The recent of the leader of the majority of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, freezes in front of the cameras, in collaboration with the relatively advanced ages of the two presidential horses, has American voters who reflect at the age of politicians.
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Presidents are aging and more. Former President Donald Trump was the oldest person to assume his duties when he was sworn in on January 20, 2017, and President Biden broke this record four years later. If one or the other is elected again next year, at 78 and 81, respectively, they will be older than the holder of the previous record, Ronald Reagan, it was when he LEFT Office at the age of 77.
The possibility of an octogenarian on the presidential ticket is to worry about many Americans – perhaps because it is not only the presidency that ages. The current congress, with a median age of 65 in the Senate and 58 in the House, is the oldest in history. Last week, when the chief of the Senate minority, Mitch McConnell, 81, seemed to freeze by speaking for the second time in two months, he was renewed to retire, and the Senator of California, Dianne Feinstein, 90, was exposed to a similar examination after a series of health problems. The former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, who is 51 years old and presents himself for the republican appointment, called for competence tests for candidates over 75, and his opponent Vivek Ramaswamy, a 38 -year -old entrepreneur, said he was time for a new generation to intensify and direct.
Voters are concerned about the age of candidates and elected officials, especially with regard to Biden. The vast majority of American adults, 77%, say that it is too old to be effective for an additional four years, according to an AP-Noc survey in August. Fifty-seven percent of registered voters thought that age has seriously limited the capacity of President Bide to do his job in an economist / Yougov survey from August. Similar questions have been asked about Feinstein and McConnell, on whom 60% said the same thing.
But will voters really start to reject the candidates because of their age? There are many reasons why older politicians continue to hold the levers of power – and the structure of our political system makes them difficult to force them to let go, even if the concerns of the Americans concerning the aging of the country’s aging political direction. This is why Americans can continue to support older politicians when they are voting, even if they say they prefer a younger leadership cohort.
Americans are increasingly worried about the age of politicians
Biden is perhaps the oldest president in the history of the United States, but concerns about whether the presidents are too old for work have floated for some time. The Americans are increasingly worried about the age of Reagan during his mandate. At the start of his second term in 1985, 33% of respondents in an ABC / Washington Post survey said Reagan was too old to be president, but in 1987, this number had increased to 42%. And a January 1987 survey by Louis Harris & Associates found that 48% of respondents agreed with the declaration that Reagan was too old to be president.
In the modern era, the presidents have traditionally published details on their health, and the public demanded transparency, because the work is demanding physically and mentally and the voters want to ensure that the person they eliminate is the one who does it. The anxieties on this subject have a basis in past events: President Woodrow Wilson was able to hide the effects of a stroke in 1919 from most of the American public, and his wife, Edith, mainly acted as a de facto president until his second mandate ends in 1921. Later, in 1967, the ratification of the 25th amendment described what was to happen if a president became incapacity.
But the presidents have not always been to come with information. In the absence of diagnoses, voters have often relied on external panels that their candidates could be unable to do their job. The most obvious is perhaps the age of a candidate, simply because we are faced with chances of more serious medical problems and death, the more we age.
But in practice, it is difficult to draw bright lines – in part because age is far from being a perfect health indicator. Some older politicians are perceived as more capable than others: thirty-four percent of voters thought that the age of Senator Bernie Sanders, who is almost 82 years old, has seriously limited his ability to work in the survey of the economist / Yougov, and 28% said that the age would limit Trump’s ability to be president if it were elected. These differences suggest that it is not only aging, but the specific health conditions of certain politicians reported in the media to which voters respond; Or, in the case of Biden, signaling each trip in the stairs to Air Force One.
Health problems that can be aged, even chronicles that require adaptations, do not necessarily mean that elected officials cannot serve effectively, which deals with a broader question on how voters make assumptions about the ability of candidates for their functions. For example, people with physical and mental disabilities are under-represented in government, with only 1 out of 10 elected representatives with a handicap, while almost 16% of adults in the global population have one, according to a study by Rutgers University. As the Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman’s campaign has shown, candidates can face discrimination when handicaps are confused with cognitive capacity. The need for accommodation does not mean that an elected representative is unable to work. “You also don’t want to lose the potential contributions from someone who is older but who is quite talented and who now has the benefit of the experience of bringing to the table,” said James Mr. Curry, political scientist at the University of Utah.
Some voters, however, think that we should have clearer rules at the moment when a politician is too old to serve. Sixty-seven percent of respondents have strongly or somewhat supported an age limit to serve the Senate in a Yougov / Umass Amherst survey from June, and 58% of adults thought that age limits to serve as president would be a good idea in a Marist survey of last November. Seventy percent of respondents favored mental competence tests for candidates over 75 years of age in a Yougov / Yahoo survey from February. A plurality, 48%, thinks that the president’s work is too demanding for a person over 75, according to a CBS / Yougov survey from June. And overall, the preference of the Americans for young leaders is clear: about half of the Americans think that the ideal age for a president is someone in the fifties, according to the Pew Research Center.
The risk that a politician is unable to do his job is not the only concern that could fuel these perceptions. The age of the voters and the members of the congress they choose means that the programs and important questions for older voters, from social security to the mistreatment of the elderly, are more likely to draw attention than the more important problems for young voters, such as student loans.
“I think that the main reason why young Americans want young legislators are that they do not feel well represented by older Americans, both from a point of view of the older representatives could concentrate or talk about who are different from what a young candidate could speak”, but also because, like all Americans, they want to see themselves represented in government, said Curry. Young Americans are now missing this representation. “This makes them less satisfied with their representative government and less satisfied with their democracy,” he said.
It is also possible, however, that, despite what they say, voters prefer to re -election someone with experience and seniority. “The fixed constitution of minimum ages for the presidency and for the American room and the American Senate, but it does not define a maximum,” said William J. Kole, the author of the next “The Big 100: The New World of Super-Age”. “And you have to believe that the editors have clearly appreciated the experience on youth. This is part of our DNA in some respects, politically. ”
But our system could ensure that older politicians remain in power
There are a few factors that contribute to our aging policy, and they give a clue to the reason why voters choose older candidates despite the polls they would prefer the youngest. The first is simple demography. Older voters are more likely to vote and are more likely to choose candidates closer to their age. The young generations of voters only exceeded the baby boom generation in 2018. The millennials are now more numerous than baby boomers as the largest American generation, but the youngest millennials, at 25, are old enough to qualify to run for federal offices. The Constitution requires that candidates for the American chamber be at least 25 and at least 30 for the Senate, and most candidates have previous experience before running for these big points. They must also create name recognition and a fundraising base. For this reason, even generation X and generation Y are always lagging behind in representation.
This leaves the baby boomers over-represented at the congress, taking almost half of the positions. And it is also difficult to force older generations to abandon power if they do not want to resign. There is a strong holder for the federal functions and the current structure of the congress rewards seniority, allowing longer members with plum committee assignments to attract more attention to the needs of their voters. During the last century, average service periods for Congress members increased, members have become more likely to seek and earn a re -election.
The operating cost has also increased and practicing politicians have a huge fundraising advantage. In the United States, the decision to present itself to re-election is largely left to the candidates themselves. In countries to different systems, guiding bodies can be more representative because the parties can exert more pressure on candidates to leave and more effectively recruit younger members to serve. US voters may not elter the younger candidates because they do not have the options in front of them.
While Americans continue to live more and more, it could be the future of politics. “I think that, honestly, it is up to older leaders to be sufficiently aware of yourself to find time to retire,” said Kole.
Mary Radcliffe contributed to research.
