Jeffrey Blehar of National Review Online ponders the past year’s top developments.

What becomes clear to me is how frivolous the entire first half of this year inadvertently felt. Almost none of the narratives from this period — not even the massive student unrest on campuses across America, which disappeared over the summer and never properly returned — seem to have mattered at all in retrospect. Everything up through the fateful night on June 27 when Joe Biden stepped onto a debate stage and into the annals of political self-destruction — when his senility was unveiled for the entire planet beyond any capacity to spin — feels like a naggingly irrelevant prelude to 2024’s real domestic political tale.

This nags at me because I feel like our attentions were intentionally misdirected. All along, there was really only one important political story the media should have been focused on: the mental decay of President Joe Biden as he sought another four years in office. Throughout that period the story was consistently ignored by everyone except conservatives, until it was far too late for excuses. …

… All the while, Joe Biden is aging invisibly, out of sight but not out of mind. Hidden from public view throughout the spring after his State of the Union address in March, he suffers a bad news cycle when he is videotaped at a G7 gathering in mid June acting erratic and distracted, wandering away from a group photograph inattentively only to be rescued from embarrassment by Giorgia Meloni. When he freezes up yet again a few days later at a Hollywood fundraiser hosted by George Clooney, the media leapfrog even the Biden administration’s communications efforts and declare circulating clips of both events to be “cheap fake videos.” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre eagerly runs with this narrative and denounces the right-wing fever swamps for spreading disinformation and lies about the president’s mental fitness.

Finally, on the night of June 27, Joe Biden debates Donald Trump for the first and only time of his presidential campaign. It does not go well.