I don't know when Fox might have started these attacks, but I sure know that there was questioning of Biden's cognitive ability in 2020. I remember getting attacked when I brought it up, because I was "brainwashed" by Fox--even though I paid little attention to Fox. The only way I'd have seen Fox news clips back then is if those clips were included on a left-leaning independent journalist's video. (I am feeling just a bit vindicated now that my unspeakable belief is suddenly become accepted mainstream.) It was instructive in 2020 watching then-current Biden video, and comparing to video dating to his era as VP. It was a stark contrast. A lot of people tried to tell me how he'd always had verbal "gaffes." Yeah, right. In 2020, there were times he had trouble putting a sentence together that made sense. Some commentators even made a point of this by haivng the sentence put into text, which they included in their videos, with an invitation to try to read that setence and make sense of it. I think that infamous "record player" line might have been one of those featured sentences, although I can't I remember for sure now
And that commentary about his decline never stopped, and since the election, I've even heard some people raising the question of who is really president?
The only thing that has changed in the last couple of weeks is that horrible debate, which gave normal people good reason to suddenly start questioning what is going on. Glenn Greenwald has made a point that normal people have experience with older family members with decline, and they can see that experience reflected by one of the men on that debate stage.
One thing I'm wondering--although this is not my original thought--is whether there weren't people in the background who want to dump Biden and replace him with someone else didn't push for that debate, in hopes that it would end up an unmitigated disaster that would help unseat Biden.
I never see Fox either, but through third parties.
I remember Trumpies attacking Biden from Day 1 of his term online, on YouTube, on Reddit, on 9gag, anywhere they could get a swipe in, on the baais of multiple false claims. They tried and tried and tried to depict him as a pedophile, claiming he hugged teenage girls and children too long, and smelled of them inapprorpriately. It was truly a pathetic attempt at slurring him, and was only credited by idiots or the extremists who were angry at the thwarted January 6th.
But, they also banged away with claims of senility. Looking at 2019 and 2020, he clearly was not senile. Yes, he fumbled for words. Yes, he tired on the campaign trail, but the clips of him allegedly wandering off or incoherent were always edited and cropped and manipulated to make something appear true that was a lie.
However, every single president in office has declined noticeably in those four years. It's a demaning job, and moreso for those doing it diligently, less so for those who spent a lot of time on the golf links.
The decline for Biden was through the barriere between slow and mispoken to confusesd and trying to recover from denial after overt failure, a common position for the senile.
It is a credit to Biden that his dethroners are praising him, giving him every laurel wreath possible. And yes, there were hard left members who worked ceaselessly from his first day in office to ensure he was seen as not progressive enough for them, but they were easy to ignore when realists remind us that there are always dissatisfied extremists. The fact that Senator Sanders, then and now, remained supportive, indicated that rational minds found his policies acceptable.
But, he's finished. And he's tarnishing his own legacy by becoming the pants-on-the-ground old geezer.
The Fox bunch just chipped away at a weakness which grew to be true, but wasn't when they were pushing it so hard.
But the big checks/power/influence probably take a lot of the sting of being seen as a jackass away!
The elephant and the jackass really have both faded away, as animal mascots have less resonance now. They really died out in the 1970's, but were big back before television.