Years from now, when honest and objective historians (work with me) unpack Joe Biden’s presidency, they’ll point to a raised awareness of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia as one of its most important and enduring takeaways.

You laugh, but I’m deadly serious. Not a joke. My word as an Andrews. Not since the stroke-addled Woodrow Wilson more than a century ago have we had a president this cognitively disabled. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has a president kept serious health concerns from the public in order to win reelection. FDR died five months after winning.

The emperor has no memory, quipped my colleague Nate Jackson a few months ago, upon the release of special counsel Rober Hur’s report, which found the most powerful man in the world to be “a sympathetic [sic], well-meaning [sic], elderly man with a poor memory” and therefore unfit to be charged for having willfully mishandled classified documents. That was the day that began with talk of removing a former president from the ballot via the 14th Amendment and ended with talk of removing the current one from office via the 25th Amendment.

And yet. Here we are, more than four months later, and Biden’s condition is clearly getting worse. We saw it when he wandered off aimlessly at the G7 summit, only to be rescued by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. We see it in how he stumbles over simple sentences. We see it in his struggle just to make his way into an awaiting vehicle.

That’s the nature of dementia, whose symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic, include memory loss, problems communicating or finding words, problems with reasoning or problem-solving, poor coordination and control of movements, confusion and disorientation, personality changes, anxiety, agitation, and inappropriate behavior.

But there’s hope for those suffering from dementia, and we’ve seen that, too. We’ve seen Biden give a lucid and feisty State of the Union address at an hour well past his bedtime, and we’ve seen him deliver an acceptable speech at the recent D-Day commemoration.

It’s against this backdrop, then, that Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson is once again raising concerns about Biden’s mental state. And unfortunately for the Democrats, Jackson can’t be dismissed as some partisan hack. After all, he served as White House physician for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. And prior to that, he was a Navy rear admiral and the leader of resuscitative medicine for a combat surgical shock trauma platoon. He’s a serious man, and he’s observed the American presidency up close and personal.

So far, Jackson has sent five letters to the White House, demanding that Biden submit to a cognitive test like the one Trump took. And he’s cc’d his latest letter to Biden’s personal physician and his entire cabinet. Here’s just part of that letter:

Earlier this month, during an event in Las Vegas, you confused French President Emmanuel Macron with the late President Francois Mitterrand, who died nearly thirty years ago, when telling a story about the G7 summit. Just a few days later, you mixed up former German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the late German Leader Helmut Kohl twice while speaking at events in New York. Even when attempting to rebut the findings of Special Counsel Hur’s report, you mistakenly referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the “President of Mexico.” These occurrences do not exemplify the leadership our allies have come to expect from the President of the United States, which is paramount to deterring our adversaries and maintaining peace across the globe.

Jackson is also wondering whether Biden will be on some sort of performance-enhancing pharmaceutical cocktail during Thursday’s debate — perhaps something like Aricept, a cholinesterase inhibitor that defends against the dementing brain’s enzyme-based attack on acetylcholine, which is its vital neurotransmitter. The pharmaceutical industry has made remarkable strides in treating Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia in recent years, and let’s face it: Only a fool would believe Joe Biden’s handlers won’t have him drugged up to some degree.

Said Jackson to Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo: “I’m going to be demanding on behalf of many millions of concerned Americans [that Biden] submit to a drug test before and after this debate, specifically looking for performance-enhancing drugs. Because we see — we have seen recently in his State of the Union address — that there was a Joe Biden that came out that was not similar at all to what we see on a day-to-day basis for the last three-and-a-half years.”

But that reality should chill all of us — not just Biden’s detractors.

As Jackson’s letter concludes: “The American people can no longer be left to wonder about their safety and security because of your declining cognitive ability If you believe you are cognitively fit for duty, then you should prove it to the American people by submitting to appropriate clinical exam and testing. More importantly, failure of such testing and examination will give your Cabinet the necessary insight and legitimate cause to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

Perhaps the former president, Donald Trump, can gently invite the current president, Joe Biden, to join him for a post-debate drug test on Thursday night — you know, for transparency’s sake, and for the good of the country.

And perhaps the mainstream media could begin doing its job, doing its diligence where the mental health of the American president is concerned.

POSTSCRIPT: Regarding the notion of drug testing for the man who controls our nation’s nuclear arsenal, an old friend, a commercial airline pilot, weighs in with the following perspective: “In my entire 38-year airline career, I was ALWAYS under the Federal Department of Transportation laws of drug testing. I honestly can’t tell you how many random drug/alcohol tests I was subject to. But what I wanted to interject is that any ‘refusal to submit’ was treated the same as a positive. Buh-bye.” Our hope is that on November 5, a majority of the American people will consider Joe Biden’s refusal to submit and render that same judgment. Buh-bye.