Is age or coherence the real issue?

It is unclear whether Donald Trump has forgotten the precise nature of NATO or whether he ever fully grasped it in the first place.

What is clear, however, is Trump has little clue about what NATO does. And when he spoke on the subject at a recent rally, what he said was less a cogent discussion of foreign policy than it was gibberish.

“One of the presidents of a big country stood up and said, ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’” Trump said, recalling an implausible conversation with an unnamed head of state. Trump recounted responding, “‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want . ... You’ve got to pay your bills.’”

The former president’s message was clear: If NATO members do not pay up, he will leave them to the mercy of a continental aggressor who has already plunged one European country into death, destruction and devastation.

Except NATO isn’t a Mafia protection racket. In case anyone needs to be reminded, it is a mutual defense organization, formed by treaty in 1949 as tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union hardened into conflict. “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” states Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

It is not just that Trump is ignorant on this and other vital questions; it is that he is incoherent. Consider his remarks at a recent gathering of the National Rifle Association in Pennsylvania.

“We have to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the name. They’re going to change the name of Pennsylvania,” Trump said. Who, exactly, is going to change the name of Pennsylvania? I don’t know. I doubt Trump does, either.

If you’d like, you also can try to make sense of the former president’s recent attempt to describe a missile defense system. “I will build an Iron Dome over our country, a state-ofthe-art missile defense shield made in the USA. These are not muscle guys here, they’re muscle guys up here, right,” he said, gesturing to his arms and his head. “And they calmly walk to us, and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out. Boom. OK. Missile launch. Whoosh. Boom.”

This gets to one of the oddest things about this election cycle. There is no shortage of coverage of President Joe Biden’s age, even if there’s no evidence his age has been an obstacle to his ability to perform his duties. Indeed, it is plainly true Biden has been an unusually successful president in areas, such as legislative negotiations, that require skill and mental acuity.

Coverage of Biden’s age, in other words, has more to do with the vibes of an “elderly” president — he isn’t as outwardly vigorous and robust as we would like — than it does with any particular issue with his performance.

It’s not that there aren’t legitimate reasons to be concerned about Biden’s age. He is already the oldest person to serve in the Oval Office. The issue here is one of proportion and consequence. Biden may be unable to do the job at some point in the future; Trump, it seems to me, already is.

One of those is a lot more concerning than the other.