President Biden announces the revival of the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot, February 2, 2022/White House image

After eight years as vice president, Joe Biden was not a man who came to the presidency with a preponderance of low-hanging incrimination fruit for his opponents to pluck, which gives the question of his age greater traction in the propaganda sphere. Policy Contributing Writer and strategic elder Robin Sears settles it once and for all.

Robin V. Sears

August 24, 2023

Winston Churchill defied and vanquished (with a little help from his friends) Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, retired from his second term as prime minister a decade later and lived for another decade after that. Having saved the Fifth Republic from serious division, potentially even violent civil unrest, Charles DeGaulle retired in 1969. Deng Xiaoping launched the most dramatic changes in modern Chinese history, beating back internal opponents in a political power struggle many thought he would lose. Having opened China to the world, he formally retired in 1989, but remained a power behind the scenes until his death in 1997. Golda Meir saw her nation through some of its most existentially threatening crises and only retired after 25 years in government. At a time when life expectancy was about 55, and despite having battered his liver for decades, Sir John A. MacDonald governed until 1891, 18 years in total.

How old were these giants of political history when they retired? Churchill, 80; DeGaulle, 79; Deng, 93; Golda Meir, 77; and Sir John A., 76.

The list of ‘way too old’ political giants has another dozen names on it. And, most interestingly, they fought their way through their most challenging times in government in each case but one when they had passed 70. Churchill was 65 when he became wartime prime minister in 1940.

Successful leadership always involves a strong ability to read people, friend and foe. Experience, over decades, nurtures that ability. Perhaps even more importantly, it grants you access to a network of leaders with whom you have worked, shared victories and losses, and about whom you have a deep knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, their likes and dislikes.

Age prejudice was the most frustrating challenge I had as a CEO headhunter. Given two candidates of equal merit, clients would nearly always default to the youngest. I grew up with the good fortune of having the wisdom of older people to help me avoid dumb mistakes, especially in my early years in politics. I learned in my 20s that experienced wisdom trumped youthful energy — always. An early mentor chose me as his ‘far too young’ successor. I was terrified. He shared a bon mot that has guided me to this day, “Just remember there are no new mistakes, find those who made them before you and listen carefully!” And I did, sometimes several times a day.

A line I developed as a headhunter for clients determined to favour youthful energy was, “Would you have hired yourself at 32 to run a billion-dollar corporation….?” They would often look aghast and say, “Are you kidding me?!” As these were usually American clients hiring leaders in Asia, I would gently add a homily about the disrespect corporations receive from governments and competitors when the face of the firm is someone younger than their children.

Every political junkie remembers Ronald Reagan’s famous retort to a reporter’s question in the second 1984 presidential debate as to, given his age, whether Reagan would have been able to have manage the stresses of the Cuban missile crisis. Professional performer that he was, Reagan paused, then said with mock severity, “I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Everyone, including that opponent, Walter Mondale, burst into laughter.

Few recall his closer, however, “I think it was either Cicero or Seneca who said ‘Elders must always correct the mistakes of the young, or else there would be no state.” He was making a very good point. God save us from the arrogance of youth being granted unchecked authority. Who would prefer Justin’s early, less-than-serious approach to governing, over his father’s deep experience? Does anyone doubt 86-year-old Pope Francis’ competence and skill, that he exhibits daily, in reforming the Catholic Church more fundamentally than any pope since John XXIII.

Whether or not 80 is the new 60, it certainly, in more and more cases, is not the old 80.

We are living longer, and living in good health longer. Surely the only reasonable test of qualification with respect to age is mental competence and physical capacity. Is a candidate in good health? Whether or not 80 is the new 60, it certainly, in more and more cases, is not the old 80. Has the candidate retained cognitive ability, and is their energy still adequate to the stresses of high office? Can they quickly digest complex written and oral reports? Are they visibly committed to staying healthy, working out, avoiding fat and sugary processed foods, phasing their workdays and weeks with essential breaks. Metrics about physical and mental health can all be developed through tests. They should be disclosed by each candidate. If a candidate passes, perhaps that might even cause rude journalists to put aside questions implying the cliché of geriatric incompetence.

Now, Donald Trump would certainly pass the ‘taking rest breaks’ test with flying colours. Most of his time in office, as the White House recorded daily, included long hours of ‘executive time.’ At least fifty pounds overweight, his exercise machine is his golf cart. He has bragged that he never reads books, and insists that his staff’s policy briefings not exceed two pages. His diet is like a parody of a self-indulged old man. His mainstays are apparently cheeseburgers, Coke, and ice cream. He assaults his hair and his skin with the regular administration of toxic orange chemicals, which have the predictable effect of so many such tricks — to make him look not younger but older and trying too hard.

Which brings us to the age prejudice that Joe Biden faces. In contrast to his likely opponent’s lifestyle choices, he eats little that would not pass a nutritionist’s skeptical gaze, works out daily, reads voraciously, and has an elephantine memory for the people he has met, and the events he has been part of for over fifty years. Ah, the skeptics will say, “That’s all very well, but you see how he sometimes stumbles on stairs, uses the wrong word, and cannot read his own teleprompter!”

Really? These are proofs of his lack of statesmanship? First of all, it is impossible to separate Biden’s occasional snags in syntax from the speech patterns of a man who overcame a childhood stutter. Having his body betray him about balance and necessary steps occasionally? Donald Trump is three and a half years younger than Biden. Why do we hear so few challenges about his old age, mental capacity, and cognitive decline? As one American friend put it, “Perhaps it is because he has always been the crazy old man, so it is hard to see the decline.”

We know that persistent gerontocracies are not a good idea for democracies. One common drawback of older leadership across a range of titles is the ruling élite’s ability to stay connected to the values and dreams of the young. Another is that it can make it seem impossible for those under 60 to aspire to a role in leadership.

Finally, there is Biden’s recent record of achievement, for which the age question serves as misdirection by his opponents. Perennially underestimated, Joe Biden has stunned many observers with his record of success in his first three years. From his bipartisan victories in Congress, to his single-handed revitalization of NATO, and his creation of the strongest alliance of nations around the world to fight Putin, it would be hard to claim that he has not been firing on all cylinders.

So, please, give me an aging Biden over a one-term senator or governor, any day. We will all feel safer and get more things done.

Policy Contributing Writer Robin V. Sears is a veteran political strategist of a certain age who has served well-seasoned leaders around the world from Willy Brandt to Brian Mulroney to Ed Broadbent with both youthful energy and experienced wisdom.