Here it comes … as most of us have expected for a long time.

The Donald J. Trump presidential re-election campaign is beginning to launch salvos against Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic frontrunner for the party’s presidential nomination. Is the aim intended to disparage policy pronouncements? Or take the former vice president and former senator to task for votes?

Heavens no! They’re going to denigrate Biden because he tends to make verbal gaffes, because he occasionally mangles facts.

They’re saying Biden isn’t “playing with a full deck.”

I’m sure you get where this is going. They’re going to question Biden’s mental acuity. His smarts. His cognitive ability.

Joe Biden is 78 years of age; Trump is 73. Trump is going to call himself the “young man” in this head-to-head matchup.

Still, the irony of Donald Trump and his team questioning anyone’s mental fitness for office is ironic in the extreme.

If you can stomach watching a Trump campaign rally, you might understand what I am saying. Trump flies off the Teleprompter script and launches one of those nonsensical, idiotic, moronic, incoherent riffs. He speaks in sentence fragments and, oh by the way, he lies his a** off virtually with every other sentence that flies out of his mouth.

If you want to shudder in disbelief — as I have done repeatedly since January 2017 — that this guy is the president of the United States of America, I encourage you to look it up. Believe me, it’s a hoot!

So, just think of this individual denigrating an opponent who occasionally commits a rhetorical flub. I would laugh, except that it isn’t the least bit funny.

I am proud to stand with someone of Joe Biden’s immense character and capacity for empathy. I also am delighted to oppose vehemently someone of Donald Trump’s absolute lack of both.