Biden Is Not Too Old He Has Just Been Around too Long

Musings

There is a lot of news regarding whether or not Joe Biden is too old to be our president. I don't think that is the case. There is an age beyond which a person will be scrutinized by the public to assess their cognitive ability and their ability to handle the stress of the office.  That will vary significantly between people.

Joe Biden does not falter in those categories any more than his opponent. Indeed, his opponent, Donnie Trump regularly makes statements that are incomprehensible for a person running for president. He has threatened mass blood baths, declares that the head of the joint chief s of staff could have been executed for the way he handled his office, in an election he lost by 7 million votes he declares he actually won and regularly acts like a person who has no comprehension of reality

 Donnie regularly makes absurd and disruptive comments yet he is rarely called "too old" even though he is almost the same age as Joe Biden The comments about age are usually directed at Joe Biden. I think that the concern regarding Joe Biden is misplaced.

Contemplations

Joe Biden maybe older than we prefer for a president but his cognitive ability does not seem to be less than many of our other national level politicians who make statements and exhibit logic which is befuddling. Therefore, instead of age it seems to me that the real concern with Joe Biden is that he has been around too long.

Joe Biden began his political career in the early 1970s. His politics have been developed over the last 50 years. He has been on the national political scene for most of those 50 years. Therefore, when people think about him in their minds, they may call him too old but really he is someone they have heard about for many years. He projects an image of the past.

Joe Biden may have a great deal of experience and accumulated knowledge of political matters, but people have a predisposition to look for an image of moving forward into new eras. It is hard for Biden to present that image with a history of 50 years of politics.  Indeed, when he campaigned for election in 2020 the main platform that was put forth by the Democratic Party was to vote for Joe Biden because he would return the country to a sense of normalcy after all of the Trumpian shenanigans and disruptions that the country had endured. People wanted to get rid of that disruptive world. Joe Biden represented a return to the past. Now he faces the dilemma of that perception which he has generated, and he needs to find a way to show that he represents the future and the positive things the country can do while he carries an albatross of a 50-year history of being a politician.

If we recollect the various items that have occurred during the Biden administration in the past three plus years, on many occasions the president emphasized his past experience and connections. He would regularly tell us that he had had many years of working with Mitch McConnell and could resolve certain problems with Congress. He had been a senator for many years and knew how the Congress worked. He was a long time friend in Bibi Netanyahu and could deal with matters involving Netanyahu and Israel. He constantly emphasized that he was a benefit to the country because he'd been around for so long and worked with these other people for so long. That can be conceived as a virtue, but it does not have the feel of someone who will lead the country into the future. And as we now see those relationships don't seem to be producing results.

Thoughts

I think that Joe Biden is stuck with that image. He can't not erase the past. He has constantly reminded us of it and how that is one of his virtues.

What does make this election different is that Biden is running against a person that has generally been found to be the worst president in our history by those people who study the presidents and rank them. In addition, the Republican Party has enshrined itself in some positions that are at variance from most of the population which will have significant roles to play in the election, such as abortion and gun control. Women making their own health choices regarding pregnancy is a key to the female vote. Also, I believe the nation wants a decent level of regulation of guns by registration and some reasonable level of controls while leaving guns for protection, hunting, collections and recreation such as shooting ranges. To even talk about those issues is a big no no in the Republican Party. It doesn't seem to matter how many mass shootings we have; the Republican answer is to cure everyone in the country of any mental problem, but don't mention gun controls. In addition, the Republicans are busy endorsing of many of Trump's positions such as withdrawing support from the Ukraine and being friendly with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, to mention just 2 of his many failures.

 As he campaigns the notion of: its time for a change, will still haunt Joe Biden, but it is Joe Biden's good fortune that the Republicans are giving him a set of issues and a candidate with so many negatives to run against.

Obadiah Plainman

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