I can’t help thinking we’re in some mirror image of the Biden presidency. It’s a funny house mirror, to be sure, but a mirror nonetheless. An aging president is exhibiting strange behavior, and the people around him and his supporters in the media assure us there is nothing to see here. The president is at the top of his game. Deluged today with books exposing Joe Biden’s cognitive decline, will books describe the coverup of Donald Trump’s decline four years hence?

Trump,suporters point to his suceesses. The “businessman” knows how to make deals. A slew of executive orders has changed almost everything. The border is secure. Tariffs force manufacturing to return to the Rust Belt, and foreigners invest trillions in the U.S., creating many good-paying jobs.

Remember the early euphoria over Joe Biden’s string of legislative successes? Finally, an infrastructure bill to fix everything, the Inflation Reduction Act to save the planet. Joe rivaled FDR or even exceeded him. Biden’s experience in foreign affairs will keep the peace. Democrats were elated.

Now, all this seems so long ago. Joe’s foreign affairs expertise brought us the horrendous Afghan withdrawal, the ongoing wars in Ukraine, and the Middle East. His Inflation Reduction Act gave us the highest inflation in forty years. Biden and his backers forgot that weakness invites aggression, and wild spending brings rising prices.

With things going awry, people started questioning the president’s competence. His stumbling, sometimes incoherent actions caused alarm. Yet everyone, from the White House to Biden’s legions of media supporters, told us Joe was sharp as a tack.

When the Wall Street Journal said otherwise, the whole media seemed down on the paper. Biden supporters ignored the dangers of the Afghan withdrawal or wild spending. The news media ‘s job is to alert people to possible problems, but they see none; if they do, they keep it to themselves. One book after another implies the administration’s abundant failures were due to Biden’s decline.