When voters focus on how old, rather than how competent, political candidates are, everyone loses.
BY JEANETTE LEARDI
Many of us remember the time during a 1984 debate with 56-year-old Democrat Walter Mondale when incumbent President Ronald Reagan addressed the elephant in the room––his age.
“I will not make age an issue of this campaign,” said the 73-year-old Reagan, with a wry smile. “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
The line got a laugh, but the question was on the table even then: How old is too old to run for office?
Today, it seems, fewer voters are laughing. That’s because more people have begun to assume that the current U.S. government is less of a democracy and more of a gerontocracy—that is, rule by old people. But is this really the case?
If it appears that there are more old people running the government, it’s primarily because in general people are living longer. Currently, the U.S. average life expectancy at birth is 74 years for men and 80 years for women. The average age of members of the U.S. House is about 58 and 64 for the Senate. The current Cabinet? 58. That’s a far cry from back in 1775, when the average life expectancy at birth was 37 and the average age of the members of the Continental Congress was 44. So, today’s political representatives are decades younger than their projected lifespan.
In all fairness, along with this extended lifespan comes the increased possibility of experiencing certain health conditions such as physical frailty and cognitive impairment that can arise in our later years. And that’s what concerns many voters.
So perhaps that’s what they mean when they believe that someone is “too old” to run for or to hold office. However, according to American gerontologist Kate de Madeiros, PhD, professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal, “‘Too old’ is complicated and has less to do with age, in my opinion, and more to do with finding reasons to label someone as ‘incompetent’ or to suggest their views don’t align with ‘current thinking.’”
“My main concern,” she continues, “is that behaviors are interpreted through a biased lens of cognitive decline. Every gaffe or stumble lends support to the idea that a person is somehow not competent. Forget where you put your keys when you’re 80, people think you have dementia. Forget where you put your keys when you’re 40, people think you’re busy.”
Geriatrician Allen Power, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester in New York and Schlegel Chair in Aging and Dementia Innovation at the Schlegel–UW Research Institute for Aging, Ontario, clarifies a common misunderstanding about the aging process. “Society also tends to misinterpret some of the normal changes of aging as signs of decline in cognitive ability,” he says. “Some examples might include moving or speaking more slowly and deliberately, or occasional verbal slips or drawing a blank on a name or place.”
For de Madeiros, cognitive competence involves more than just remembering names or thinking quickly on your feet and in some respects actually improves with age. “There is substantial evidence,” she asserts, “that points to accumulated experience through age as contributing to better decision-making than cognitive tasks such as speed of processing or word recall.”
Power explains a deeper reason for connecting increased age to decreased cognition: Western cultural bias against old age. “Chronological age is only part of what defines a person and there is no set rule for when or if a person is too cognitively old,” he says. “There is prevalent ageism in our society—an attitude that assumes that older people are less capable than younger people.”
“Part of this stems from a society that focuses on youthful concepts of beauty and celebrates people who run the fastest, earn the most, or balance the most tasks,” he continues. “These are skewed values that do not see the wealth of wisdom and guidance that comes from those who don’t fit that image.”
Nevertheless, the question remains about what to do when there is concern about candidates’ competence to serve in government.
“I think it’s risky to require testing based on chronological age,” Power says. “One could argue that members of Congress who are much younger have displayed behaviors that might lead one to question their fitness to be an effective legislator. And serious physical, psychiatric, and cognitive illnesses can occur at younger ages as well as older. I think the most equitable approach is that all people in such a high position be required to have physical, psychiatric, and cognitive evaluations on a regular basis.”
Ultimately, the issue of age in politics reflects the broader issue of ageism that is found in our culture in health care, housing, employment, and beyond.
“Biased and uniformed attitudes about older candidates translate into biased attitudes toward older people in general,” says de Madeiros. “It’s not just the elections that should concern us. It’s the spillage of misinformed views that affects all older people.
“We have to resist what marketers tell us about age—that aging is bad, that older people are not cognitively trustworthy, that age alone predicts biased behavior, that generations are in competition with each other, and so on.”
Power agrees: “It is said that ageism is prejudice against our own future selves,” he says, “so much of it is driven by fear of our own mortality. The more we can begin to have open discussions between generations, the sooner we can dispel the myths of aging and create a more inclusive and just society.”
When voters focus on how old, rather than how competent, political candidates are, everyone loses. That also goes for how we see and behave toward our fellow citizens. Given that all of us are aging and hope to do so well into the future, prioritizing our individual needs and gifts over our accumulated years sounds like just the ticket we need to create a robust pro-aging nation.
And that’s something all voters can—and should—support.
Jeanette Leardi is a Portland-based social gerontologist, writer, editor, and community educator who has a passion for older adult empowerment. She gives popular presentations and workshops in journaling, memoir writing, ethical will creation, brain fitness, creativity, ageism, intergenerational communication, and caregiver support to people of all ages. Learn more about her work at jeanetteleardi.com.