"Who was president in 2020?" is more than a viral meme

"When treating a head injury, one of the questions doctors ask their patients is whether they know who is currently the president. It's part of a standard neurological exam for assessing alertness and cognitive function after a jolt to the brain. In the absence of any preceding head trauma, though, it does not seem to bode well when hundreds of perplexed X denizens ask an elected official a similar question -especially when such inquisitory swarms have become a well-established pattern online in 2025."

"On Monday, U.S. Senator Jim Banks sent a fiery letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, urging him to investigate "errors" from the 2020 census. Banks shared the letter with his 174k followers on X, in a post excoriating the Biden administration for its approach to the census, which supposedly "included illegal immigrants and handed Democrats extra seats." There's just one tiny problem with this statement, which I won't insult readers' cognitive function by spelling out here."

"Thousands of X users made sure Banks was aware of it, however, by asking him who was president in 2020. One of those asking even made X's AI chatbot Grok explain the answer in a caveman voice. Banks attempted to save face later on by clarifying that President Biden had "prepared" the 2020 Census Report in 2021, implying he'd manipulated the good, clean census data Trump had gathered as president. (As evidence, he retweeted a post from the president of something called Election Watch, Inc., who has apparently blown the doors off this incredible conspiracy.) Still, even assuming Banks' excuse absolves him,"

A routine neurological question about who is president is repurposed online to signal confusion when public figures misstate 2020. Senator Jim Banks accused the Biden administration of including illegal immigrants in the 2020 census and shifting seats, then drew criticism and mockery on X when users pointed out the chronological error. Hundreds of users and an AI chatbot highlighted the mistake. Banks later contended that President Biden "prepared" the 2020 Census Report in 2021 and amplified a conspiracy-linked source. Multiple pundits and officials have made similar temporal errors, turning the misstatement into a recurring meme.

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