Age is an unreliable indicator of one's intellect, energy or ability
The cry is heard that America has become a “gerontocracy.” That's supposed to be bad, it's argued, because our superannuated political leadership is out of touch with the electorate and blocking younger and (theoretically) more vigorous and intellectually vibrant leaders from taking their hour upon the stage.
CNN called President Joe Biden's age a “hot topic.” The real question is whether it's anything more than that. The answer is no.
“Leaning into this language about a `gerontocracy' is a distraction technique,” said Tracey Gendron, chair of the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“It's just the latest thing that's keeping us from looking at things that are more important, like race, gender, education,” Gendron told me.
The current fixation on age could remove from our political and economic structures men and women who have spent decades learning about the world and offering the wisdom born of long professional experience.
The U.S. State Department requires its professional foreign service staff to retire at 65, “when they are at the height of their wisdom and knowledge,” publishing executive and author Michael Clinton observed recently.
Some corporations require their top officers to retire at 60 or 65 while most are still willing to make a professional contribution.
Claims that a political gerontocracy is somehow undermining American democracy simply don't hold water. They depend on the notion that as we grow older, our political outlooks coalesce into something at odds with the public interest. Where's the evidence for that?
It's widely noted that Biden and his likeliest presidential challenger, Donald Trump, would be the oldest president if either wins election in 2024. Biden would be 82 on inauguration day 2025 and Trump nearly 80. Does that tell us anything about how their administration would unfold? Obviously not.
As for the notion that advanced age robs us of physical capacity and mental acuity, that may be arguable as a demographic average, but ignores what Gendron observes is the increasing individuation as we age.
“Early in life, you have markers that tell you approximately at what age someone's going to start to talk or someone's going to walk,” she said. “We don't have that in later life. There really isn't a guidepost to say, `At this age, something's going to happen.' At older ages, we become more individual and less like other people.”
Some of our political leaders have notched their most outstanding achievement at an age decades later than when conventional wisdom holds that they should have retired.
The questions raised about the physical and mental capacity of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, 89, didn't apply to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who compiled what might be the most successful record in House history by shepherding the Affordable Care Act through Congress in 2010 at 70.
Quite plainly, the best guides to politicians' adequacy are their words and actual performance in office. Few reach the highest echelons of American politics without leaving a record to be examined.
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, recently took a swipe at Biden's age, remarking that he would be unlikely to live to the end of his next term.
Who shows more mental acuity? Joe Biden, who occasionally stumbles over his words (apparently an artifact of his youthful stuttering)? Or Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who recently called for a “national divorce,” i.e., secession by red states, at the age of 48?
The only conclusion one can draw about age is that it's a very unreliable indicator. The proper reaction to anyone who tries to tell you that our gerontocracy is a political problem is to ask what more relevant truth they're trying to conceal.
“For decades and decades we've lived in a society that has devalued what it means to be older,” Gendron said. “For me, the main message is, `Don't get distracted by age, when age doesn't tell you something meaningful about someone.'”