Cognitive testing for politicians? It’s easier to vote them out

WASHINGTON >> Nikki Haley’s recent suggestion that politicians of a certain age should submit to cognitive testing seemed like an early shot across the bow of Election 2024.

Could she possibly have been talking about both the current and previous presidents, one of whom could be her initial opponent should she decide to run for the White House herself? Haley, currently the relatively youthful age of 49, would be of roughly average age among American presidents if elected in 2024, though in the past two cycles we have elected men who have been on the AARP mailing list for a while.

President Biden, whose age is sometimes painfully apparent, was 77 when elected and is now 78. Donald Trump was a mere lad of 70 when elected and was 74 when he faced Biden in 2020. Even Ronald Reagan, whom we considered elderly toward the end of his second term, was a mere 69 when first elected in 1980 — and was younger than Biden is now when he left office in January 1989 at age 77.

So, what of Haley’s idea? Should presidents, vice presidents and other elected leaders be forced to take cognitive tests? What about Supreme Court justices? Beginning at what age — 60, 65, 70? How often? Annually or every two years? Who should preside over such examinations, and how should they be reported to the public?

If we have trouble attracting good people to run for public office now, just wait until we ask politicians to submit to acuity testing. That won’t help with candidate recruitment!

Then again, shouldn’t a president be able to draw a clock with the arms pointing to a specific time? This is the level of functioning we’re talking about.

Haley’s comment came in response to a question during an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network about Biden’s mental acuity. She replied that rather than talking about any one person, “we seriously need to have a conversation” about age and cognition given the advanced years of so many of our political leaders. She might have a point: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is 81; Senate Minority

Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is 79. And Dianne Feinstein, D, the longest-serving senator from California, is 88; so is Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House. In politics, extreme maturity seems to be a good career move.

Age is less of a problem at the Supreme Court, where justices typically retire rather than risk being noted for their cognitive decline. When the formidable Ruth Bader Ginsburg lost her battle with cancer at 87, she was still seated with nary a cognitive function out of place.

Cognitive tests, which are not the same as IQ tests, test the core skills the brain uses to think, read, learn, recall and reason. Remember, Trump aced his test, as he couldn’t stop bragging. Apparently, he thought that identifying wild animals, one of the challenges on a quiz he took, confirmed his memorable assertion that he was a “stable genius.” What it really meant was that he could also identify a camel, draw that clock I mentioned before, and recite five words — person, woman, man, camera, TV — a whole 20 minutes after he first heard them.

Of course, many concerns about Trump’s noggin weren’t cognitive. They were psychological. Imagine trying to weed out toxic narcissists through psychological testing; we can’t even get people to get vaccinated against a deadly disease.

Cognitive testing for voters might prove more useful in the long run. Now that’s a platform I could get behind.