Trump Is Getting More Deranged & Senile By The Day-- Bernie Is Getting Even Wiser
Career politicians always think they are the indispensable man (or woman) and resolved to serve forever… or at least ’til they can’t remember their name any longer— like Strom Thurmond did, regardless of his diapers stinking up the Senate before he retired at age 100 and officially died 5 months later. Long before he retired, he was incapable of functioning as a senator. Dianne Feinstein, who no longer has any capacity for work, has finally announced she’s retiring— or at least her office did; she seemed unaware of the announcement. She’ll be closing in on 91 when she stops wandering the halls of the Capitol. I’m sure she imagined she could last as long as Thurmond.
But age in itself is just a number. And it’s a number that impacts different individuals differently. Look at Bernie Sanders. He’s 81 and seems energetic and both physically and mentally fit. In fact, with the exception of Feinstein and Chuck Grassley the senators over 75 years old all seem in pretty good shape. McConnell, who turns 80 today (how do I know it;’s today? Same birthday as me, though a few years apart), seems a little slower but still sharper than many senators younger than he is. Cardin, Risch, Durbin, King, Markey, Blumenthal, Romney, Welch, Hirono, Manchin, Shaheen and Carper are all 75 or older. None of them seem like basket cases. Although some of them do seem like they’ve slowed down and are heading towards creekiness. I felt bad for Romney when he was fighting with Santos at the SOTU; he really did seem very old.
To hear all the convention wisdom on the topic, I engaged the ChatGPT in a discussion. Mt. App began by reminding me that “As people age, their physical and cognitive abilities may change, which can affect their capacity to work. However, the extent to which aging affects work capacity can vary from person to person and may depend on a variety of factors. In terms of physical abilities, older adults may experience a decline in strength, flexibility, and endurance. This can make certain tasks more challenging or take longer to complete. However, this decline is not necessarily uniform across all individuals, and many older adults are able to maintain their physical abilities through exercise and healthy habits. Cognitive abilities may also be affected by aging, with some older adults experiencing declines in memory, attention, and processing speed. This can make certain tasks that require complex cognitive processing more challenging. However, many older adults are able to compensate for these declines through experience, knowledge, and wisdom. It is worth noting that there are many factors that can impact an individual's capacity to work as they age. For example, some older adults may experience health conditions that affect their physical or cognitive abilities. Additionally, job demands, work environment, and work-related stress can also affect an individual's ability to work. Overall, while aging can impact an individual's capacity to work, the extent of this impact can vary widely from person to person and may depend on a variety of factors.”
I gently nudged the discussion into the political arena by asking there’s a way to measure how diminished a politician is and if that’s even feasible in a democracy at all. Ms App told me that “Assessing the capacity to work or serve as a public official based solely on age can be a complex issue. While some individuals may experience declines in their cognitive and physical abilities as they age, others may remain just as capable and sharp as they were when they were younger. In a democracy, it is important to ensure that elected officials are able to fulfill their responsibilities and effectively represent their constituents. However, it can be difficult to accurately assess an individual's capacity to work based on age alone. There are some objective measures that can be used to assess cognitive abilities, such as standardized tests and assessments. However, these measures may not provide a complete picture of an individual's capabilities, and there may be other factors that can impact an individual's effectiveness as an elected official, such as their leadership skills, judgment, and ability to communicate and collaborate with others. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that age discrimination is a real issue, and it is not fair to assume that someone is less capable based solely on their age. It is crucial to avoid age-based stereotypes and assumptions and to focus on an individual's demonstrated abilities and accomplishments, as well as their overall fitness to serve in public office. Overall, while there may be ways to measure an individual's capacity to work, it can be difficult to do so accurately and fairly based solely on age. It is important to take a holistic approach and consider a range of factors when evaluating an individual's fitness for public office, including their experience, skills, and demonstrated abilities.”
It isn’t just because today is my birthday that I’m bringing this up. Yesterday on Face the Nation, a very vigorous Bernie Sanders was asked by Margaret Brennan about Nikki Haley’s statement that there “should be a mandatory mental competency test for politicians older than 75. You're 81. Do you take offense at that? Do you agree?” Bernie responded that her idea is “absurd… [W]e are fighting racism, we're fighting sexism, we're fighting homophobia, I think we should also be fighting ageism. Trust people, look at people and say, you know, this person is competent, this person is not competent. There are a lot of 40 year olds out there who ain't particularly competent. Older people, you know, you look at the individual, I don't think you make a blanket statement.” Note: Jimmy Carter, the oldest living president in history, has also called for an “age limit” to the presidency.
So what about Biden? He seems feeble and it scares me to think of him be president 5 years from now. Trump is worse. Last week Jonathan Martin noted that “High-level Democrats are rallying to President Biden’s reelection, not because they think it’s in the best interest of the country to have an 82-year-old start a second term but because they fear the potential alternative: the nomination of Kamala Harris and election of Donald Trump. Not that many of them will say it publicly, at least not that directly.” Choices like that speak to the utter bankruptcy of the two establishment parties and the sad state of much of the American electorate.
Yesterday Ezra Klein wrote that we’re asking the wrong questions about Biden. “There is no end of commentary gently— and not so gently— urging President Biden to act his age and step aside. And all else being equal, I share that sentiment. I don’t think we want a president ending his second term closer to 90 than he is to 80. But all else is never equal. And the commentaries that focus solely on Biden’s central weakness— his age— are missing his mounting strengths. One reason for my hesitance to declare Biden too old to run in 2024 is that I thought his age was a problem in 2020, too. Everything people say about his age now was true then. He was halting on the stump. He fumbled words and phrases. But I’d argue the problem was worse then. The linguistic stumbles were paired with an aging outlook. Biden reminisced fondly about his relationships with segregationist senators and seemed to think the bipartisanship of yesteryear was recoverable in the present… Biden’s problem in 2020, in other words, wasn’t just his age. It was that he seemed stuck in the past.”
He continued that “At some point, those of us who keep declaring Biden too old to do the job need to reckon with what they’ve missed until now and might still be missing.”
So let me give it a try: Members of my profession have built our lives around our mastery of words, and so we overestimate the importance of eloquence. We like politicians who speak as if Aaron Sorkin is cranking out their dialogue. But voters don’t see malapropisms and run-on sentences and unfinished thoughts and occasional fabulism as the disqualifiers that we do. Ronald Reagan proved that, and George W. Bush proved it again; then Trump tried to teach us the same lesson, and now Biden is taking his turn.
And Biden’s age has carried some quiet benefits. One is that he has deftly bridged Democrats’ generational and demographic gaps. The Democratic Party has in recent years become younger, more liberal, more educated and more online. Biden’s politics were formed in a past era, when blue-collar workers were still a core constituency and liberal was often an epithet.
When Biden was younger and more combative, he might have sought to vanquish the left wing of his own party. Instead, he’s welcomed them in and run an administration that has achieved something of a synthesis. Much of Biden’s staff comes from the party’s younger, more liberal wing. His core group of senior advisers is made up of longtime loyalists, forged in the same era he was.
The result has been a policy agenda that reflects today’s Democratic Party married to a political style that is more of a throwback. It would be best if Democrats had the kind of political talent that could transcend their party’s current divisions, but in the absence of that figure, a leader who can bridge them is no small thing. Biden is perhaps alone, at this moment, in being that leader… Age matters, but so, as Biden keeps showing, does much else.”
Louise Aronson, author of Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life and a gerontologist points to the “tremendous variability” of old age. “If you take one two-year-old, absent some catastrophic condition, they're all pretty much the same worldwide," she says. "That is not true of 80-year-olds." She says there are better factors to judge older candidates on— and that calling them “out of touch” might just be ageist.
Asked, in 2019, whether an 80-year old is incapable of being president, she responded, “No, although not every 80-year-old is capable of being president… You can have 80-year-olds who are gravely debilitated. You can have 80-year-olds who are hugely fit and functional. In geriatrics, we tend to look at an amalgam of things: What health conditions does the person have? Obviously, it's hugely different if you've had a major stroke versus if you need a little thyroid replacement, for example. We look at functional status. How far and fast can you walk? How nimble is your mind? And all these things vary tremendously. So, it's harder in old age to use the age per se. Although I have to agree with Jimmy Carter, and I do think there's a point at which the chances you will function adequately for such a grueling job do go down because we become more tired as we get into advanced old age.”
Asked whether it’s fair to say older presidential candidates are “out of touch,” she said it’s ageist. “[T]hey're in touch with, you know, one segment of the population. But I think you could argue that a younger candidate, who can't speak to things that the older candidates are thinking about and doing, is out of touch with them. I think when we say out of touch, we are saying that a certain segment of the population, a certain age band, is the norm. So to say you're out of touch is to say you're in a different group. And when we make different bad, I think we're in trouble... I also think for the president, no one person can know everything you need to know to be a president. So one of the key attributes, whether this person is young or old, would be to have really good advisers of different age groups, so that they're in touch with multiple segments of the population.”