President Biden announced his re-election bid this week, becoming the oldest person ever to run for President in the United States. He is already the oldest person to serve as President, raising this question. How old is “too old?”
Let’s put this in context. The median age of the United States population has risen by almost 10 years since 1960. There are at least three factors that contribute to this: increasing longevity (which also rose by 10 years over the same time period, from 70 to 80), the aging of the postwar baby boomers, and the decrease in the birth rate (from 2.33 children per family in 1960 to 1.94 today).
Meanwhile, the age of American politicians (particularly at the national level) has risen.
You can also see this trend in presidential politics. The two frontrunners for their party’s nomination – TFG and President Biden – would be the two oldest people ever to run for President.
Let me say a little bit about growing old. This is a topic I have some expertise in, as I just passed my 76th birthday.
As the song says, “how terribly strange.”
Anyway.
Through observation and experience, I have come up with three subcategories that make up this larger category: for lack of catchier labels, I call them the Old-Old, the Middle-Old, and the Young-Old.
The Old-Old
These are the people who have lost more than a step as they have aged. Either through illness or accident, they have lost a great deal of mobility and often need assistance in the activities of daily living. If they live at home, their lives are often limited by these realities. If they live with other people – either with their family or in some kind of institutional setting – they often get along very well, so long as they have not suffered a decline in their mental faculties as well. The best estimate I was able to find says that approximately 10% of Americans over the age of 70 have been diagnosed with some form of dementia, and this percentage rises with older populations.
The Middle-Olds
This is the category where I think I belong, although I may be deluding myself (self-delusion increases as cognitive ability decreases, just sayin’). The Middle-Olds are able to do most of the things we ever did. We continue to drive and take care of ourselves. We have enough energy to do most of the things we want to do, although we probably fall asleep in front of the TV more often than we used to. Many of us are out and about pretty much every day – volunteering, participating in community activities, or running personal errands that we enjoy — although we probably don’t drive as much at night. We exercise regularly (well, as much as we ever did). We travel and like to experience new things. We still have most of our marbles.
The Young-Olds
These are the newly-retired individuals in their 60s or thereabouts. They often take part-time jobs in retirement – sometimes because they need the income but sometimes just because they can’t imagine not working. They continue to walk, run, swim, bike, golf, or play tennis regularly – until they take a serious tumble and realize that gravity is not their friend. They are energetic and enthusiastic about the opportunities that retirement offers them. Every community organization needs a cadre of Young-Olds to keep going.
You probably have other observations about these categories but you get the idea.
I place both President Biden and TFG in the Middle-Old category, although they are both approaching the calendar age that would flip them into the Old-Old category. TFG still golfs regularly, and President Biden works out with a personal trainer every day when he’s in the White House. President Biden has recently avoided the public bike rides that showed him falling in the past; we all fall, but when it reinforces the “too old” narrative, it’s not a good idea politically. President Biden in particular has avoided the weight gain that often accompanies aging.
A lot of people (including me) would have liked to see President Biden step back after one term, recognizing that he played a huge role in helping the country recover from the twin disasters of the 45th president and COVID but then was ready to turn it over to other people. He’s decided not to do that, and I can understand his decision. There is more than a touch of hubris in his decision. However, since TFG and the GOP seem intent on destroying conservatism in America, Biden has apparently decided to let them continue to do that while Democrats move on (as methodically as they can, given GOP obstructionism) with the business of governance. As the political axiom suggests, when your opponent is busily destroying himself, don’t get in his way. A Democratic Party primary fight would divert the attention of voters from the epic crash of the clown cars on the GOP side.
There is more evidence that Democrats are clearing the deck for Biden to coast to the party’s nomination. Erstwhile presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has announced that he supports President Biden and doesn’t plan to run for President in 2024. (Bernie is 82, so he would not solve the gerontocracy problem even if he decided to run.) Two so-called Democrats have declared their candidacy for 2024, but neither of them is serious.
Marianne Williamson (age 71, for the record) is an author and spiritual leader whose following in 2020 was small but intense. She is expected to perform the same way in 2024 as she did in 2020 – when she dropped out of the race in January of 2020.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (69 years old) announced his bid for the presidency on April 5, 2023. He has had a generally respected career in environmental law, but has gone off the rails in his anti-vaccine and conspiracy-theory approach to the world. He has leveraged his name and prominence as an environmental activist to push debunked theories about the link between vaccines and autism. He actively and visibly promoted multiple conspiracy theories related to COVID. He doesn’t believe the official stories about the murder of either his famous uncle, President Kennedy, or his father Robert Kennedy Sr. His candidacy is going nowhere.
No serious challenge from viable Democrats is expected to emerge, absent some changes in Biden’s health that move him from the Middle-Old to the Old-Old category. President Biden made it clear this week that he is not going to dump Kamala Harris as his running mate in 2024. Vice President Harris has taken some PR hits during her term in office, but President Biden has taken pains to include her in all important decisions during his Presidency so that she will not be blindsided if she has to assume the presidency because of his disability or death. People have criticized her because she’s not a publicly visible face of the administration. But the President has made her a very visible part of his administration’s relationship with foreign countries, state governments, and Congress. She would not have a very steep learning curve if she had to take over for him.
TFG and his allies continue to mock President Biden’s age and what they see as his visible inability to do the job. But they mock everyone. In New Hampshire yesterday, TFG mocked his 2024 opponent in the same way he mocked a disabled reporter in 2016 and any woman who crosses his path ever. His act belongs in the Catskills, not in national politics.
A quick look at recent political history explains why Democrats are holding back on challenging President Biden.
In 1968, serious challenges to President Johnson – particularly from Gene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy – led the President to announce his decision not to run for reelection that fall. The damaged nominee that emerged from the fractious 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago – Hubert Humphrey – was defeated in an election squeaker.
In 1972, the continued intra-party warfare led to the nomination of probably the weakest candidate the party could have put forward – George McGovern. The only reason Jimmy Carter won the presidency (against all predications) in 1976 was that the GOP was in tatters in the wake of Watergate.
In his 1980 bid for reelection, President Carter was challenged by Senator Ted Kennedy for the Democratic Party’s nomination. Carter ultimately defeated that challenge, but not without reputational damage that led to his defeat in November of 1980. This was not the only factor in Carter’s defeat, but it didn’t help.
In 1992, businessman Ross Perot ran the most successful third-party campaign in history, drawing 19% of the popular vote in the general election (although he received no electoral votes). The popular vote in that election broke down this way: Clinton 43%, Bush 37.5%, and Perot 18.9%. Most analysts agree that Perot’s voters were mostly Republicans who would have voted for Bush over Clinton if Perot had not been in the race. Although this was not precisely a challenge for the GOP nomination, it had the effect of putting Bush on the defensive and weakening his ability to make a case for his reelection.
Meanwhile, on the GOP side right now, the circus surrounding TFG is sucking all of the oxygen from the room.
Former VP Mike Pence testified in front of Jack Smith’s January 6 grand jury yesterday. Pence is still being discussed as a potential 2024 candidate, but he probably knows (along with the rest of us) that the chances of his getting the nomination are nil and that his political career is over.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been teasing a presidential run for months, but his personal weirdness and TFG’s antipathy toward him spell the imminent end of his campaign. You really can’t fight Mickey Mouse and win.
Declared candidates like Senator Tim Scott, Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (among others) are trying to navigate between the powerful MAGA voting base and a more general sense of TFG fatigue. They want to embrace the voters whose blind loyalty provides the only path to victory in the upcoming elections – but they don’t want to identify themselves with the stench of corruption and criminality that is increasingly enveloping TFG. They will not be successful in their endeavors.
All President Biden has to do is sit back and watch his potential opponents self-destruct. As he frequently has suggested, we need to stop comparing him to the Almighty but compare him to the alternative. I think it’s important to keep this in mind. Don’t delude yourself; the only real alternative to Biden is TFG, and the country won’t survive that.
As usual, Karen, this was a delightful essay. I wish I'd known you better in Annandale. You have a wonderful mind, and your humor shines through. I really enjoy a hearty chuckle, and you never disappoint.
Witty as usual! Thanks!!