What We’re Missing on Age
Terry H. Schwadron
March 7, 2024
Maybe, just maybe, somewhere between Republican floor outbursts and the ever-present hunt for evident signs of presidential age, we might have a chance at for Joe Biden to lay out a few programs for the country to consider.
Amid the warring symbolism and planted guests, we could still hope that the annual State of the Union address has something to offer something more than partisan political position in the raw presidential campaign now that Biden and Donald Trump have been anointed all-but-nominated rivals following Tuesday’s delegate harvesting.
Unfortunately, the cameras will be on the inevitable rudeness from the likes of Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Gaetz than on possible legislative solutions for whatever ails us as a nation. Or it will be on the special guests imported to underscore the need for laws to protect or further attack reproductive rights, or to highlight or reject commitments to our allies at war, or to remind us of the ill effects of the mismatch of border crossings and our ability to process migrants.
If we could get by all the political noise, perhaps we could hear a few ideas about what to do about access to affordable housing and mental health, to drug treatment as well as enforcement, to widening homelessness and aimlessness, to promises about bringing down high prices at the supermarket, gas pump, and pharmacies.
In the current environment, the ideas are declared dead first, and then complained about mightily by whichever political party feels the most aggrieved that day. Solutions are a far cry away. But we owe it to ourselves to listen if only to remind ourselves who exactly is trying to fix things rather than complaining that the candidates are too old.
Seeing Age as Partisan
Perhaps what we should hear tonight is policy concerning aging.
An article in The New York Times drew unusual attention this week to polling that news outlet did nationwide with Sienna College, highlighting how much even Biden supporters worry about his age. The findings, picked up in headlines across the news industry, suggested that dissatisfaction about age is making re-election more difficult.
Of course, opponent Trump is just about as old, three years younger, and, as he now shows daily, equally able to stub his tongue on off-the-cuff references to names and places. Weirdly, supporters seem to give a bumbling Trump a pass on aging but see Biden’s stiff movements as problematic.
Age is seen as separate from personal decency, interest in human rights, or support for democracy. Age is being singled out as different from experience or able to handle multiple crises at the same time.
It’s odd because of the two, Biden’s record reflects more mental agility in handling international alliances and required delicate negotiations with Congress than Trump’s record or daily stump speech repetitions of slogan-loaded easy fixes for complex problems.
Nevertheless, the pollsters seem fixated on asking a question whose outcome is already known — Biden and Trump are old. Now what? How exactly this ends up as the lead story of the day is unclear. The poll gave Trump an edge in the meaningless if-the-vote-were-today results.
Polling months before a vote only spur interest in the horse race rather than the values or directions behind any election. They are not a substitute for reporting. Moreover, for the polling results, with margins that only suggest a close race, taken nationally rather than in the few concentrated states where they might matter makes them less useful as predictive. Most importantly, polls do not measure turnout.
This one raises issues about whether what is being asked of people largely with landline telephones who agree to sit through a 20-minute poll (150 of the 950 polled did not, according to the footnotes) choose to tell pollsters.
As press critic Jeff Jarvis noted, “NY Times, did you ask your random voters whether Trump is too insane, doddering, racist, sexist, criminal, traitorous, hateful to be effective as President?” Jarvis is among critics who argue that news outlets are making Biden’s age more potent an issue than anything Trump says or does.
Teaching How to Age
Nevertheless, age is an obvious issue in the election. We know that. And we know that both candidates are old, and that in six months or four years, they will be yet older. The candidates should embrace it, together or separately.
What the issue should prompt is more reporting about the kind of team that each has or will assemble. Trump wants those with sufficient personal loyalty to him to run afoul of the nation’s laws and traditions, and says he is ready to dump the federal Civil Service to oust scientists and other experts for those who will fulfill his slogans. Biden wants those with expertise, with a distinct nod towards candidates who reflect the racial and identity plurality of the country,
What we might investigate more is the nature of the vice president nominees that each makes and whom each would appoint to the Supreme Court or as an ambassador to say, China or Russia.
A simple idea: What does each of these old candidates have to tell us about growing old with grace and wisdom? If Biden is so hobbled by his age, how exactly does he manage to keep multiple, simultaneous policy dishes swirling with 16-hour days? His opinions aside, if Trump is so hampered by his age, how does he manage to keep personal business affairs, his voluminous legal battles, and a directive hand on House and Senate Republicans, and a nationwide presidential campaign going at virtually the same moment?
In short, both candidates have something to teach us about growing older in our society. In neither case are we seeing the candidate embrace the elder status to help teach what is also evident — that age of U.S. residents also is advancing rapidly without a national agenda that addresses housing, health, finances, continuous learning, and opportunity to serve.
It’s not about lithe bodies, it is about an active mind.
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