" of Trump's handling of the pandemic. Among Democrats, it's 22%, and among all adults, it's 46%.

But before Democrats pat themselves on the backs for their perspicacity, they must deduct points for overwhelmingly supporting a contender for president who is showing clear signs of cognitive decline. Most noticeably, he has a problem with names, substituting the wrong word for the name of the office he's running for, the state he's in, objects, people he knows well, and which healthcare legislation he’s for or against (“he derided Mississippi’s former governor for not accepting Medicare-for-all” notes a Washington Post article, pointing out that Biden confused it with the Affordable Care Act).

At certain events, though his speeches now last, at most, 15 minutes, his naming problem has occurred more than once. This specific symptom appears to be what is called verbal paraphasia, according to a paper by Professor Mark Mizuko of the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Professor Mizuko’s paper explains that naming problems fall under the larger heading of aphasia:

A paraphasia is a symptom of commission in that it is an incorrect word substituted for an intended or target word. It is the product of a breakdown at a stage of word-retrieval process and is a dominant symptom within the more general category of anomia

… Verbal paraphasias are identified based on whether there is a semantic relationship between the error and the intended word. Examples: wife/husband; talking/hearing

Sounds like what Biden’s handlers are trying to pass off as the return of a childhood stutter, doesn’t it?

Biden also confused his wife and sister, 22 seconds after staring at his wife in the moment before he began his Super Tuesday victory speech. In the video linked to the previous sentence, you will see him turned toward Jill Biden at 0:01, looking right at her. He then turns to the crowd at 0:03 to begin his speech. At 0:23, he turns back to Jill, reaches for her hand, calls her his sister, then turns to his sister and calls her his wife. Contrary to Biden’s attempt to cover his mistake by saying the two women had switched positions, they had not. They are in the same positions they were 22 seconds before.

If you point this out to most Democrats, they will yell at you and accuse you of helping Trump, as if you were the one causing Biden's symptoms. And they will remain willfully blind to it.

Why? Maybe because we humans sort ourselves into tribes the way other species sort themselves into herds, hives, schools, packs, swarms, and flocks.

So, just as Republicans will stand by their man as he leads them, unprepared, into a pandemic, Democrats will stand by theirs. And over our respective cliffs we go. 

- Anita Bartholomew