My apologies (not really) to all of you 80-year-olds out there who want to be president – or who support other 80-year-olds to be president. You’re being absolutely absurd. Yes, I have run into some 80-year-olds that are physically, medically and cognitively supreme beings – some even have more stamina than I do – but the age of our presidents (also senators and other politicians) is really getting ridiculous.
President Disaster is 80-years-old. Nancy Pelosi is 82-years-old. Mitch McConnell is 80-years- old. I don’t want any of these people running the country. I’m not saying that Kevin McCarthy, Kamala Harris or AOC are a whole lot better just because they are younger, but I certainly don’t want the geriatric unit of “Sunny Meadows” running our lives anymore. According to Infogalactic [1], as of January 22, 2023, there are five senators in their 80s and 18 in their 70s.
Even formers President Trump (should he win in 2024) would be 82 when he leaves office.
“Diversity” is the buzzword these days when it comes to gender, race, ethnicity, and other Democrat priorities but when it comes to the AGE of the politicians, diversity isn’t wanted at all. Even though recent census data shows the median age [2] of Americans is 38-years-old, Quorum reports that the average age of the members of Congress has continued to grow as “current members of Congress are serving longer terms.”
ENOUGH.
And it’s not like I’m alone in my opinion. The UMass Amherst Poll [3], for the time time, asked people about whether they would support a constitutional amendment to set an “upper age limit on the presidency” and what that limit should be.
Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll said, “A strong majority – 59% – favors inserting a clause in the Constitution adding a maximum age limit for the presidency on top of the minimum age requirement of 35,” La Raja says. “On average voters peg this age at 67. That means that Ronald Reagan, who was 69 when he became president would have been disqualified from running for office if Americans got this change.”
George Washington was 65-years-old at the conclusion of his presidency. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were 65-years-old when they ended their presidencies as well.
If you visit Wikipedia and peruse the ages of our past presidents, you will see that most of them were in their 50’s and ’60’s. It wasn’t until Dwight D. Eisenhower came along that the age jumped up – and then Reagan and then Trump – and then INCREDIBLY OLD Dementia Biden.
Out with the old, in with the new, I say.
They certainly can’t do a whole lot worse than what we already have.