Completely agree that focusing on how a candidate comes across in a single debate is pretty irrelevant to the job they will do, and appreciate you breaking the "old" issue into three "real" questions about the ability to govern.
That said, it seems that there is a fourth "real" issue: whether age interferes with his ability to react in a crisis. While this is overblown (recalling absurd questions about whether Hillary could react to the 3am call), but it is a real concern in this nuclear age, where potentially life ending decisions need to be made under extreme pressure, sometimes in the middle of the night. This won't happen often, and hopefully will not happen at all, but if it does, the stakes will be literally life and death for human life on the planet. And unlike almost everything a President does, this is a duty that can't be delegated or workshopped by the experts the President surrounds himself with.
Therefore, I think it is quite reasonable to want to ensure that the President has sufficient mental acuity to decide whether to launch nuclear missiles. That said, of course it is of equal, or probably greater, importance that we have assurance that the President will make the RIGHT decision. And there, I don't trust Trump AT ALL.
Completely agree that focusing on how a candidate comes across in a single debate is pretty irrelevant to the job they will do, and appreciate you breaking the "old" issue into three "real" questions about the ability to govern.
That said, it seems that there is a fourth "real" issue: whether age interferes with his ability to react in a crisis. While this is overblown (recalling absurd questions about whether Hillary could react to the 3am call), but it is a real concern in this nuclear age, where potentially life ending decisions need to be made under extreme pressure, sometimes in the middle of the night. This won't happen often, and hopefully will not happen at all, but if it does, the stakes will be literally life and death for human life on the planet. And unlike almost everything a President does, this is a duty that can't be delegated or workshopped by the experts the President surrounds himself with.
Therefore, I think it is quite reasonable to want to ensure that the President has sufficient mental acuity to decide whether to launch nuclear missiles. That said, of course it is of equal, or probably greater, importance that we have assurance that the President will make the RIGHT decision. And there, I don't trust Trump AT ALL.