US elections: Is it time to consider an upper age limit for politicians?

Chances of an 82-year-old Joe Biden making it through a second term? They veer from commentator Niall O’Dowd’s super-optimistic assessment in a recent Irish Times piece arguing there was “no evidence whatever” that he won’t make the four years, to Dr John Doherty’s citation of US actuarial tables in a replying letter, suggesting that a quarter of 82-year-old American males will die within four years.

Viewed from another angle though, the tables suggest that a stonking three out of four 82 year olds will make it several years beyond 86. Though visibly slowing, Biden seems healthy and fit so his chances are stellar. Contrast that with Donald Trump’s chances. Americans know less about his health than any other modern president even though he’s just 3½ years younger than Biden.

With 91 indictments and a possible jail term ahead of him, he is also a plainly unfit man with much to stress and rage about, which hardly bodes well for his life expectancy. Yet polls consistently show that Americans view Biden’s age as more of a liability than Trump’s.

The question is not just about age-related risk – think John F Kennedy’s Addison’s disease and hypothyroidism or the sharp questions around Frank D Roosevelt’s physical fitness to be president; it’s also about cognitive ability. Ronald Reagan’s announcement of his Alzheimer’s diagnosis in 1994, five years after his term ended at 77, confirmed what many had argued was evidence of decline while in office. At the time, former president Jimmy Carter noted “the great weakness of the 25th Amendment [a vehicle for removing a president unfit to serve] is its provision for determining disability in the event that the president is unable or unwilling to certify to impairment or disability”.

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In that case, a cabinet of mindless Trump lackeys is a very scary thought. After the Capitol riot, part of his own cabinet discussed invoking the 25th Amendment – would the next lot do that? What if he is presiding from a prison cell?

He has confused cities, past election opponents and pronounced Hamas as hummus. The off-script riffs, once the main entertainment in his rally speeches, now ramble down rabbit holes mainly involving the “stolen” election and his personal martyrdom.

But therein lies the irony. The lessons learned by critics of the 2016 campaign – that he was gifted tons of free airtime that allowed him to frame the debate and helped to “normalise” his poisonous rhetoric – may well be what are saving him now. The major cable news networks don’t cover his speeches live anymore, he has ignored all the primary debates and his foul, babbling rages are mainly confined to his own social media network. So by what or whose standard is he now being judged? Interviews with Iowans this week reflected his past form and bias: Evangelicals were gloating that he had already done the job they asked of him by reforming the face of the supreme court; a young man believed the FBI staged the January 6th Capitol riot.

[ Can Joe Biden devise a strategy to pull ahead of Trump? ]

Their primary vote was going to a man whose last great act as president was to incite a mob to invade the Capitol and try to hang the vice-president, one who promises to be a dictator on day one if re-elected, whose Christmas message declared his political enemies should “rot in hell” and who refers to other humans as “vermin”.

Would an upper age limit fix that problem? Hardly.

And who would get to decide?

Unsurprising fact: our perception of old age changes as we age. The older we get, the younger we feel. But we cannot control what others think. In a study of half a million Americans, nearly 30,000 believed that middle age starts at 30. Many young adults thought turning 50 equated to old age.

So who should set the bar?

Probably not young adults and certainly not ageing rulers.

Look at India, China and Russia. At 73, India’s Narendra Modi – himself a beneficiary of the “generational change” his BJP party called for a decade ago – will be seeking a third term in a couple of months that will take him well beyond the party’s 75-year age limit.

China’s Xi Jinping hit the 68 retirement age in June 2021 – and took a third term anyway. Following a change in the constitution, he can remain head of party and state for life.

As can Vladimir Putin. Though limited to two consecutive four-year terms, he has swerved or rigged so many constitutional requirements that he can serve into his 80s.

Carter was heading for 95 in 2020 when he expressed concern about the age of the 2020 US candidates, Biden and Trump. The Oval Office requires a president “to be very flexible with your mind”, particularly on foreign affairs, he said, to be able to go from one subject to another and concentrate on each one adequately and then put them together in a comprehensive way – as he had done with the Israeli and Egyptian prime ministers for the Camp David Accords; he probably couldn’t have faced those challenges at 80, he said.

How many could face them at 40?

In a 2022 YouGov poll, nearly six in 10 Americans supported a maximum age for elected officials. Nearly a quarter would make it 60 while another quarter would set it at 80 – but four in 10 said they would limit it to 70.

Now supposing the upper limit had been 75 in 2020 when moderate Biden was perceived as the only hope against a rampaging Trump? Trump would just have been eligible to run but Biden would not.

How would that have worked out for us?