The Benefits of Age

Joe Biden has been bombarded with criticism for being too old to do his job well, but his performance belies that presumption

What, me worry? President Joe Biden returns to the White House after tripping over a sandbag earlier in the day. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Did you hear that Joe Biden fell yesterday? Actually, he tripped over an oddly placed sandbag at the U.S. Air Force graduation, but never mind. You know what we’ll hear that fall really means: He’s so old, so feeble, so physically inept, so mentally incompetent. Everyone knows that, right? He has dementia, he’s senile, he can barely function.

If you didn’t see the video yet, don’t worry. It will be played for the next year over and over to prove the truth of Joe Biden and what he’s doing to America. How in the world can he possibly pretend to be president?

Of course, Fox ‘News’ has been relishing Biden’s fall. Just listen to what they’ve been saying about his performance in the debt ceiling talks. “We all know he's a cognitive mess, and he has no idea that today is Wednesday,” insisted Sean Hannity while the House was voting on the bill.

Hannity’s colleague Jesse Watters ignored the debt ceiling, choosing instead to emphasize that Biden has “obviously declining mental faculties.” Meanwhile, several days earlier, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy talked about bringing lunch to the White House if he can meet with the oh-so-old president: “I would make it soft food if that’s what he wants.”

But while this MAGA crowd was quick with their barbs, it didn’t seem to dawn on most of them that this same person who apparently can barely get up in the morning had the ability to negotiate circles around them. “Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants,” South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace tweeted on Tuesday, trying to have it both ways.

Sure. So old. So feeble. So senile. So unable to conduct his duties as president.

Some young pharma guy named Vivek Ramaswamy, who authored a book called Woke, Inc. and is running for president as a Republican, emailed a request for money last month after Biden announced his own run with the subject line “Elder abuse.” According to this candidate-in-the-know, Biden is “not ‘really’ running—it’s just the managerial class using Joe Biden as a front to advance its own agenda. To them Biden’s cognitive impairment isn’t a bug. It’s a feature.”

So smart, that Ramaswamy. So knowing.

Except it turns out that Biden once again performed quite admirably as he negotiated a legislative solution to the GOP’s efforts to default on the debt and crash the economy, belying their efforts to trash “Brandon.” In fact, rather than the presumed problem that Biden’s too old, his performance raises an intriguing counterpoint: Do many of our problems stem from not having enough experienced and able elders who know how to negotiate and govern?

Two years ago, I recounted the “Biden’s too old” media parade, dating back to 2019 before the 2020 election. Among that list: “Why Joe Biden’s Age Worries Some Democratic Allies and Voters” (The New York Times); “Is Joe Biden ‘Too Old’?” (The Atlantic); “Is Joe Biden too old to be president?” (CNN); “It’s not just Trump questioning Biden’s age. Democrats are, too.” (Politico); “Joe Biden is Old” (Slate).

As I described this collection back then, in a piece called “The Old Guy’s Taking His Shot”:

Get the picture? Then came the questions—or the assertions. Maybe he doesn’t have the physical energy, the verbal acuity, the memory, the necessary wit, the clarity. Maybe his gaffes are not just a long-time pattern, but a sign he doesn’t have it anymore. Maybe his early debate stumbles or momentary searching for words are a sign that he’s too doddering to take on the job.

Biden himself was honest about the reality of age back in 2018: “Well, chronologically, I am old…I think age is relevant.” He was then 75. On November 20 this year, he’ll be 81, older than anyone who’s ever run for president or held the office, making him an easy target for all the haters determined to prove he should be in a nursing home.

But all the criticisms come in the wake of a legislative record that includes the passage of a major COVID-19 relief bill, a major bipartisan infrastructure deal, a veterans’ health bill, a package of new investments in climate and health care, and now likely a debt ceiling bill that extends out two years and succeeds in resisting GOP efforts to significantly slash spending on his signature legislation.

“The president’s approach to the negotiations—and especially their aftermath—reflects a half-century of bargaining in Washington,” Peter Baker writes in The New York Times. “When someone has been around the track as long as Mr. Biden has, resisting the temptation to spike the ball and claim victory can be critical to actually securing the victory in the first place.”

In other words, the benefits of age, which, as long as his health holds out, can continue to benefit a country in desperate need of good governance. Two years ago, I put it like this:

Knowledge, experience and the wisdom of age—matched with the common sense to surround himself with talented professionals and experts—looks not only like the right package for this moment, but a winning approach at any time. I’m not doubting that younger people are capable of handling the job, of course, but the 78-year-old might have one extra ingredient that his younger colleagues don’t…and that is his awareness that he only has so much time, that this is his moment, and that he’s going to take his shot.

Let’s not doubt that Biden recognizes that he has some convincing to do for all those who worry that his age may increasingly be an obstacle. A Washington Post-ABC News poll a month ago found that more than six in 10 Americans doubted Biden’s “mental sharpness or physical health” to serve effectively. (Nearly half of Americans surveyed said both Biden and Trump were too old to be president.)

Biden’s announcement video showcases VP Kamala Harris again and again, leaning into his running mate and reminding people of the team’s vigor. He will increasingly need to find a way to convince the doubters who fear his age that the country will be in safe and competent hands were he not able to finish his second term.

No, it doesn’t help when Biden trips and falls on a stage, as he did yesterday. Nor did it serve him well when he got his foot caught and fell while cycling in Delaware last year. Never mind that Gerald Ford fell frequently while president—essentially becoming a trademark of his time in office—and we all remember Trump’s struggles to walk down a ramp. The differences in basic fitness of Biden and Trump are visible for all to see.

But at a time when more and more Americans are living longer and experts talk about “SuperAgers”—the “Betty Whites” of the world with the memory and stamina of someone 20 or 30 years younger who benefit from healthy lifestyles, genetics and resilience—count me among those ready to vote for age and experience over youth and inexperience. MAGA-minded social media can relish the narrative of the doddering old man, too senile to stay on his feet, but so far Biden keeps proving his doubters wrong.

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