After his first bilateral talks with Joe Biden at the White House, the UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer addressed the need to set a retirement age for the House of Lords.
The PM expressed his aim to set the retirement age at 80 and although he stated to the Press that “it doesn´t reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries,” it fuelled the global debate about the age of the US President Joe Biden and his candidacy for the 2024 elections.
Free country
Following his poor performance at the first US presidential debate and the mistake of calling President Zelensky “President Putin,” at the NATO Summit, Joe Biden caused a wave of worry worldwide; many are doubtful of his abilities to lead the country at age 81.
A survey taken in February found that 59 per cent of Americans believe that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, aged 78, are too old to be presidential candidates. Either one would reach the record for the oldest sitting US President.
While this is a rare occasion for the US, the Freedom House Organisation revealed that “not free” countries have a median age 68 of national leaders.
The world´s oldest President today is President Paul Biya of Cameroon, aged 90. Biya took office more than 40 years ago. For the US, claimed officially as a “free country,” this would seem impossible but today, it is one of the only three “free” countries to have a leader aged above 70.
The Constitution
In his recent speech about UK´s new government plans, King Charles III spoke about “modernising the constitution,” for a better future. The King is six years younger than US President Biden.
The American Constitution states in Article 2 that a President must be at least 35 years old, yet there is no limit to how old a President can be. The Founding Fathers certainly thought about the presidential age centuries ago when they made this decision.
“Age was the best corollary they had for sound judgement, maturity and what we might refer to as wisdom,” said F. Melton Jr., a history professor at Middle Georgia State University. If there´s a minimum, why is there not a maximum? Is someone over the age of 70 able to drive a country forward? And do we want to go forward at all?
Scared of change?
Today, nearly 80 per cent of US adults surveyed support having upper age limits for federal elected officials, including the president, according to the Pew Research Center. However, it was the same people who had chosen the top two Presidential candidates, both of whom had already served once. Is America scared of change?
Doctor´s view
While we´ve developed Cryonics, we haven´t developed immortality. According to the US National Center for Health Statistics in 2022, the life expectancy of men is 74. Both Presidential candidates are past retirement age and past even life expectancy age.
President Biden´s odd handshakes with ghosts and illogical sentences have led to medical experts urging the President to publicly undergo neurological testing; specialists say he shows classic features of neurodegeneration, which in turn, could even progress into dementia.
But who can claim an age at which one is no longer capable? For, in the modern world, life expectancy and medical developments continue to surprise us; perhaps, we should reconsider our old understanding of age and move beyond the numbers.
