In what’s looking like one of the most bizarre choices of the 2024 election season, Republicans decided to make “mental acuity” a key issue in the presidential race – despite their likely candidate’s inability to form coherent thoughts anymore.

It’s hard to remember, but just a year ago conservatives’ attempts to paint President Joe Biden as a doddering old fool – and Trump as, at least, fairly competent – were just gaining traction. But that was before the GOP primary season started. It was before Trump was being forced to speak with local and, at times, unfriendly media. It was before more Americans were paying all that much attention to any of the campaigns.

Just last week, an ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that 28% of Americans believed that Biden has the mental sharpness necessary “to serve effectively as president.” 47% said that Trump had it. That is, perceptions of the mental sharpness of both candidates dropped since a similar poll was conducted in May 2023.

Biden, who has a lifelong stutter, has been the subject of numerous videos on social media that exploit the handicap to convince voters he is undergoing “cognitive decline.” While that attack was used in the 2020 election, it has intensified this past year as a result of a ruthless online campaign that used doctored videos to make it look like Biden sleeps during interviews or that he can’t say a single sentence coherently.

That is, someone who has watched terrible TikTok videos about Biden this past year might be genuinely surprised to watch him give a fairly normal speech without passing out 10 seconds into it.