Biden Is Old As Shit, But We Have A Complicated Relationship With Aging
This cuts across politics, Big Tech, and so much more.
Up top in this post, I’d say it’s very hard to look at Biden and think “This guy is fully with it.” He has gaffes, he stumbles over things, he misidentifies, he talks about deceased people as if they’re alive. He’s also 81.
Trump conveys a bit more “virility” or “still with it,” but he also comes off as insane often: talking about magnets out of nowhere, confusing Pelosi and Nikki Haley, etc. He’s also 77.
In the ultimate “lesser of two evils” election, these two fossils are going to throw feces at each other for 75% of this year for the right to run a country that’s also largely graying, and not being backed up with massively-high fertility rates either.
But at the same time, as these dudes brawl over ideology and who is more “with it,” it’s impossible for many 39 year-olds who find themselves unemployed to get back in a good groove.
So the dance becomes more and more complicated: we’re an ageist society when it comes to employment, yet the oldest power brokers hang on and on. The dichotomy can cause frustration across multiple age cohorts.
Is there anything we can unpack here? Let’s try.
The Boomer Blockade
This is somewhat of a problem, yes. I think most functional Boomers who had some financial literacy exited the power and clout game either in the 2008 recession, sometime around 2016, or during COVID. However, that does not account for the narcissists, the power-hungry, and those who attach their entire identity to work, power, and notoriety (Trump is a big example of that subset). Those people have not exited, and cling to power way too long. If you want to make this ideological, it happens on both sides. Trump has essentially held the right-side hostage for a decade, but RBG also could have retired several times under Obama, and didn’t, and her antithesis (ACB) got her SCOTUS seat. So yes, many hang on too long, and there are repercussions to that happening.
The Ageism Problem
Where the Biden vs. Trump thing frustrates people is that two fossils are jockeying for “control” of America — more on that in one second — but meanwhile, if you get laid off at 35, you might be unemployed for two years because of ageism in hiring.
This is a tough one to rationally and logically grasp for a lot of people. It’s not really that hard to conceptualize, though. See:
In general, we value the young more than the old. (See also: babies vs. teenagers.)
Companies like younger workers because they can typically pay them less, and/or also indoctrinate them in their specific processes and worldviews, as opposed to getting any “new ideas” from someone who has been around the block.
If you are an average jamoke, you have to deal with ageism, bias, hiring cycles, etc. The reason it doesn’t apply to power brokers is because they are insulated from reality by money and relationships; the reason it doesn’t apply to politicians is because they are insulated from reality by money, relationships, and gerrymandering.
Shouldn’t the young lead in a country defined by tech?
Logically, but it’s hard to figure out what “the young” means. You can’t even be President until you’re 35, which is ancient to some tech bro. You could see a 24 year-old be Mayor of Indianapolis, but a 24 year-old as President would be a bridge too far for many.
But, at the same time, it can feel like many Americans have their snouts in their phones all the time, and some of the biggest threats to us include AI, automation, and climate — and a younger person would either understand or care about those things more, you’d reckon.
So where’s the sweet spot? If political parties or large organizations could develop leaders in their 20s and early 30s, I think the world should be run by people about 37 to 54, and then they should transition into training others and reaping some financial rewards. Of course, it doesn’t work this way and the 37 to 54 period also overlaps with when many are raising children, so that’s tough.
I think, and I hear this anecdotally in conversations all the time, one thing that frustrates people is that two generations ago, 74 meant you were on a cruise in Europe. Now 74 means you haven’t even been elected the first time yet. What happened to “golden years?” Do we just seek power until they throw dirt on us? That seems sad.
The people behind the people
This point needs to be made about age. For years, look at someone like Dianne Feinstein. She wasn’t making decisions. People under her were making them for her, including people having power of attorney. The President (and other elected officials) are essentially federal and state CEOs. They set a framework, they hire, but other people run a lot of the day-to-day. You hear the most about Biden, but I bet Biden makes — at most — 7 to 10 decisions a day, if that. He has entire teams and departments of people who are really doing stuff. What matters to a lot of discourse is the optics, and the optics of an old fuddy-duddy stumbling over names is bad. But is that same guy the one making the decisions? No. And Trump wouldn’t be either, per se. (The only difference with Trump might be that his personality seems more abrasive than Biden, and he only trusts those who have preached long-term loyalty to him.)
The moral panics
Whenever we replace “a measure of young” with “a measure of old,” people lose their minds and a moral panic is created. When people got married older and that limited potential maximum pregnancies, people went nuts. When old creepers started foregoing using their money on lavish retirements to continue to be elected in Iowa, we had a moral panic. We like the young. Babies are cute and don’t talk back. Tech bros have scaled the idea that only the young are in-tune with the next wave. Youth is a virtue, even if it’s lost on the young. When we get older on anything, we create lots of discussion and discourse and hand-wringing.
In reality, every age bracket has some value. Babies have value for a reason, which is less about actual conversation and more about what the presence of the baby says about a couple’s story or a family’s arc or a legacy. Old people have value for a different reason, which is much more about accumulated knowledge and context and conversations and framing and experience. They’re both good, but I wouldn’t necessarily want a baby as Governor of Missouri, nor would I want a 82 year-old in that spot. We move through life in different ways relative to our experiences and genetics and upbringing and abilities, but each “bucket” of time has certain things we do better and should be acknowledged for. It would be nice if we rationally thought about leadership in these ways.
What is your take on this whole dance?
All the dinosaurs in DC work overtime ensuring they keep getting re-elected. Term limits? Never happen. Worried about a convention in August or an election in November? Holy shit, I'm worried about today, tomorrow, and next week. Because whoever's running the show in the White House, it's certainly NOT Joe.