Did America have a functioning president in 2024, the final year of Joe Biden’s term in the White House?

Two years ago, that kind of question was dismissed as a partisan low blow and deliberate disinformation enabled by “cheap fakes,” to borrow the enduring phrase of then–White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre. Biden’s stumbles, gaffes, and inexplicable moments of mental vacancy were, of course, real. And the entire world saw the president’s unfitness for office in real time on June 27, 2024, at his first and only debate of the election cycle with Donald Trump.