In 2019, a manipulated video spread through social media platforms showing Joe Biden on stage telling an audience that he “shouldn’t be president”. Biden’s voice had been slowed down, giving the impression he was slurring his words, while footage from a real speech he gave at an Iowa university was edited to cut out context, splice together clips and make it seem like he was calling himself “Slow Joe Biden”.
It was a full year before Biden formally became the Democratic nominee for president, but already the narrative that he was in serious cognitive decline was beginning to take shape. Over the course of the 2020 presidential race, a procession of far-right meme-makers, Republican party operatives and Trump campaign officials would suggest Biden was losing it. More deceptively edited videos circulated, Fox News hosts claimed Biden was senile, attack ads ran suggesting he was mentally unfit and Donald Trump tweeted that his opponent had “dementia”.
