Current concerns about elderly leaders extend beyond Biden-Trump

Every year, and certainly every election cycle, questions about the relevance of one’s age in the realm of public service and power become more pronounced. At the highest levels of the U.S. government, there are minimum ages but no maximum ages.

It is a uniquely 21st century dilemma because of the rise in average life expectancy and how we live. Looking past differences in ethnicity and gender, it was 47 years in 1900, 68 in 1950, and in 2021, about 76 years. When the Constitution was crafted in 1787, the average life expectancy for a male was 38.

Currently, the Constitution only sets minimums for federal office: House members must be over 25, senators over 30, and presidents must be at least 35. along with being born in the U.S. 

Modern medicine can keep people going even as they age and grow slower. Because it is very hard to generalize about one’s performance in a job based on how long they’ve been alive, elder politicians have always been able to skirt any objections that they are “too old” to serve. It's equally difficult to determine an upper age above which people are no longer fit to serve, even in a job as demanding as president. Capability is not determined by a birth date. But given the stakes of effective leadership, it's a conversation worth having.

REMEMBERING REAGAN

Seeking a second term in 1984, President Ronald Reagan, then 73, scored debating points against his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Walter Mondale, by joking he would not make an issue of his 56-year-old challenger’s youth and inexperience.

That helped Reagan, because he was popular and then won in a landslide. Long before 1994, when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, some saw a mental decline that others denied and challenged.

All of this is context for the current two-way crossfire in the 2024 presidential race over which candidate looks more infirm, based on their public slips, appearances, and missteps. It’s a race that once would have been hard to imagine or expect. Close as the contenders are in age, fans of one assert the opponent is in serious decline and that their favorite is not.

In 2016, Donald Trump became the oldest president to be sworn into a first term when inaugurated at age 70. Four years later, Joe Biden unseated him and beat his record, taking office at 78. If the two men indeed face each other again in November, the U.S. would have either an 86-year-old or an 82-year-old president at the end of that term, presuming the winner stays on that long.

Most Americans appear to dislike having this difficult choice. In October, a Pew Research Center survey showed 79% favor maximum age limits for elected officials in Washington, while 74% support such limits for Supreme Court justices, who are appointed for life.

AGE GAP WITH VOTERS

The presidency is not the only source of agita over advanced age. Sen. Dianne Feinstein died at 90 in September after remaining in office past the time she was capable of fully functioning in office. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at 87, 11 years after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who turns 82 on Tuesday, has twice gone suddenly silent and frozen in public, once in July and again in August. He had reportedly suffered a concussion earlier in the year, leading doctors to speculate publicly that he’s having post-traumatic seizures.

The average age in the House of Representatives is 58 years old; in the Senate, it’s 65. The average age of an adult in the U.S. is about 39. The age gap between voters and those they elect is stark. Is that a bad thing — or just the way things are?

As a practical matter, nobody can expect the nation’s legislature or Supreme Court or executive agencies to impose retirement ages on themselves.

In New York, judges face mandatory retirement at 70 but state Supreme Court justices can be “certificated” to serve three added two-year terms until age 76. That’s been a source of discussion from time to time in the court system.

There is a word, gerontocracy, that describes government by elders. Because of our current presidential choices, it’s been gaining usage from commentators. Other societies have been described that way at other times. In the 1980s, the joke spread that in China, the dominant, elderly ruling clique created a scenario where “the 80-year-olds are calling meetings of 70-year-olds to decide which 60-year-olds should retire.”

Today, we know an individual’s physical age doesn’t automatically predict their abilities, so that mandating the departure of someone who shows capability seems discriminatory.

That’s what makes the current age issue a sharp social dilemma. There is such a thing as a gerontocracy, but on the other side, there’s such a thing as unfair ageism. Nobody has written a credible guidebook for striking the right representational balance in government or society.

Maybe somebody young and smart — or someone senior and wise — should come up with one.