It is no surprise that our political commentary class is unable to focus on more than one subject at a time, and perhaps unsurprisingly that the issue of the day is the age of our political leadership.

People hear the cry that America has become a ‘gerontocracy’. That would be bad, it is argued, because our aging political leadership is out of touch with the voters and keeps younger and (theoretically) more powerful and intellectually vital leaders from taking their hour on stage.

Earlier this year, CNN called President Biden’s age a “hot topic.” Aside from the fact that news organizations like CNN have helped make it a hot topic, the real question is whether it’s more than that. The answer is no.

For decades and decades we have lived in a society that has devalued what it means to be older… The main message should be, ‘Don’t be distracted by age, when age doesn’t tell you anything meaningful about someone. ‘

“Leaning in this language about a ‘gerontocracy’ is a distraction technique,” said Tracey Gendron, chair of the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of the 2022 book “Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End It.”

“It’s just the latest that keeps us from looking at things that are more important, like race, gender, education,” Gendron told me. “All of these things don’t accurately reflect the demographics of the country. So why do we pick age among all these things?”

Gerontocracy criticism also threatens to deprive us of our most experienced leaders. Far from stripping low achievers out of their sinecures, the current fixation on age could remove men and women from our political and economic structures who have spent decades learning about the world and offering the wisdom that has come from a long professional experience.

For example, the US State Department requires its professional foreign service personnel to retire at age 65, “when they are at the peak of their wisdom and knowledge”.

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Michael Clinton recently noted a line he attributed to “toxic ageism.” Some companies require their top executives to retire at 60 or 65, while most are still willing to make professional contributions.

In her book, Gendron makes a distinction between ageism and ‘ability’. The first is stereotyping that can be applied to people of any age, young or old, employers’ grumbling about “lazy” millennials and Gen Z’s reluctance to work is as much ageism as the suggestion that senility is the most important characteristic of seniors are.

The second stereotype focuses on the idea that as we age, we lose physical and mental abilities to the point where we may not be able to function in society without assistance. Merging ageism and ability creates the hand-wringing about gerontocracy among our political omphalosceptics.

Claims that a political gerontocracy is somehow undermining American democracy, the theme of so much political navel-gazing just doesn’t hold up. They hinge on the idea that as we age, our political outlook melts into something contrary to the common good. Where is the evidence for that?

It’s widely noted that Biden and his most likely presidential challenger, Donald Trump, would be the oldest president if either one wins the election in 2024. Biden would be 82 on Inauguration Day 2025 and Trump nearly 80. Does that tell us something about how their reign would expire? ? Obviously not.

Biden would almost certainly continue his track record of crafting remarkably inclusive and progressive White House policies and overseeing an economy of job growth and economic expansion in the wake of the pandemic; Trump, judging by his most recent speeches, would continue to whip up personal grievances based on his baseless allegations of fraud in his 2020 loss.

As for the idea that advanced age robs us of physical capacity and mental acuity, that can be argued as a demographic average, but ignores what Gendron observes, the increasing individuation as we age.

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“Early in life, you have markers that tell you roughly what age someone starts talking or someone starts walking,” she says. “We don’t have that in later life. There’s really no signpost to say, ‘At this age, something is going to happen.’ In old age we become more individual and less like other people.”

Sure, both Biden and Trump have lost a few steps since they were in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. Not everyone? (Disclosure: I am a member of the baby boomer generation. If you feel the need to know more, my actual age is on the public record.)

Some of our political leaders have achieved their most remarkable achievement at an age decades later than when conventional wisdom holds that they should have retired.

The questions about the physical and mental capacity of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), 89, did not apply to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who

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what may be the most successful record in House history in pushing the Affordable Care Act through Congress in 2010 at age 70 and Biden’s progressive policies to take effect after age 80.

As for whether older politicians are out of step with the younger members of the U.S. electorate, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) didn’t seem to have much trouble reaching out to youthful voters when he ran for president. presidency in the run-up to the presidency. to the 2016 elections, at the age of 75.

Nor are there signs that Liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has lost the youth vote because of her age, 73rd Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen.

Chuck

Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) seemed to have little trouble getting re-elected in the last election, when they were 80 and 89 respectively.

Nor is it necessarily true that older political leaders invariably cling to their seats as if with what Orwell called a grab-behind. Earlier this year, the top three leaders of the Democratic Party sat in the House of Representatives

Nancy

Pelosi; Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, 83; other

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James E Clyburn from South Carolina

82

announced their retirement at the end of their current terms, opening the way for new leaders like current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, 52.

Clearly, the best guide to the adequacy of politicians is their words and actual performance in office. Few reach the highest echelons of American politics without leaving a record to scrutinize.

Republican presidential nominee Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, recently took a swipe at Biden’s age, noting that he is unlikely to make it to the end of his next term.

Does that say anything about what she has to offer as an alternative? No; for that, you’d have to dig into her stances on gun control (after a deadly shooting at a Nashville school, she called for more metal detectors at the doors of school buildings, but not more gun laws) or abortion rights (she opposes them).

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Who shows more mental acuity? Joe Biden, who occasionally stumbles over his words (apparently an artifact of his youthful stutter)? Or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who recently, at age 48, called for a “national divorce,” i.e. secession by red states?

Has the age of Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott explains his brag about signing a 2021 law allowing nearly every Texan to carry a gun in public “No license or training is required,” he boasted in a tweet. Abbott was 63 at the time, a relative spring hen. How did that work out for his voters in Texas?

Concern about the advanced age of government leaders has not always been a path to political success. Franklin D. Roosevelt cited a “hardening of the judicial arteries” when he announced his 1937 plan to wrap up the Supreme Court, moving court politics to the left by trying to force judges to retire when they reached the age of 70 years. or adding a judge to the court for every sitting judge who refused.

In June of that year, he told listeners

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If they promoted the plan, five of the nine justices would be over the age of 75, a benchmark that irked the senior justice, liberal eagle Louis D. Brandeis, who was 80. the New Agreement.

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Whether questioning the age of politicians will carry weight with the voting public is doubtful. For starters, the nation as a whole is advancing in years. According to the Census Bureau, by 2060, the population aged 65 or older will reach 94.7 million; that would be an increase of almost 70% over the number in 2020. That

segment of population

will have grown from 17% of the population to 23%.

It is widely observed that older cohorts vote much more than their younger compatriots, although that does not mean that their individual political leanings are necessarily skewed in any particular direction.

Why are they more committed to participating in the franchise? It may be that their life experience has taught them how much is at stake in any election; are

Certainly

easier to convince them of the importance of programs like Social Security

participation,

than to deliver the same message to people whose benefit collections may take many decades into the future.

slightly modified, because this is obvious, but I’m not sure you can extrapolate it. at least we should recognize the obvious

The only conclusion one can draw about age is that it is a very unreliable indicator of one’s intellect, energy, or ability. The proper response to anyone trying to tell you that our gerontocracy is a political problem is to ask what more relevant truth they are trying to hide.

“For decades, we have lived in a society that has devalued the meaning of being older,” says Gendron. “For me, the most important message is, ‘Don’t be distracted by age, if age doesn’t tell you anything meaningful about someone.'”