Predictably, Bernie Sanders has announced that he will be running for president in 2020.
Sanders will be 79 years old on election day. That's too damn old to be president. There's a 10% chance Sanders will be dead by election day 2020.
The same is true for Joe Biden, who will be 79 on inauguration day in 2021. Elizabeth Warren will be 71 in 2020, which is also too old to be president: she would be almost as old Trump when he assumed office.
If the election of Donald Trump has taught us anything, it is that people his age should not be president. If you listen to Trump 20 years ago, you will notice a huge difference in the level of coherence in his speech. He was always a dick, but he has not aged well. He is frequently confused when he speaks, often contradicting what he just said in the previous sentence, darting off on pointless tangents and constantly making asides that undermine the very message he is trying to deliver. He spends more than half his day in "executive time," watching TV and napping. In short, he is a foolish, fat and weak old man who is not competent to be president.
We do not need a repeat of Trump's senility in the Oval Office.
Lest you think that I too am going senile by repeating myself on this issue, I am fully aware that this is the second time I've ranted about this recently. But this election is too important to cede to geezers who are highly likely to be dead before their term is up.
I am 61 years old, and it has become abundantly clear that people my age and older have lost more than a few steps, both physically and mentally.
After age 65 or 70 people who are still actively pursuing a goal are simply running out of time, whether they can admit it to themselves or not. They get hung up on winning and proving that they were right before they die, and not concentrating on what's best for the country.
Sanders and Warren are right where they belong, in the Senate. There are a hundred senators working in a deliberative body, there's no single point of failure and they're relatively easy to replace when they die. They don't have to make snap decisions the way a president does. It's a much less stressful and demanding job.
Yes, experience is important. But after a certain age, people just don't learn any more. They simply become more hardened in their attitudes, more certain that they're always right, and less flexible and agile mentally and physically. That's just how old people are.
Sanders is exactly the same guy he was 20 or 30 years ago, only older and slower. So are Biden and Warren. If they didn't have what it takes to be president at age 50, they certainly don't have it at age 79.
The last thing we need is for Sanders to win the election in Nov. 2020, and then die of a stroke a week later.
The Democrats are supposed to be the party of youth and new ideas. Why are so many of them rushing to nominate great-grandpas?
1 comment:
Wow. Ageist any??
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