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As the race for the 2024 presidential election heats up, President Biden hasn’t yet officially announced, but he is the presumptive Democratic candidate. At every opportunity, he recounts the accomplishments of his first term: the CHIPS Act, supporting Ukraine, handling the pandemic and strengthening NATO. And he stresses that he isn’t through—that there is more that he wants to accomplish, including the protection of women’s reproductive freedom, and ensuring continued aid to Ukraine—all issues with huge support among voters. His trip to Ukraine has been called historic and courageous.
Yet, in practically every story written about Biden from the right, his age takes center stage. Earlier this year, Trump and his allies started to zero in on Biden’s mental fitness as an attack strategy. The campaign hurled personal insults and baseless insinuations, calling him “Sleepy Joe” and highlighting moments when he stumbled over words on the campaign trail—a strategy seeming to be an intensified version of Donald Trump’s playbook from 2016, when his allies and he cast doubt on Hillary Clinton’s health.
The Biden-is-frail narrative is belied by the facts—as is the concurring story that elders have no place in politics. On President's Day, February 20, 2022, Biden’s unannounced visit to Ukraine involved a grueling 10-hour train trip. He then traveled to Poland where he was warmly greeted.
As for the GOP, Nikki Haley is the first of what many predict will be a rash of contenders to oust Donald Trump from his role as head of the party. Trump may be the greatest American showman since PT Barnum, so at this point, there is a general reluctance among the would-be contenders to voice any policy differences with him.
Nikki Haley called for mental competency tests for presidential candidates over 75 as she threw her hat into the ring. It's interesting that the former South Carolina Governor would be the one making potentially ageist claims since she has experienced discrimination both as a woman and as a citizen whose family is of Indian descent.
Indeed, the only Republican strategy overall is to attack Biden on his age. Not too scientific, we’d say. In our book, The Age of Longevity, we reported that across the developed world, many people are living much longer. But for some, that’s a scary scenario. The media in particular spins grim tales of slow decline that make a long life a nightmare instead of a gift. But is this the right picture? Research says that it is not. Dr. James F. Fries of Stanford University Medical School reports that adult vigor can be extended well into the ninth decade of life with illness and disability packed into a period that shortly precedes death. Dr. Fries calls this the “compression of morbidity.” Even more optimistic is the fact that anti-aging science has exploded in recent years.
New engineered pig hearts are proving effective as a substitute for human heart transplants and scientists announced recently that it is already possible to slow or even reverse aging, at least in the lab.
“By tweaking genes that turn adult cells back into embryonic-like ones, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies reversed the aging of mouse and human cells in vitro, extended the life of a mouse with an accelerated-aging condition and successfully promoted recovery from an injury in a middle-aged mouse.
“Aging is something plastic that we can manipulate,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, the study’s senior author and an expert in gene expression at Salk. In their study, Belmonte and his colleagues rejuvenated cells by turning on, for a short period of time, four genes that have the capacity to convert adult cells back into an embryonic-like state.
However, a recent Associated Press-NORC poll finds that relatively few U.S. adults give Biden high marks on his legislative successes or his ability to govern.
Sarah Overman, 37, a Democrat who works in education in Raleigh, North Carolina, thinks, “We could use someone younger in the office… “I, honestly, think that he would be too old,” she said.
The oft-repeated ageist message is taking hold. Despite evidence to the contrary, many Americans, Democrats and Republicans “are doubtful that being older helps a president, and even more believe that age for Joe Biden, in particular, is negatively affecting his ability to govern. According to a recent YouGov poll, “Among Americans, 38% say age hurts a president’s ability to do the job while 17% say it helps by providing experience and wisdom; 28% say age has no impact.”
“Contrast this age-bashing rhetoric with the very different treatment given by the press to octogenarian Bernie Sanders. In a February 12, 2023 Sunday New York Times magazine article, we are not told his age until the fifth paragraph of this lengthy cover story and even then only a glancing reference is made to it. “Mr. Sanders, 81, has said he will not seek the Democratic nomination for president again if President Biden runs for re-election.” Sanders is the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The job gives him sweeping jurisdiction over issues that have animated his rise in politics, such as access to health care, the high cost of prescription drugs and workers’ rights.
Other older Americans are doing remarkable things. Nancy Pelosi in her 80s is called the greatest speaker of the house in American history. At 98 George Soros is the world’s leading philanthropist. At 90, Star Trek actor William Shatner flew into space and experienced weightlessness. Jane Fonda continues her political activism at 85, and is out with a new movie with Tom Brady. She says, “Some people are old at 65, others are full of ideas at 85.”
What does research tell us about the link between age and leadership ability? “Physicians with expertise on the aging brain urge voters not to be overly focused on age alone.
“It’s very important to focus on experience, on who the person is and policy issues rather than age,” according to Dr. Gary Small, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and the Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles’ David Geffen School of Medicine.
Age should not be thought of as a single discriminating factor, according to Dr. Richard Isaacson, trustee of the McKnight Brain Research Foundation.
“I don’t really think of age as a discriminating factor in terms of when to choose someone that’s going to be in a leadership position, even if it’s in the most powerful position in the land,” Isaacson said. “What I would say is you have to pick the best person for the job.”
Biden agrees: When asked if he can handle the office’s responsibilities at his age, the president has often responded as if he’s accepting a dare: “Watch me.”
He most likely has science on his side.
