Are Biden, Sanders and Trump Too Old To Be President?

by Karen and Erica

At the start, the roster of Presidential candidates was the most diverse ever—by race, gender, sexual orientation—and age. There was an amazing 40 year spread between the youngest (Pete Buttigieg, 37) and oldest (Bernie Sanders, 77). Two generations. That’s a greater gap than that between the youngest President ever to assume office (Teddy Roosevelt, 42) and the oldest (Donald Trump, 70). 

As of today, everything has changed. We are left with three white men as viable candidates. At inauguration, Biden would be 78, Sanders 79, and Trump 74. (Trump was 70 when he was inaugurated, which made him the oldest person to take the office in our history. Reagan was 69.)

We think differences in race, gender, sexual orientation can only be a good thing in politics—for many many reasons, including the fact that all represented groups will feel as if they belong. So we are sad that diversity has been pretty much eliminated.

Maybe we should be glad that the remaining candidates are all even older than we are. But we are not. We are uneasy. Because, while a person’s race, gender, and sexual orientation create the lens through which that person experiences history and politics, those lenses are personal. The age lens seems more structural.

So we feel compelled to ask ourselves—are these candidates just too old to be President?

It is a key element of Lustre’s message that we—the Baby Boomers—are the beneficiaries of advancing health policies and discoveries, and as a result we are likely to have decades of healthy longevity if we remain connected, and relevant, to the world. We want to tear down barriers based on age, and open doors for our demographic, because we think we have a lot to offer. We do not support arguments denying anyone a place on the world stage based solely upon counting their years of life. Indeed, we think those years give us unique perspectives, and skills that come only with age.

So our starting point is that age alone is not a disqualifier. While we do think that it is fair to ask whether a candidate will in fact be able to do the work, that must be a person-by-person judgment, not a categorical one. There are thirty-seven year olds who are stuck in time, and seventy-seven years olds who are not. We do not think any of these candidates is so old simply by virtues of years that his candidacy is a non-starter.  Whether they have matured, which would be a good thing, or just aged without any increase in wisdom and temperament, which would be a bad thing, is a matter for voters to determine, just not on a categorical basis.

But the fact that a person is in her seventies is not irrelevant. Age creates other considerations. One is health. People over 65 are more likely to have chronic diseases—including diseases like dementia and heart ailments—than younger people. Of course that doesn’t mean everyone over 65 will have dementia, or a heart attack, while they hold office. Each candidate must be evaluated on her or his specific medical history. In truth, the remaining candidates, whatever their health regimens, appear quite energetic, but voters should have access to their medical histories anyway.

And that is not the end of the inquiry. Age is relevant in a another way. Someone born nearly 80 years ago has a completely different political frame of reference, and a different relationship with today’s culture, than someone born 40 years ago. People who was born seventy years ago grew up in a time that was very different from the time we are living in today.

• Biden entered the Senate in 1973, when he was 30. What was going on that year? Nixon was President. The Cold War was ongoing. What else? The Watergate scandal. The oil crisis. Roe v. Wade. The end of the Vietnam War. AIM at Wounded Knee. The first cellphone call. The Space Race, and Skylab. Secretariat won the Triple Crown. A military coup in Chile. Kissinger became Secretary of State. Israel and Egypt signed an accord. The Exorcist was released.

• Sanders entered the House in 1991, when he was 50, and became a senator in 2007. His world view seems to have been formed a bit earlier, in the early 1960s, when he was at the University of Chicago and became involved in socialist, anti-war and ciivil right causes. What was going on in the early 1960s? Kennedy was President. The Cold War was ongoing. The Vietnam War was televised and the draft was initiated. The civil rights movement was in full swing. The feminist movement expanded and Ms. Magazine was founded. Militant advocates for many groups were active. Castro ruled Cuba. The Soviet Union was becoming a superpower and the Berlin Wall was built.

• Trump was a businessman until he became President in 2017. He was in college in the late 1960s, and launched his political career in 2015 when he ran for president. His political vision appears consistent with the thinking of the 1950s—a time when the United States was the premier superpower in a world that was much less global and diverse, and nations were much less interdependent—even though he was very young during those years.

So what does it mean if the political views of these candidates were formed some time ago? Is that a bad thing? No, of course not. It means only that the outlook of each was formed by his history, and some of that history is a bit long in the tooth. Should the President be a much younger person? Not at all. A person in her 70s can be mentally flexible and vibrant, and more recent events may constantly refresh her outlook—as Biden’s may have been refreshed by his recent service as Vice President.

People can keep learning at any age. Indeed, someone with a good grasp of history and an equally clear understanding of how the events of the day can be interpreted by reference to history may be the perfect President. People who have lived for many decades have a lot to offer, especially experience that younger people cannot yet have, and we advocate their continued active and respected involvement in everything. Their advice and perspectives should be part of the equation. But that does not mean that it always makes sense for older people to run everything--the country, the business, the ship.

The question for us is whether the candidate can see and understand not only the what and why of today, but also the world of the future. Undoubtedly, age will factor into that consideration. If a putative President seems caught in the 1950s of the Cold War, or the revolutions of the 1960s, or a time before big tech, her or his outlook may not be optimal in a world where economics and disease and travel weave a global tapestry that is the context for every event and challenge. And such a person may have a difficult relationship to the citizens who are now in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties—and that’s a lot of people.

Bottom line: If a candidate can successfully incorporate what is happening now into an educated and realistic world view, and appoints smart individuals that are diverse in all respects to help him represent the people of this country, he is not too old to be President, regardless of his age. If the candidate cannot, he is too old to be President, also regardless of his age.

What do you think?