Ageism is not a good thing. But at the same time, ignoring the realities of the effects of age on political candidates carries its own risk, not the least of which is that the individual might die in office. Others include the fading of intellectual and processing powers once one passes the age of 70. The issue is timely as the country suffers under an elderly and mentally impaired occupant of the White House and two of his potential challengers are even older. Personally, I believe that Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are too old and, if Democrats are smart, they will nominate a younger standard bearer. A piece in the Washington Post looks at the very real decline that all of us will experience as we age. Here are article highlights:
If Biden or Sanders triumphs in 2020, we enter an unprecedented age of — well, of old age in power. If reelected in 2024, Biden would start his second term at 82, Sanders at 83. If Trump won again, he’d still be president at 78 — 15 years older than Franklin D. Roosevelt was when he died in office in 1945.
50 is a better age than 76 to undertake perhaps the hardest job on Earth. The experts on aging (none as old as I) were generally more sympathetic to the idea that someone in their late 70s might be an effective president, but no one I’ve talked to thinks this is an ideal age for the role. The specialists know the numerous studies that show, unmistakably, that on nearly every scale of intellectual capacity, people over 70 have less to offer than younger generations. The one exception is the ability to learn and recall vocabulary.
Studies of old people conclude that between 16 percent and 23 percent of Americans over 65 experience some form of cognitive impairment. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology found that these subjects performed worse than others on tasks involving working memory — the ability to remember information while manipulating it, as when calculating the tip on a restaurant bill — and that they’re more impaired when those tasks become more complex. Older adults also have difficulties with tasks that require dividing or switching attention, . .
On tests of reasoning, memory and cognitive speed, the average scores for adults in their early 70s were near the 20th percentile of the population, whereas the average performance for adults in their early 20s was near the 75th percentile. A Mayo Clinic study of 161 cognitively normal adults between 62 and 100 years of age showed that declines in learning ability closely track the passage of time. “Research has shown that concept formation, abstraction, and mental flexibility decline with age, especially after age 70 . . . .
Per the insurers’ tables, a President-elect Biden in 2020 would have a 26 percent chance of dying within the next five years; Sanders in 2020 would face a 29 percent chance of dying within five years; for Trump, it would be about a 20 percent chance of death before 2025.
[T]he unwillingness to discuss this decline bothers some people in the field of gerontology. “If talking about someone’s age is taboo and we are immediately accused of ageism, then that shuts down the discourse,” argues Jennifer Sasser, 52, a gerontologist at Oregon State University. . . . But “you can’t stay at the height of your capacity forever. That’s not the trajectory. We do become less energetic. Our bodies and minds do change.”
[T]he exact problem: Any given human could function at a high level well into his or her dotage. But these are outliers. The overwhelming majority decline. This happens to different people at different ages, but scientists have established that decline accelerates with advancing age: In a study at the University of Virginia, adults between the ages of 61 and 96 showed a decrease in cognitive speed twice as great as adults under age 60, and a drop-off in memory four times as great. Memory loss causes “slowed processing speed, reduced ability to ignore irrelevant information, and decreased use of strategies to improve learning and memory,” according to the University of Alabama’s meta-study.
Someone in his or her mid-70s undoubtedly could perform the job of president, but how effectively? The example of our 72-year-old incumbent raises questions about the meaning of “perform.” Is there any reason to think that picking someone with at least a 20 percent chance of dying in office is a good idea? Don’t we have a great many younger candidates who are more likely to survive and thrive in this most arduous of jobs?
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