In Politics, How Old Is Too Old?
It wasn\u2019t so long ago that Ronald Reagan was considered over the hill, too old to govern. Now a sitting President has turned eighty in office, and a Presidential contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump would put two near-eighty-year-olds against each other. (Trump\u2014while denying President Biden\u2019s fitness\u2014commented, \u201cLife begins at eighty.\u201d) Yet the question of age has not disappeared; even some of Biden\u2019s ardent supporters have expressed concerns about him starting a second term. David Remnick talks with the gerontologist Jack Rowe, a professor at Columbia University who also founded Harvard Medical School\u2019s Division on Aging, about how to evaluate a candidate\u2019s competency for office; and with Jill Lepore and Jane Mayer, keen observers of the Presidency. Rowe argues that ageism underlies the public discourse; an occasional slip or unsteadiness, he thinks, is not consequential to the job. \u201cIf I give you a seventy-eight-year-old man with a history of heart disease, you don\u2019t know if he\u2019s in a nursing home or on the Supreme Court of the United States,\u201d he tells Remnick. But Lepore and Mayer argue public opinion, and not only medical prognosis, should be considered seriously as we look at aging politicians. If Biden and Trump face off, Lepore says, \u201cAge won\u2019t be an issue between them. But age will be an issue for American voters. . . . I think of the young people that I teach everyday. They will be furious.\u201d Mayer sees something anti-democratic in play as well. \u201cIncumbency is such an advantage at this point,\u201d she notes, that \u201cit leads to gerontocracy,\u201d because \u201cit\u2019s really hard to unseat someone.\u201d