Age Is Just a Number. So Are Election Results.

Joe Biden's elderliness is the most vexing problem for Democrats, and I have no idea what to do about it.

The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

For months reporters and political commentators have been talking about Joe Biden’s age (including me in the New Statesman), and over the past week, the issue has exploded. A special counsel report clearing Biden of accusations that he mishandled classified documents should have been a win for the president. Instead, the special counsel, a Republican with no expertise in medicine or cognitive fitness, wrote that Biden is a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden held a lucid and angry press conference about the report, responding with appropriate offense at the special counsel’s unnecessary, provocative, and politicized remarks — but then returned to the podium to answer one last question, and flubbed the title of the Egyptian president, referring to him as the president of Mexico. It was the kind of slip-up that any of us could make, and that previous much-younger presidents have made. But in this context of a press conference wherein Joe Biden was tasked with demonstrating to the public that he is cognitively fit and not suffering any memory or performance issues, it was a disaster.

My view of this whole debacle and debate is detailed here, and long story short, I think the media is overreacting and shaping the electorate’s perceptions, and I also think it’s clear that Trump is a worse candidate and would make a worse president by every measure, including policy preferences, temperament, and cognitive fitness.

But I also think Joe Biden’s age is a big problem. I just don’t know what Democrats should do about it.

Ezra Klein has a provocative podcast out this week arguing that while Biden has been a good president and it seems like he can still do the job, Biden’s age is simply too much of a liability for him as a candidate, and the Democratic Party should replace him (and I’d recommend listening to the podcast instead of just reading the transcript — I think there’s an empathetic element you get in Ezra’s voice that doesn’t come across as clearly on the page). It’s an argument that has spawned a million reactions, mostly from people who feel entirely sure that Ezra is right and Biden must go and the only way Democrats will win is if he’s off the ticket, or those who are convinced that the Biden age discussion is a media invention and a distraction, or perhaps an act of ageism or age discrimination or ableism (one argument is that what seems to be age-related slowness is actually Biden just managing a stutter), and that Biden is just fine, a practical spring chicken, and Democrats without Biden will be obliterated by Trump in November.

I admire the confidence of the people in both of these camps. I find myself in neither, and simply glad that I don’t have to be one of the people advising the president or considering these issues for the broader party.

One thing is clear: Joe Biden’s age is a problem. And it’s not just his age, it’s his affect and his demeanor and his tone. He’s 81, of course he’s slower (and no, it’s not just his stutter — he’s managed that his whole life, and Biden now sounds and moves differently than Biden even five years ago). By all accounts I’ve seen and read, those who work closely with him say that Biden is perfectly capable of making complex decisions and doing the job of president. And it is also clear to me — someone who has never been a Biden fan — that he has done a very good job as president, at least in the domestic realm. Biden is not and has never been my preferred candidate, but up until very recently, he has united the party, passed important progressive legislation that makes a tangible difference in Americans’ lives, governed carefully and thoughtfully, and presided over a party that has enjoyed surprising and significant midterm wins.

But as Ezra says, his job right now is both to be president and to run for president. And he is really sucking at running for president.

That’s in part because his team keeps him tightly controlled. He rarely speaks with the press. He does very few public events. It’s clear that the strategy is to keep gaffes to a minimum, and to hopefully neutralize concerns about his age that way — just don’t let voters see or hear Biden, and they won’t see or hear how old he seems. This is certainly… a strategy… but it says something about Biden’s fitness, and I think reveals the very clear and simple fact that while the president is an extremely healthy and vigorous 81, he is still 81. Americans do not have confidence in leaders who they worry may be on the physical and cognitive decline, as many elderly people are; voters worry that very old presidents could even drop dead. And boy is this a dark thing to admit, but I sometimes feel a deep pit of fear and dread considering the possibility that I could hear my phone vibrate weeks or months or days before the election, look down, and see a news alert that Joe Biden has died. (The same thing, obviously, could befall the elderly Donald Trump, who is not at all healthy, but that brings me neither fear nor dread).

Any of us could die at any moment. Any of us could find that our minds are not as sharp, that our memories begin to evade us. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. But probabilities matter, and the chances that I will get hit by a bus are pretty low. The chances that an 81-year-old man will have cognitive issues, or memory problems, or serious health problems, or will die — those are higher. It’s not ageism to recognize that certain functions increase with age, while others decline (it’s one reason why we don’t let five-year-olds vote, and why doctors run standard cognitive tests on people over 65 but not on healthy 30-year-olds). And it’s not ableism to say that certain jobs require certain abilities and simply are not for anyone and everyone, and the most powerful role in the world should require a high level of cognitive fitness — or perhaps that is ableism, but I’d certainly argue it’s a justified version of it.

Here’s the thing, though: What’s the other option?

Ezra suggests an old-school convention process, and if you want to know more about how that would work, go listen to him. To me, though, that sounds like chaos. It sounds like throwing a bomb into a party that, thanks in large part to the Israel-Hamas war, is barely holding itself together, and currently has many many members and detractors who are very very angry and extremely keen to disrupt any high-profile election process. It sounds like a potentially bloody power struggle with the potential to alienate many different factions of the Democratic base, spurring “Democrats in disarray” headlines that undercut one major argument Democrats have in their favor, which is that unlike Republicans they are the party of order and normalcy.

I also don’t see Biden going gently into that good night. He has been trying to become president for more than 30 years. I sincerely believe that he sincerely believes he is the best shot at beating Donald Trump, having done so handily once before. And while there is a deep bench of talent on the Democratic side, what there is not is a deep bench of nationally-tested talent. Gretchen Whitmer, Pete Buttigieg, Wes Moore — these are all talented, charismatic, intelligent politicians, and I have absolutely no idea how the public will react to any of them, except to say that Buttigieg already lost to Joe Biden in a primary four years ago (I was an Elizabeth Warren supporter in that primary and continue to believe she would have been the best president of my lifetime — my finger could not be further from the public pulse).

So I’m admitting the thing you are never supposed to say as a political columnist and official opinion-haver: I have absolutely no idea what the Democratic Party or Joe Biden should do here. None. Zero. Every option seems like a bad option, except for the alternatives, which seem infinitely worse. I actually don’t think Democrats are screwed in November — I think there are real pathways to victory with or without Joe Biden. But I have no idea if the “with” or the “without” is the surer bet.

xx Jill