In May, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 63% of Americans believe President Joe Biden, now 80, is not mentally fit enough to lead the country. The poll also found that 62% of Americans also believe that the president is not physically fit enough to do the job.
For many, it’s not hard to see. The president has a habit of falling over, he walks as one might expect an 80-year-old man to walk, and his regular gaffes far exceed the occasional blunder by former President George W. Bush. Unlike the former president’s famous “Bushisms,” President Joe Biden frequently misses his own gaffes, continuing to speak as though he hasn’t – for example – confused Ukraine with Iraq twice in a matter of days.
Speculation about the president’s failing mental and physical health is not new. There were concerns during his 2020 presidential campaign, and those concerns have only heightened the more the country has seen of him. Whether the president is secretly suffering from dementia or not, however, the American people have very real concerns about his ability to fulfill his duty as president – and the science suggests that a man of his age is more than likely unable to properly do the job, dementia or not.
How Many Octogenarians Are Capable Of Running A Country, Anyway?
Aging is a fact of life, and so is the cognitive decline that comes with it. Even President Joe Biden’s most ardent supporters cannot argue with the science that shows that, with age, the brain’s ability to process information declines with age. Paying attention to complex tasks becomes more difficult, memory gets worse, and verbal fluency worsens.
President Joe Biden’s verbal fluency has clearly declined. While the president is known for having a stutter, he often confuses words and struggles to string together a coherent sentence much more often than he has done throughout his decades-long political career. Those who deny this are denying obvious truths.
Americans Want Younger Presidents
The data on the one hand shows us that the American people are concerned about Biden’s cognitive ability. While fewer Americans believe Trump is as cognitively impaired as Biden, polls also show that Americans believe the former president isn’t up to the job in 2024, either.
It all begs the question: if our political leaders are too old, and if the American people are concerned, then why do they keep nominating them?
Trump voters have a populist alternative in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, some 33 years his junior. And, while Democrats don’t have a competitive Biden challenger significantly younger than the president, they did opt for him over much younger candidates in 2020.
Perhaps one thing we can take from the high likelihood of a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024 is that American voters care more about settling scores than they do electing someone younger and more competent.
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
From 19FortyFive
Donald Trump Just Proved How Stupid He Is
