In the recent presidential debate, President Joe Biden performed horribly. He was slow, confused, halting, and appeared exhausted. He did not look like someone ready to keep shouldering the awesome responsibility of being the leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

Donald Trump was energetic and much smoother. Of course, much of what he said was outright lies and deliberate misinformation. He is the first ex-president to be convicted of multiple felonies, and the first to ever run as a convicted felon.

It’s quite the choice we voters have set ourselves up to make.

So where do we go from here?

Do Democrats replace Biden on the ticket because of warning signs over mental sharpness? If so, with who?

Do Independents and non-MAGA Republicans turn to Trump, though they recognize his many flaws and non-existent relationship with the truth?

As a Democrat, it is tempting to want Biden replaced. He’s a good man, but old. He would be 86 when he finished his second term. His current condition is not unusual, just typical of someone his age. But it is a major concern.

How would replacing him work? What are the legal ramifications? Those are only the beginning of the complicated questions.

Donald Trump is just three years younger. And yes, he appears more energetic. But while Biden occasionally stumbles and gets a name wrong or loses his train of thought, Trump’s mental state is just as open to questions — if not more so.

The truth is, Trump says more crazy and confusing things in a day than Biden does in a month.

Yet the public seems to accept them from him and laugh it off as simply Trump being Trump. It is an incredible double standard I do not claim to understand.

Trump thought injecting bleach into COVID-19 victims might be a good idea. He talked about how our country controlled the airports during the Revolutionary War.

Just recently he went off on a tirade having something to do with an electric boat sinking and whether he would stay on it or swim over to a shark. He mixed up Beijing with Taiwan. He mixed up Nacy Pelosi with Nancy Mace.

Trump called the Prime Minster of Hungary “the great leader of Turkey.” He claimed he was running against President Obama when he meant Biden. He used a sharpie to redraw a weather map to try and justify an incorrect statement about the path of a hurricane.

Yet no one is talking about replacing Trump. And this doesn’t even get us into the policy arguments.

Do I have concerns about Joe Biden? You bet I do.

But I am just as afraid (maybe even more so) of the instability of Donald Trump in that same office. And there is just as much or more evidence of the convicted felon’s mental instabilities than those of President Biden.

Are we supposed to feel better about Trump’s senseless rantings just because he says them with more energy?

It is a sad state of affairs when Americans are trying to choose one of two elderly men with obvious cognitive issues to be their president.