Ever since the Biden-Trump debate on 27 June made clear to the 51 million Americans who watched it that the President suffers from impaired mental capacity, pundits have seized on historic and literary analogies to illustrate their interpretation of Biden’s decline.

A favourite comparison has been King Lear, whose collapse into dotage has been likened to that of Biden.

On the whole, Lear, at least in the later acts of the play, shows greater self-awareness about his own cognitive failings than Biden has yet to do:

“I am a very foolish fond old man,
“Fourscore and upwards, not an hour more or less,
“And, to deal plainly,
“I fear I am not in my perfect mind.”

Now that Biden has agreed to step down as Democratic presidential candidate, he is being engulfed by tributes to his self-sacrificing act by the big Democratic party and media panjandrums who, only hours earlier, were broadcasting his senility.

None of them are likely to use the King Lear analogy again, which is a pity because the play contains some useful pointers for them as they grapple with the aftermath of Biden’s abdication as presidential candidate.

Lear got into trouble because he divided up his kingdom, handing its parts over to his daughters Goneril and Regan, who expressed their undying love for him as he did so. Cordelia ruled herself out as a beneficiary of regime change by refusing to join in her sisters’ accolades. Soon after, Goneril and Regan discover to their dismay that their father has no plans to disappear from their lives and is........

© iNews