On Sunday morning, South Carolina representative James Clyburn attempted to explain away President Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance in an extreme way. Clyburn told CNN State of the FederationHe is just the latest Biden supporter to use the president's lifelong stutter as a shield against legitimate public concerns, and many have used the excuse on social platforms.
One progressive writer complained that the response to Biden’s performance on X was “extremely meritocratic,” while an abortion rights activist described the president as “a grandpa with a cough and a stutter.”
Biden stuttered several times during last week’s debate, as he has done countless times throughout his life. But what millions of viewers watched that night, and what shocked the nation, was the president’s frailty, his repeated freezing, his mouth-opening stares, and, above all, his frequent inability to form a coherent thought. Such behavior is not a symptom of stutter.
Stuttering machine is an umbrella medical term used to describe blockages, repetitions, or prolongations in the process of speaking a word. It is a neurological disorder with a strong genetic component, affecting 1% of the population and present in all languages and cultures.
Biden's stutter most often presents as simple repetitions or short blocks of speech. R, S, meand E Sound. At one point during the debate on the national debt, Biden struggled with words. make strong When he tried to say, “Let's continue to strengthen our health care system,” castle When the sound came mid-sentence, he began blinking rapidly. Blinking has long been Biden's biggest stuttering “word.”
Biden was better at suppressing his stutter. His increasingly noticeable moments of stuttering now are likely a sign of aging. Suppressing a stutter requires enormous concentration and energy. Eric S. Jackson, an assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders at NYU who studies the variability of stuttering, said Biden used to be light on his feet, but now, at age 81, he can no longer effectively use various stuttering masking techniques, such as deliberately changing words. As a result, Biden’s stutter has become more noticeable and recognizable.
But the most tense moment of the debate didn’t involve a classic stutter. As Biden continued to answer questions about the national debt, he didn’t stumble over the formation of specific words. He seemed completely lost in his answer. He briefly mentioned COVID, but then seemed to realize that was the wrong way around. He seemed to search for the real target for a few seconds. He ended with the awkward phrase, “If we finally win Medicare,” before one of the moderators, Jake Tapper, cut him off. Biden said the last phrase without a single repetition, extension, or interruption. He also didn’t seem to use circumlocution, the stutterer’s technique of turning words into synonyms. He simply stuttered and lost the point.
I know what stuttering means, and what Biden has to do with it. I stutter, and I interviewed him five years ago for this magazine about his speech. During our hour-long conversation, I repeatedly pressed Biden to admit a difficult truth: that he had learned to manage his stuttering as an adult, but had never completely overcome it. Biden did not agree with this suggestion. He insisted that stuttering was just a childhood problem. When I offered Biden examples of when he had a stutter, including one from that very conversation, he dismissed them all.
When I sat down to write the piece, I was careful to point out that not all of Biden’s verbal lapses were due to his stutter. Sometimes, I wrote, “When Biden stutters or loses track of a detail, it seems like a simple slip of the tongue, unrelated to his stutter. Other candidates make the same mistakes, but less frequently than Biden.” Biden didn’t like my piece. But in the months and years that followed, some Biden supporters began using his stutter as an excuse to criticize the president’s communication difficulties, even when the moment had nothing to do with his stutter.
This is not only dishonest, but it also risks stigmatizing a widely misunderstood disability. Stuttering can be a huge daily challenge, but people with the disorder can live meaningful lives. (Many doctors, lawyers, teachers, and professional athletes stutter. Even some professional public speakers stutter.) Americans who stutter like Biden may stutter, but because of the disorder, they don’t have many of the other concerning symptoms that Biden displayed in last week’s debate.
“The president has a responsibility to communicate effectively,” Roisin McManus, a nurse, podcaster, and longtime leader in the stuttering community, told me. “It’s so important. People who stutter can communicate effectively. Joe Biden is proving increasingly that he can’t communicate effectively, and there’s a lot at stake. I don’t think a stutter is going to cover that up.”
What many Americans are worried about now is that Biden’s abilities are deteriorating beyond his stuttering, making him unfit to serve another term as president, or even to finish this one. With each passing day since the debate, Biden has done little to convince voters otherwise.
Last Friday in North Carolina, Biden sounded more articulate and persuasive than he did Thursday night. In his address to the House of Representatives this year, he sounded confident and energetic. And on Monday night, in a short speech on the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, Biden delivered a memorable but excellent performance. The obvious difference between all these examples and the debates is the presence of a teleprompter.
Recent reports The New York Times, The Wall Street JournalAnd elsewhere, Biden’s mid-sentence thought lapses (like the one experienced in his Medicare response in the debate) are more common than the White House would have voters believe, suggesting his decline is accelerating. And according to these outlets, those who work closest to Biden are saying just that. Biden is clearly less talkative and energetic than he used to be. AxiosThe President is now most alert between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. times Biden's debate preparations didn't start until 11 a.m. and he reportedly took a nap in the afternoon. All of this behavior is consistent with his age at 81. None of it is the result of a stutter.