Growing older is a thing everyone wants but nobody desires; it is a race that no one wants to win but no one wants to lose either. I imagine the worst part about aging and the cognitive and physical decline that come with is admitting to yourself that you will never be at your best again. As of today, Joe Biden is the oldest sitting president of the United States in history, and his predecessor Trump is the second oldest person to have been elected as a president. The increase in age makes sense when you really think about it; people are living longer and healthier lives and therefore, their cognitive and physical decline may not come as soon as previous generations.
Everybody is looking younger these days, but that does not mean that father time isn’t knocking on a few doors.
At this point, it is not particularly shocking to see a video of the president stumbling or mumbling in a slightly incoherent manner, and just this week, Mitch McConnell, whom, after seeing the video clip, I affectionally referred to as “Glitch McConnell,” (I will absolutely make fun of someone who is a warmonger and has ruined countless lives with his policies in exchange for money), seemed to have frozen mid-sentence while at a press conference and had to be whisked away by someone who was mentally present.
In the same timeframe, California Congresswoman Diane Feinstein had to be reminded how voting for laws works. Now look, I am not saying that there are not phenomenal older people who are still amazing at their professions. Heck, my dentist was over 90 years old and his hand was steady and dexterous but we cannot say that is the rule and not the exception. He was actually a dentist-teacher and I am so sure that if he were not up to par, he would not be teaching others his mistakes. In fact, can you imagine going to a doctor who would still be able to practice medicine without a steady hand? If it is not a good idea to put a life in his hands, then how can we justify putting billions of lives in the hands of others who are showing cognitive decline?
The Supreme Court’s tenured structure was originally instituted to make sure that the members of the court were incorruptible, that without the fear of being removed from office, they were impervious to corruption. The lie detector determined that was a lie, and Clarence Thomas, YOU ARE THE FATHER! Speaking of Supreme Court Justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg refused to step down from the Supreme Court amidst failing health while Obama was in office. When she died, Trump was allowed to nominate someone for the Supreme Court, and that’s how we got Amy Coney Barrett, a woman who lied about women having abortion access and then voted to overturn Roe v Wade. She will have her position until she dies, even though clearly, she is having memory issues in her early fifties.
Things end, and if we do not want to have term limits, there has to be some sort of barometer of how healthy one must be to maintain their position. I do not understand why lawmakers claim their jobs to be so stressful but then want to continue it until the sun goes down. Additionally, there was recently a young woman who interrupted Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean Pierre, to ask why the president insisted on signing laws that would further climate change instead of stopping it.
While Jean Pierre did her best to give a PC answer, she was again challenged and reminded that Biden had approved more harmful legislation at a faster rate than Trump. But at the end of the day, why would Biden even care? It is not like he has another 30 years of life in front of him. None of them do, and by no means are their experience and leadership voided by their age, but making laws that will have disastrous consequences far beyond your age limit is unjust and isn’t great leadership at all.
Life has term limits, so should political office.
