Biden’s age-related decline poses wider questions of US politics

Several countries have laws and constitutions setting a minimum age for their heads of state. Article Two of the US Constitution, for instance, requires that US presidents be at least 35 years old when they take office. Yet, there is seldom a maximum age. Removing an elderly leader has often been addressed with tact and without recourse to legal age-related removals.

Seniority vs senility

Age is certainly a central issue in this year's American election, more so possibly than any other US election, particularly after the televised debate between Biden and Trump, where Biden appeared to lack concentration or the ability to articulate himself clearly.

This was reinforced in an interview last week and a press conference after the NATO Summit in the United States this week, in which he got the names of Russia's President Putin confused with Ukraine's President Zelensky and Vice-President Kamala Harris with his Republican challenger Donald Trump.

The mature age of the two US presidential candidates has raised questions about the maturity of the US political landscape and its ability to accept change. The median age of a US Senator last year was 65 years. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is 73, while the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is 82.

In June last year, McConnell froze for around 20 seconds during a press conference before being escorted away by aides. It prompted Nikki Haley, who was then challenging Trump for the Republican nomination, to describe the Senate as "the most privileged nursing home in the country".

Broader participation

Current US political selection mechanisms often require massive funding from sponsors who, in return, gain influence over a candidate's policies. Both processes and institutions can become sclerotic without regular infusions of new faces and ideas. Allowing younger US politicians to challenge for the most senior jobs would also help broaden participation from various sectors of society, not just those who line the ranks of the Republican and Democratic parties.

Over the years, American political values have changed. In the 1970s, when Republican President Richard Nixon lied about his involvement in the Watergate scandal (the break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters), he was toppled.

Likewise, in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton denied and then admitted a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, he was out. In both instances, a  lying president was enough to render them unfit for office.

Changing values

Things have changed. Trump, whom Biden describes as a "pathological liar," has claimed (among other things) that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged against him. Yet, unlike Clinton and Nixon, that has not disqualified him in the eyes of the public.

His many obvious falsehoods, some laughable (such as his claim about the US economy's performance during his tenure), have not dissuaded his supporters from his credibility. Increasingly, they believe everything he says.

At times, the US political system seems to have given up on the values of honesty and integrity inherited from the Protestant Puritanism of America's founders. Today, judging by candidates like Trump, crude pragmatism seems to be the only political creed.

This is a power-at-all-costs version of the end justifying the means, and a recent US Supreme Court case that appears to give effective immunity to presidents for their actions in office will do nothing to reverse the issue.

The increasing role of money in financing US presidential candidates means that the system will likely remain unchanged, but not all recent White House occupants have been in their dotage: Barack Obama was 47 when he became president.