Decisive Moment?
The American presidency has provided us with both memorable and regrettable moments since 1960. Among them the most unforgettable to me are…
three assassination attempts, JFK’s murder in Dallas etching a before and after dividing line in how many of us view our history;
resignations by our VP followed by his boss stepping down ten months later;
the elevation of a Congressman to the presidency who never won a national election;
the two-term presidency of a Hollywood actor well up in years;
the two-in-the-Bush twelve year dynasty;
three impeachments that failed to convict;
the legitimacy of two elections challenged in the courts;
and the inauguration of the first African American president.
It was during this same era that television networks, and the cyber-media step-children they have spawned, evolved from being detached and objective chroniclers of our elections to round-the-clock promoters and ratings beneficiaries, turning what had traditionally been a twelve-month election battle into a four-year cycle of nonstop political warfare. Boomers like me have had a ring-side seat to many of the decisive moments that have played out in our living room, from show-stopping to rancorous to riotous conventions, to the now daily news menu of interviews, press conferences, and speeches, with and without scripts. Even for those with little more than a casual interest in politics, it has been quite a ride, one that seemingly plunged to a previously unprecedented—or shall I say un-presidented—nadir last week. Calling last Thursdays’ CNN Debate a low point in American politics may be a bit of an overstatement, although it is one I’m happy to share with George Will, a journalist well beyond my own ability or credibility. Yet the aftershocks from party and media talking heads would suggest that neither of us is exaggerating. And that is saying a lot when taken in context of so many other decisive electoral moments over the past 60 years. Who can forget…
Vice President Richard Nixon’s sunken-eyed, sweat-beaded upper lip betraying his discomfort in the first TV debate against John F. Kennedy in 1960;
George (Mitt’s dad) Romney’s 1967 confessional that he had been brained-washed about Vietnam by the Johnson administration as he tried to gain support for the Republican nomination;
Edmund Muskie’s tearful breakdown over criticisms of his wife during the early 1972 primaries;
Gary Hart’s defiant 1988 challenge that the press follow him to see if he did commit marital infidelity, which they did, confirming that he did too;
Joe Biden’s admission of having plagiarized a British politician in one of his speeches in his 1988 presidential run;
Howard Dean’s primal scream following the 2004 Iowa Caucuses that burst the balloon of his presidential aspirations.
Mitt Romney’s clumsy reference in 2012 to the “binders” of women he kept on hand in vetting good female applicants for government positions;
Donald Trump’s salacious comments about what he liked to do with and to women captured on audiotape by an Access Hollywood reporter a month before the 2016 election.
For most of the characters named above, these gaffs, misjudgments and miscalculations signaled the end of a once-promising campaign, creating such a negative impression in the minds of voters that all possibility of a November victory was lost. Interestingly, three of them, Richard Nixon, Joe Biden and Donald Trump somehow lived to fight another day, ultimately taking up residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Judging from the tidal wave of political analysis in which we’ve been inundated since our two geriatric presidential hopefuls left the stage in Atlanta last week, it appears we may have witnessed another of these decisive moments in American political history. As that word would imply, such moments inspire or force people to come to decisions about their political champion that they would much rather avoid doing.
Whether you are a Democrat, Republican or independently eschew party affiliation, you have to somehow come to terms with the revelations that this latest Biden vs. Trump confrontation made abundantly clear. Here are three that are weighing heavily on my own democratic sensibilities. First, can anyone deny that Joe Biden is no longer very good at nimbly fielding questions put to him in a spontaneous, unscripted forum. There were far too many fragmented or incomplete responses to questions you’d think he would have nailed following a week of intense preparation. At the very least it appears he is far more in his element when provided the safety net of teleprompters, ear pieces, or cue cards. But who is writing the texts he is then given to read? Second, can anyone ignore Mr. Trump’s constant self-aggrandizement that qualifies almost everything he says, whether he’s rewriting history or making promises or glorying in how popular and loved he is? No doubt he continues to display impressive presentational energy and bravado, which contrasts to his opponents more subdued or even flat affect. But who really believes that Mr. Trump is a reliable witness to events he claims did or did not occur, or a faithful witness to what he, his supporters or his enemies actually did or did not ever say? And third is the dilemma that all of us now face in having to choose between two terribly flawed, elderly candidates whose liabilities far outweigh their assets. We seem to be walking over unplowed ground here, ground we have not tilled since the days when party conventions actually selected their presidential candidates rather than rubber stamping those who had already bought and paid for their own nomination.
Am I reading too much into this, or unfairly picking on these two old warriors? I think not, and for one inconvenient truth about both men: they really are elderly men, a judgment I feel qualified to make given my own age (a youth, by comparison, at 73) and my understanding of what longevity adds to us and takes from us. Last Thursday night made that abundantly clear. Mr. Biden is 81 and, in the spotlight of a national debate in which the whole world was eavesdropping, he looked and spoke like an old man, not like the leader of the free world. If he is so debilitated and confused to be unable to hold his own for 90 minutes in front of TV cameras, can anyone honestly feel good about entrusting him for four more years as our our president? What should we expect of him when he’s 84 or 86, should he even be able to fill out his second term in office? Mr. Trump, now 78, was as delusional and self-preoccupied as he has ever been throughout his many decades promoting himself in the public arena. Should we believe he will be more reasonable, humble, clear-thinking and statesmanlike when he is 80 or 82, when his second term would be drawing to a close? Apparently the throngs of Americans riding his MAGA bandwagon don’t see a problem, which boggles my mind. How can any reasonable voter feel good about entrusting our national well-being, indeed our very survival, t0 either of these men. I suspect all of the misgivings that I am sharing and that are being publicly aired in the wake of the “debate” boil down to one important aspect of the relationship we want and expect to have with our elected leaders: TRUST.
Can we, should we trust that Mr. Biden will be able to…?
Can we, should we trust that Mr. Trump won’t be inclined to…?
The times in which we live demand the very best of each one of us. How much moreso those whom we entrust to lead us. In my judgment neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump measures up to that challenge, or to the standard of excellence our country deserves and requires.
On February 11 of this year I posted an essay borrowing the title of Cormac McCarthy’s violent novel of the Southwest, No Country for Old Men. After enduring the 90 minute encore grudge match between the two champions of our major political parties, I felt it might be worth revisiting what I had written a mere four months ago on either and both of their suitability to hold our highest office for a second term. This week’s performance by both candidates only serves to underscore what I, and many others, have been sensing in the weeks and months in which the electoral script has played out on television, talk radio, political rallies, press conferences, and in more courtroom scenes than any of us would find becoming of an American president (or his family).
I have taken the liberty of editing the original and paring it down a bit. Yet the concerns I raised in February about the advanced age, character and qualifications of both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were put on such display during the CNN “debate” that I feel a need to circulate them once again.
What follows is my February reflection piece on the political circus that has now reached, or is soon to reach, a point of no return. I continue to believe that America is not a country best led by old men, particularly these two old men. Dare we begin to elect people more closely in tune with, in touch with whom we really are?
Mathematical medians are not averages, but midway points, in this case separating the younger half of our population from the older half in equal measure. By listing median ages for each state, the Census Bureau is letting us know that there are as many of us under 38.8 years of age as there are of us above that number. By this reckoning some states, like Utah and North Dakota have a younger cast right now while Maine and Florida seem to attract, or hold onto, more older folks. That half of America on the high side of the ledger, those who are 75 and up, who have earned the right to be respectfully called seniors and elders or pejoratively referred to as “long in the tooth”: they represent 6.9% of our entire population. If we factor out the more than 70 million Americans under the voting age of 18, then the median age of eligible voters would be much higher, perhaps in the low 50s, but still significantly younger than the old men now leading in the polls.
Both Mr. Biden, born in 1942, and Mr. Trump, born in 1946, fall within our oldest demographic stratum. That makes them 44 and 40 years older, respectively, than half of the American population, and quite unlike those 25-29 year olds—the millennial or Gen Z-ers,—who are now our single largest adult group. Or to put it another way, both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are four decades removed from when they celebrated their 38th birthdays, having passed America’s current median age back in the early 1980s, when our country was much different than it is now. Remember those good old days?
Science, medical technology, and healthier diets and lifestyles have certainly pushed human longevity much further than when these two presidential aspirants were in their prime. Now I must admit that both Biden and Trump still look reasonably healthy, as well they should given the amount of daily rest they get and the support they count on from their trainers, handlers, and make-up specialists. Even so, the sight of shuffling steps and hanging jowls, and the embarrassment of frequent lapses of verbal recall and the oft-documented wanderings of thought suggest they are now closer to senility than they are to their former vitality. The question needs to be asked, not as an asterisk attached to their resumes but as a measure of their qualifications to handle our nation’s most important and most stressful of jobs: are these two old men the best we have, the best we can find to lead us? A quick review of the American presidency shows us that the median age of our chief executives since 1789 has been much younger (55 years to be exact) than either of them currently is. In fact, they are now between 23-27 years past that historic presidential median.
Only Dwight Eisenhower, who left office after just turning 70 and having suffered both a heart attack and a stroke while in office, and Ronald Reagan who reached 77—shaky memory and all—come close to Trump and Biden, both of whom would be trying to effectively lead the country as men in their early to middle 80s. To put this in perspective, Americans aged 80-84 represent 1.8% of our entire population, underscoring how much our leadership, should either of them be reelected, will resemble more of a gerontocracy than what our founders likely ever imagined when they set 35 as the minimum age for our highest elected office.
With no mandated age limits, a sizable portion of our governance at the national level is now in the hands of more older men and older women than we’ve seen in over a century. In fact, our current Senate is the 2nd oldest in our history, while the House ranks 3rd oldest. And the elderly trend in our two legislative bodies seems to be increasing, not decreasing. The 118th Congress now in session includes 100 senators who are 12 years older on average than were their predecessors in the 1980s. Our 435 representatives are, on average, older by 9 years than the lower house was in that same decade. While age may ensure a level of experience and wisdom among our leaders, it also brings with it a degree of inflexibility and dogmatism that often accompanies extreme longevity in office. Certainly the dysfunctions of the current Congress in being unable to agree on budgets, or successfully manage impeachments, or resolve our immigration crisis or fund our allies engaged in war bear witness to an intransigence among the personalities we’ve elected to represent us. Age not only stiffens our joints—it has a way of hardening our attitudes and petrifying our convictions too, neither serving the best interests of a legislative body that thrives or fails on its ability to compromise.
Ironically, the Supreme Court, so often viewed as the haven of graybeards, is the youngest of our three branches of government. These guardians of our Constitution have, since 1789, welcomed justices as young as 32 and as old as 90. The median age for the current group of nine judges, all appointees for life, is 62, with liberal and conservative leanings found on both the older and younger halves of that spectrum.
A telling contrast to our elected leaders can be found among those to whom we entrust our very lives and in whose hands we place the security of our nation: the members of our armed forces. They too are government employees. Ironically they are held to very strict requirements concerning how old they can, and can’t be, in effectively serving their country. This even applies to those at the very highest positions of authority and power, our generals and admirals. “Mandatory retirement age for general and flag officers is age 64. Officers in O9 and O10 positions may have retirement deferred until age 66 or…until age 68 by the President.”* What does it say about us when the expectations of vitality and competency we place on our warriors in the field are far more demanding than they are for the commander in chief under whom they serve and receive their orders?
Given the geriatric reality of our current national government, one can’t be faulted for asking why: why have we as an electorate permitted or settled for such a state of aged leadership? Is it that we have been so busy taking care of our own survival needs that we’ve become a bit lazy in exercising our democratic responsibilities? I don’t think Americans historically or naturally have favored the very old over those in the prime of their lives. That has more typically been found in Asian countries whose traditions extend to elders a respect and reverence that is much rarer in the West. In contrast, we Americans have been and continue to be much more infatuated with youthful energy and creativity, along with demonstrable strength of mind, body and spirit. How else do we explain the prioritization of time and money we now give to entertainment, physical fitness, and cradle-to-grave athletic competition above all else? Yet when it comes to those whom we choose to craft our laws, articulate our shared values, moderate our differences and represent us in the community of nations—we seem to prefer people who not only are well past their prime. They often can’t remember when that was, at least not in accurate recollection.
Why is it, then, that we now seem less amenable to electing men and women in their 40s, 50s, or 60s than we were in the past? I’m sure we have many who are more than capable of leading us, even in times as foreboding and complex as we now face. But something has changed … changed in us who cast the votes, attend the rallies, and send our monies to fund the campaigns of our champions.
Could it be that many of us become so unmoored by social and cultural change that we seek refuge in the promises of elders boasting of their imagined prowess as they promise to restore our nation to its former greatness? Or is it that many of us have become so ignorant of and disconnected from our past—its triumphs and it failings—that we turn a blind eye to what was once taken for granted or valued as common sense? Perhaps we have allowed ourselves to become so polarized in our judgments about what America is, was and should be that we no longer have the will to constructively dialogue with our ideological opponents in order to find common ground? Or maybe, just maybe, we have become so insecure in our values, so entrenched in our dogmatisms that we find greater comfort clenching fists and locking arms in winner-take-all battles against "them” than in courageously opening our hands and minds to honestly engage “us” in the give-and-take of negotiated compromise from which America’s pluribus has achieved its greatest moments of unum.
In my judgement this is no country for old men because it never has been. And, in particular, it is no time for these two old men now who vie for our affection, our allegiance, our money and our votes. Neither of them, regardless of what their handlers say to the contrary, is close to bringing his A-game to the incredibly complex and history-transforming issues our country now faces inside, outside and on our borders. Perhaps Joe Biden and Donald Trump might have been up to it 20 or 30 years ago, but that day has passed. For they have now become what all of us become when we survive into our 8th and 9th decades: more of what we’ve always been.
Story telling, truth-bending, name-dropping, glad-handing Joe Biden is not different than he used to be—he’s more of what he’s always been. Self-promoting, bullying, name-calling and history fabricating Donald Trump isn’t different than he used to be—he’s more of what he’s always been. Personalities don’t change over time as much as they become more fossilized and exaggerated. And isn’t that what we are seeing and hearing all the time? In interviews, press conferences and at party rallies; in prepped sound-bytes and moments of off-the-cuff banter and spur-of-the-moment tweats: a day doesn’t go by that we aren’t reminded of so many of those traits and mannerisms that we recognize in our elders who are in decline. They can be cranky and crude; impatient and irritable towards those who challenge or disappoint them. The recall or inappropriate use of names, details and events regularly betray their muddled state of mind. And that senior tendency to retell their stories about what they once did, said, or promised are invariably filled with inaccuracies, revisions and aggrandizements. So the question for me, and the question for all of us who will, or should, have a say in who becomes our next president is this: how dare we entrust the future of our country to these two old men?
As I write this, awaiting a decision by the high court about Mr. Trump’s regrettable and inexcusable conduct upon leaving office, I do so hoping that, barring some “act of God” as insurers might put it, we as Americans will put our money and our votes where our clearest thoughts and best reasoning are making so very clear. For our country deserves better than the presidential choices now lining up to duke it out again this fall. There is a reason that men and women my age choose to retire or are, as our military confirms, forced to let step aside to let others, younger and now more capable, carry on in their place. It is my hope and prayer that we, as a nation, may be spared the disappointments and damages that are certain to come should we elect either of these once notable, but now mostly just old, men.
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*Federal Law 10 U.S. Code section 1253, O9 and O10 are the top Navy and Army/Air Force ranks which we more commonly call Admirals and Generals.
