October 27, 2023 • 48 mins
In this episode of "The Middle with Jeremy Hobson," we discuss the advanced age of many of the country's political leaders - and whether or not that's a problem. Jeremy is joined by Dr. Louise Aronson, a geriatrician and author of the book Elderhood, and USA Today National political correspondent Phillip Bailey. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson along here with Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, Tolliver, Jeremy, I'm a firm believer that you were
dung as you feel. My heart feels twenty and my
knees feel sixty.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Setting us up for what I'm sure is going to
be a very interesting topics to that, because this is
one that sortive is on everybody's mind, but no one
really wants to talk about the age of our leaders,
so we are going to talk about it. I first
want to welcome, by the way, the listeners in Anchorage,
Alaska tuning into Alaska Public Media. Welcome to the middle.
Before we get to our topic, Tolliver, last week's show
(00:39):
about the opioid crisis brought in so many personal stories,
very powerful calls on air, but so many voicemails as well.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
My name is Stuzany, Hi, my name is Rod Hi,
my name is Christine.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Hey, my name is Andrew.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'm a former cocaine addicts and.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Alcoholic and is over twenty five years and it's possible
to do it. I just wanted to show some hope
there to the people who are listening that are really struggling, or.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
The people who love someone who is struggling.
Speaker 7 (01:05):
I am being told no, I cannot have pain management care,
and it's affecting my life. I am trying to find
a conversation to start about people like me who are
in chronic pain and need pain management but don't have
the opportunity because of the opiod crisis.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
You can harp all day and all night about educating people.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
What needs to be done is that.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
People need to be able to go to some type
of a clinic and make their pain go away. I've
been and recovering for over thirty years. I think addiction
is a disease of loneliness that people treatment isolation and
what we really need is connection.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Thanks to everyone who called in so the question this hour?
Are our political leaders too old? President Biden is eighty,
Former President Trump now the leading candidate to run on
the Republican side seventy seven. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority
leader eighty one. Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley ninety. He's
now the oldest serving US Senator after Democrat Diane Feinstein
(02:11):
died in office last month. Former governor and UN ambassador
Nikki Haley, who is fifty one, has been making an
agent is an issue in her campaign for president. She
says in the America, she sees the permanent politicians will
finally retire.
Speaker 8 (02:28):
We'll have term limits for Congress and mandatory mental competency
test for politicians over seventy five years old.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, I'm sure we are going to get to competency
tests and term limits this hour, Tolliver, what is our
phone number?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And while we wait for your calls, let's meet our
panel guests. Philip Bailey, Pulitzer Prize winning national political correspondent
for USA Today based in Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Philip, Welcome, Jeremy. What's going on, brother.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I'm doing well. And let's bring in our other panel guest,
doctor Louise Aaronson, jeriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco,
author of the New York Times best selling book Elderhood.
Doctor Aronson, welcome to you.
Speaker 9 (03:22):
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, Philip, you are in Kentucky, which is the home
of Mitch McConnell. You've been covering his career for years.
We mentioned him. I am not going to play the
tape of him freezing up because it will trigger the
silence alarms on all the radio stations that carry the show.
They have those so that you don't have dead air
and it goes it turns an alarm on. But what
do you think about him in particular and his insistence
(03:45):
that he's fine at age, at his age eighty one,
and that he's going to remain the leader of Senate
Republicans despite what we've been seeing.
Speaker 10 (03:56):
Senator McConnell, as we all maybe some of your listeners don't, no,
is a survivor of polio. He's been very guarded about
his health all the time that I've known him, very
very private about that. There have been incidents in the
past where he fell at his home here in Louisville.
I mean, people were wondering about his health, and he
came out pretty quickly with a picture showing that he
(04:16):
was aoka. I think this situation was different because there
were sort of a rolling disclosure.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Right.
Speaker 10 (04:23):
We see the first initial freeze, then we find out
that he had fallen at other situations, you know, back
with through Waldorf Astereo Hotel in Washington, DC, we had
found out he had fallen, but then there were other
incidents where he had fallen and we didn't know about.
Then there was the second freeze up. So these very
public incidents and moments I think certainly was something that
(04:44):
McConnell doesn't like to talk about. He likes to sort
of keep a strong, very stoic sort of presentation. But
I can tell you here in Kentucky, even whether there
are political enemies of his or political allies, for a
good number of weeks, the conversation was about what is
his health and what is his future?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
What's can Tucky's future? As a result of.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That, Louise, is there a difference in your mind between
Mitch McConnell and President Biden and former President Trump when
it comes to their age and our question this hour?
Speaker 9 (05:13):
I guess if there's one point I'd want to make,
it's that it's less about age and more about health
and ability to do the job. We have all known
people who were young and couldn't do a job, and
people who were old and couldn't do a job, and
it's more about the match between the person's ability and
the tasks they need to do. In my mind.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
All right, well, let's get to the phones again. Our
number is eight four four four Middle. Let's go to
our first caller, Jan Is in Kansas. Jan, Welcome to
the Middle.
Speaker 11 (05:46):
Thank you so much, Jeremy, Well, go.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Ahead, tell us what you think. Are our political leaders
too old?
Speaker 12 (05:53):
Well? I think it was wonderful what the doctor said,
because I am a long time registered nurse and have
worked in many many fields of nursing, and at seventy four,
i'm working and as she stated, you know, I don't
(06:14):
think so much it's a it's a matter of numbers
and what age a person is. I think it's you know,
the quality of their work, their ability to do what
they need to do and want to do, and the
spirit in which they do it. And I think when
(06:34):
a person's age starts coming into it, I think that
that's very detrimental and I don't think that that is
an appropriate way to really judge what a person is
doing and how they're doing their job.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And do you think of the people that we're talking
about tonight that we mentioned President Biden, for example, do
you think that he is too old, You think that
he looks like he's doing his job the way that
you would hope that he would at any end, I think.
Speaker 12 (07:05):
I think, I swear if I was, I wish that
I could be and do and think as quickly as
this man does, because and the thing about it is that,
as with myself, he has had, he has a lineage
of experience, and he brings that lineage with him in
(07:28):
all of his thought processes and in the way that
he presents it to the public.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I feel, h Jen, thank you so much for that call.
I want to go to another one here. David is
joining us from Houston, Texas. David, Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 11 (07:42):
Go ahead, Hi, good evening.
Speaker 13 (07:45):
Yes, so I disagree with the previous caller. I think
that age does it already does play a role in
our elected officials, and that you have a minimum age
of thirty five. I think, on the other end that Masima,
I mean just starting at sixty five to seventy, I
think that's fair. I mean, you have these politicians that
(08:06):
are you know, you know, that are that are just
that are you know, as they get older, their their
views change, and which is which is you know, great
people's we change all the time, but I just don't
think it's it's very fair to to our younger voters
and such that that this is this is really all
the I mean, they're their only choice. So I agree
(08:27):
with the notion that age should play a role on
the other end, not just the beginning of of a
of a young elected official.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Philip Bailey, what about that point that he made about
there is a minimum age. The Constitution requires candidates for
the US House to be at least twenty five and
at least thirty for the Senate. More for president. There's
not a maximum age, right.
Speaker 10 (08:48):
Well, we all have to remember when the Constitution was written.
What was the average age of Americans back in those days? Right,
like that that time period that was considered middle age
or older. Americans are living longer therefore, are like the
officials right, are living longer. And I think the reason Jerry,
this is such a sensitive topic is because of all
the demographics, the one demographic we all transition into is
(09:10):
getting older. And I think the reason why President Biden
is getting so much of this and polling shows seventy
seven percent of Americans think he is too old to
run for reelection, including sixty nine percent of Democrats.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
By the way, I think the reason for that.
Speaker 10 (09:23):
Is that he's the main engine of this because when
you look at right wing memes, online media, right wing
conservative media, cable news commentary, it is heavily focused on
President Biden and these sort of stutter steps, him falling.
He did have a stuttering problem, right remember, for most
of his life as well. Democrats for the most part,
do not focus on from a president Trump's similar slip
(09:45):
ups or gaffes or moments where he's sort of out
of it a little bit is versus peach and presentation.
They're focusing obviously on other things. I think the question
for us is not should there be a maximum age
or minimum age.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It is, as the doctor said, a question of capacity.
Speaker 10 (10:00):
And I think for many people, for many Americans, those
right wing memes have seeped in and they do have
a general sense that EH is the president up for
this right, not just to be president, but to run right.
There was reports now about him having to take a
different type of schedule, where a different type of shoes
and different type of exercise just to stay up for
a grueling campaign like this. It's a legitimate question. But
(10:21):
I think the sensitivity is because we all age eventually.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Just checking in on social media, little this, little that,
on TikTok writes to us, I believe they are all
too old, as their beliefs are set from the nineteen fifties,
even the forties, in fact, from their parents, set from
the early nineteen hundreds. You know, Tolliver, there's a Pew
Research Center poll that finds Americans think the ideal age
for a president is somewhere in their fifties. Both President
(10:48):
Obama and President George W. Bush were in their fifties
for most of their presidencies.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Absolutely, And before President Biden, the oldest president in US
history was Ronald Reagan, the Gipper, who.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Famously made a joke about his.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Age in a debate with Walter Mondale in Kansas City
in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 14 (11:05):
I recall yet, that President Kennedy had to go for
days on end with very little sleep during the Cuba
missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that
you would be able to function in such circumstances?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Not at all, mister Truett.
Speaker 15 (11:17):
And I and I want you to know that also,
I will not make age an issue of this campaign.
I am not going to exploit for political purposes my
opponent's youth and inexperience.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Got to laugh there, even from Walter Mondale. Stay right
there more than middle. Right after this break, This is
the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in
the Middle is a national call in show. We're focused
on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically,
or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
My guest this hour Philip Bailey, national political correspondent for
(11:55):
USA Today, and doctor Louise Aronson, a geriatrician at UCSF
and author of Elderhood. We're asking you, are our political
leaders too old? Tolliver, what's that number again?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It's eight four four four Middle.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
That's eight four four four.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Six four three three five three gollahad and give us
a call.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Philip Bailey, we said we were going to talk about
term limits. Let's do that. Is there any chance of
term limits happening in Washington?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
No? Uh, to be point blank.
Speaker 10 (12:23):
I mean, every once in a while you hear politicians
talk about term limits. But guess what, people in this
country might hate Congress, but those same polls find that
they love their congress person. Right, So when you get
your congress person in who you've been voting for, oh,
suddenly you don't believe in term limits because you want
that person in and out here in Kentucky. I remember
in twenty ten US Senator Ran Paul as a candidate,
(12:45):
swore he was going to only serve a certain amount
of terms.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, guess what, he didn't live up to that. Right.
Speaker 10 (12:51):
But what's interesting, though, Jeremy, I think, is that America
is an outlier when it comes when we're compared to
other democracies.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Right.
Speaker 10 (12:57):
Pew research finds that President Biden, who is the ninth
oldest leader in the world. Right, that is, to put
that in perspective, the median age of world leaders is
sixty two, right, two decades younger. Usually in autocracies we
have older leaders like this. The US Senate its average
age is sixty four. That makes it the seventh oldest
(13:17):
legislative body. Even the House, which has an age of
limit or requirement of twenty five, is a little bit
younger at age fifty eight. And the reason I think, Jeremy,
this affects Americans, and you see Americans getting so wrapped
up into this conversation.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Many of our campaigns are about the future. Right When
politicians are they're talking about what we.
Speaker 10 (13:35):
Have to look ahead as as Americans and what are
the two big issues both for conservative young people and
liberal young people the debt and climate change? Is an
eighty year old a ninety year old ELECTI official going
to be dealing with the debt and climate change?
Speaker 5 (13:47):
No.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Twenty two to twenty five year old voters are more
concerned about that, Louise.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
What about competency test the other thing that Nikki Haley
brought up? What are those and are they used very
much for the elderly?
Speaker 16 (14:00):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (14:01):
Well, there are different types of competency. There's sort of
cognitive competency and there are assessments we do in medicine
to try and determine if somebody has some cognitive dysfunction
and then eventually is trending towards having a dementia. There's
also sort of legal competence, and those things tend to
be separate. So in other words, and we also think
(14:21):
about decision making capacity, so those are things we do clinically.
We also know that most people are diagnosed fairly late.
It has no country has found a way of including
that in a way of assessing older politicians. Now, is
this something we have to deal with as a society
more broadly? Probably we have to acknowledge though that there
(14:44):
isn't an easy answer. We're living decades longer than we
used to, and the country on the one hand says
these people should get out of the way, and on
the other hand says why we have all these dependent
older people? So you can't actually have it both ways.
We need to figure out a way for people who
can to keep working and for those who need help
(15:06):
not to. I also think it's not just cognitive capacity,
but one of the big risks of getting older is
your chances of ill health and death do increase. That's
just facts, right, because we all end up dead eventually,
ideally in old age. So is there a way of
looking at someone's health and assessing their functional ability that
(15:31):
would be useful. We have metrics for that, but that
doesn't necessarily say whether you can govern. Right, we had
a president in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, And also it seems like every time a doctor
comes out and gives the report on the president, like
the president's private doctor comes out, they always say, oh,
they're in perfect health. There's nothing wrong with the president.
Everything is great right now. So I don't know if
you would even trust what comes out if a president
were to take a competency test. Let's go to Ben
in Utah. Ben, go ahead, Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Hey.
Speaker 16 (16:02):
Thanks. My comment was just I think there should be
term limits just because you know, when you're growing up
and you're taught a certain way for so long, and
it becomes actually a fabric of who you are, and
once you start getting older, it actually becomes you and
(16:23):
there's no middle ground there anymore. And I feel like
there's no changing your point of view when you become
a certain age and I feel like the fifties, Yeah,
there's still leeway. There's no middle ground for you anymore.
That's what I think it's so partisan with our politics nowadays,
(16:43):
is because when you get so old, there's not really
room for you to change your mind anymore, because you've
been taught a certain way to be for so long
that that is just what you are. There's no changing
you at that point. And so that was my point.
We're so partisan now that are older elected officials, there's
no more trying to change their minds, and there's no
(17:05):
leeway to reach across the hild anymore. At that point,
there's no meddle at all.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Ben, Thank you so much for that call. Philip Bailey,
what about that? Do you find as you talk to
voters around the country that they believe that older politicians
are more sort of setting their ways about the partisanship
that has polarized Washington.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
Well, certainly, I think that there's a sentiment in the
voters that I've spoken with that, look, if a person's
been in office for so long with a certain ideology,
are they more than likely are locked into that ideology.
But I think the real question and the issue we're
having here in debate we're having isn't really a debate
about age, right. We're debating the fact that we don't
have access to our political system because oftentimes of jerrymandering
(17:45):
and money. The reason why we see older politicians do
well is because you have to have a lot of
money to run for office.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And I don't know about most of you all.
Speaker 10 (17:51):
I got a lot more money in my pocket than
that when I was twenty two years old. Yeah, right,
And I look at someone like David Hogg, the survivor
of the Parkland, Florida massacre. He's launching this new group
called Leaders We Deserve, which is vowing to elect feeless
progressives under the age of thirty five, right under the
age of thirty for state office, but under the age
of thirty five for federal office. And the main issue
(18:12):
he's going to run into, I think is going to
be access and money. The question I have I'm looking
forward to seeing in some of the polling and conversations
with future stories is for twenty twenty four, how engaged
will that eighteen to twenty four demographic be. If age
is such a big issue, right, such a big deal,
will we see youth voters upend and overthrow some of
these politicians at the ballot box.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Let's go to Anya, who is in Saint Louis, Missouri. Anya,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 17 (18:39):
Thanks for having me so I am. I'm speaking title
from an academic perspective. I'm a PhD candidate and cognitive
neuroscience who studies cognitive aging and dementia, and I will
I would like to press this by saying that I
am in favor of termal limits and age limits. However,
I have my reservations about cognitive evaluation. I'm not sure
(19:03):
how that would be implemented. So we know that on
a group level, as older adults, cognitive cognitive decline is
all by but inevitable right.
Speaker 18 (19:16):
Especially after the age of sixty five, but there's a.
Speaker 17 (19:19):
Lot of individual variability.
Speaker 19 (19:21):
My concern is how which measures would be used. Some
of the measures that are currently out there most widely
used clinically, are you know, simple memory tests that even
though they they might capture some some form of cognitive decline,
(19:41):
they're not maybe as sensitive to things like problem solving, ability,
decision making. My concern is, you know, who who would be,
you know, in charge of this infrastructure, and I'm wondering
if there would have basically have to be new, validated,
(20:02):
reliable measures that could capture things that are specific to
making decisions in the government. But then on the other
side as well is also that you know, some people,
even if they might not score as well on some
of these very simple cognitive tests, they might still have
(20:22):
fairly preserved cognitive functions in those areas.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Let me let me take your call to Louise Aronson.
What do you think, doctor Aronson about about that?
Speaker 9 (20:34):
I agree it's similar to what I was saying earlier
that we don't really have the right methods to sort
this out. I think another really important point is that
there are certain measures of cognition that decline, but what
we don't talk about is on the other side. Now,
of course, we do sort of have, you know, younger
ages where people aren't allowed to run for office, but
we know that impulsiveness, ability to make complex decisions, to
(20:58):
rain in your emotions, all those things are not very
well developed in younger people. So what tends to happen
is that we talk about the negatives of aging and
not the positives where people, when tested if they don't
have a dementia, and the majority of older people don't
have dementia, are able to more reliably come to accurate
(21:20):
conclusions than younger people. One of the statistics I love
is from Harvard Business Review, which showed that diversity of
age in a group leads to better productivity and more
interesting outcomes, just as diversity of all other kinds. And
that's partly age, and that's partly because we do come
with different generations and different values, and pulling all that
(21:43):
in the mix, just as mixing race, religion, or anything
else leads to better outcomes.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I will say that one of my favorite people
that I've ever known died last year at age one
hundred and two, and right up until the end was
absolutely sharp as attack and filled with people around her
who were much younger, who would come and you know,
hang out, take her out to dinner, all these things.
I agree that age diversity a group with it with
(22:09):
varying ages, is very good. Let's go to Suzanne, who's
calling from Nashville, Tennessee. Hi, Suzanne, welcome to the middle. Well, Hi, Hi,
go ahead, tell us what you think.
Speaker 11 (22:22):
Well, I would like people to think about the fact
that Mick Jagger just released his first album in seventeen years,
is singing fantastically. He's eighty years old. The man just
keeps going. He's confident in what he does. He's dancing
all over and I'm seventy five and I'm still dancing.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
So what do you think when people say that, for example,
President Biden is too old, or President Trump, former President
Trump is too old, or Mitch McConnell's do all this
time for them to let somebody younger come in.
Speaker 11 (23:01):
I don't think it's a matter of age. And I
was thinking that when Ben was talking that the older
someone gets can be actually an advantage, and the doctor
just said that as well. To look at how they operate,
(23:24):
how they handle things, you only have to look at
a few speeches by mister Trump and mister Biden and
see a very big difference in their ability to clearly
present something in a positive way.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Who do you think is doing a better job at
presenting something in a positive way between those two?
Speaker 11 (23:47):
Oh my gosh. I've watched every speech that's been telecast
by both of them, and I've watched both conventions always,
and I have to say Biden, and when Ben was
saying that people get stuck in their ways, I mean,
(24:09):
he is really modern in a lot of the things
that he wants from America. He's listening.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well, Suzan, I'm going to take your question there, your
comment to Philip Bailey. Philip Bailey, as you talk to people, Now,
how much pressure is there from let's say, let's talk
about President Biden from Democrats on him to consider whether
or not to run this time.
Speaker 10 (24:38):
Well, now that we see that Congressman Dean Phillips is
gearing up for a primary challenge, I think that there
is a growing at least voice in the Democratic Party
that hey, look, maybe we should put somebody as a
contrasting voice against President Biden. I do think that again,
this anxiety is also based upon it looks like we're
more than likely going to have a rematch of twenty
(24:58):
twenty between Trump and but Jeremy. I think there's one
piece here, and I think the doctor can maybe chiming on.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
This as well.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
How age plays out differently in different communities. I know,
for example, in the African American community, listening to your elders,
the idea that your elders represent a museum of knowledge,
I gravitate towards older African Americans who are in their
late seventies, eighties, and nineties, who can remember a time
where America was very, very different, and they are a
treasure right in our community, so I think. And also
(25:28):
I'm interested in the fact that always talking about compopetency
tests or age limits, I'm very interested to see with
that even past constitutional mustard and not be considered completely agist, right.
I mean, I think about any sort of tests around
public office, and I think of some of these eighty
year old grandmothers in Alabama and Georgia, Mississippi, they might
have an issue with that.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Let me go to another call here. Nadia is joining
us from Nevada. Nadia, welcome to the middle Hi, Hi,
go ahead. What do you think are political leaders too old?
Speaker 20 (26:01):
I kind of feel like, with the passing of Diane Feinstein,
I think, you know, there should definitely be a sort
of cognitive test. But as another caller was implying, you know,
it's kind of hard to assess that because it's relatively
new science that we're you know, dabbling with. People are
living older life expectancies that are really unprecedented, so it's
(26:23):
pretty unique. I'm within the demographic of being a young voter.
I'm twenty four going on twenty five. I'm a political
scientist at U and LV. I'm currently pursuing my master's.
So you know, this is actually like what we're talking
about in my American pro sum class. We're really studying
voter behavior and I really think, you know, term limits
(26:45):
there're something that could be really unique to America. I mean,
George Washington had the opportunity to you know, kind of
become another king and you know, have the endless see
in office, and he really set the precedent with leaving
at two terms for the presidency, And you know, I
think it's so interesting that we accept two term limits
(27:06):
for the presidency, but we don't accept it for other
bodies in our legislature. So I think it's really unique
and interesting to Western society as a whole that you know,
there's a two term limit for presidency, but there isn't
for other offices well.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And in fact, there are term limits in many states
on judges, but there are not term limits for federal judges.
Louis Aaronson your thoughts, Oh.
Speaker 9 (27:33):
Well, the political thing isn't necessarily my expertise, but I
do think we're going to have to have some way
as a society of making it easier for people to
step away without feeling like they're stepping off a cliff.
I mean, in theory, we will all have to retire
at some point, and I suppose if you're a very
powerful person that is even more difficult. In my practice,
(27:57):
I start talking to people years before, because if you
don't have a good plan, it does feel like you're
losing your identity. And maybe we as a society need
to make it easier for all of us to transition,
so we don't end up in situations I think I'm
not sure I want to call people out, but we've
mentioned at least two politicians who clearly stayed or are
(28:19):
staying past when their health suggests otherwise.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Tolliver, You know the US is not the only democratic
country in the world with political leaders who are much
older than the populations they serve.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, that's right, Jeremy. When Mahatir Mouhammad was re elected
as Prime Minister of Malaysia in twenty eighteen, he was
the world's oldest leader. Listening here to an interview he
did with Britain's Channel four, how does.
Speaker 14 (28:41):
It feel to be, at ninety three, the world's oldest
head of government.
Speaker 21 (28:46):
Well, it's surprising and sometimes inch myself to find out
where that I'm really the primarista Again, Well, I didn't
expect to be prevous.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Because you're older than the queen even Yeah, whnd you.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And the Queen of England of course has passed away
since that interview, but the now former Prime minister is
still alive. Stay right there. More of the middle coming
right up. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're
talking about the age of our political leaders. My guests
are Philip Bailey, political columnists for USA Today, and doctor
Louise Aronson, a professor of gerontology at UCSF and author
(29:24):
of Elderhood. Our number is eight four four four Middle.
You can reach out to us also at Listen to
the Middle dot com. Let's get to some more calls,
and we're going to go to Roy, who's joining us
from Saint Louis.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Roy, Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 22 (29:38):
Hi, good show. I'm really glad you're talking about this subject.
I lived at d C when Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's
and nobody knew about it, at least not widely. And
you know, it is a concern. You know, you got
to look at aging in this country, and the number
of people with Alzheimer's is really founding. I think the
(30:02):
least we could ask for is that there'll be a
more open discussion of this and perhaps even testing for
the candidates. And I think if both Biden and Trump
were tested, I think Biden would pass. I don't know
about Trump. He says the most ridiculous and out of
(30:23):
the blue things that you know a person with mental
disorder might say. And I just don't know what he's
suffering from. But anyway, but I think it's an important
subject and I think that more people should be talking
about it.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, thank you so much, Roy for that call. And
let's let's get another one in here. Let's see here,
how about Richard who is in ann Arbor, Michigan. Richard,
welcome to the middle. What say you?
Speaker 6 (30:54):
How are you? I was just thinking that I've heard
so many callers say that it's not about the number,
but it's about the ability to do the job. And
I was just wondering, like, what happens when at some
point midterm their ability falls off and they can't do
(31:14):
their job. There's no system in place to actually take
them out of that job. We have to sort of
either wake them out through their term, which they usually
try and get reelected anyway, or at some times they
just stay on forever.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Well, there is the twenty fifth Amendment, Philip Bailey, in
the case of the president, there is the twenty fifth Amendment,
although hasn't been used.
Speaker 10 (31:40):
Right, there's the twenty fifth Amendment. There's expulsion for legislative
bodies as well. I think again, what you're hearing is
that logjam we have in our political system Jeremy like,
people just don't know what you're supposed to do with
someone if there is an issue with their age and
their abilities. But look, one of your callers, the twenty
four year old student, made the point about George White
Washington voluntarily imposing that two term limit on the presidency
(32:05):
that wasn't formalized in our constitution until when Fdr Right,
as my fellow guest here mentioned, someone who was in
a wheelchair, wheelchair who had age and issues with his
health was in office, and then when he died, it
was such a shock to the country that the country
said wait a minute here, Like the voters kept wanting
him to be president right each and every time. So again,
(32:27):
I think that the answer here, I'm looking for two things. One,
how we younger voters actually respond in twenty twenty four,
particularly as Dean Phillips is challenging looks to be appeared
to be a challenging Biden. But at the same time,
I'm also interested to see if we're going to have
a larger conversation about how difficult it is to get
into involved in our democracy from a money and jerry
(32:49):
mandering standpoint, which makes people have more faith in these
politicians who are already there.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And one last point.
Speaker 10 (32:55):
Remember everyone talks bad about Congress and the presidency, but
they'd like it when they have a veteran member of
Congress who's a crude power, who's a steady hand.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Right.
Speaker 10 (33:05):
So a lot of communities we are concerned. I'll say
it this way, Joe Biden, Donald Trumpen et cetera. Mitchell
column may just have a bad case of eighty, right,
because when we talk about Mick Jagger, he doesn't. It
is really just his age. It's how age affects you.
I don't know what I'm going to be like forty
years from now. Right when I'm seventy nine, eighty years old.
I hope I'm as spry and as active as I
(33:26):
am today, but I might wear eighty differently.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Than you do or anyone else on this panel does well.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And actually, Louise Arenson, you've written about the fact that
you know, if you've met one eighty year old, you've
met one eighty year old. Its case my line, Yes,
I'm just gonna say, good line.
Speaker 9 (33:42):
Diversity increases with age in terms of our health and
ability to function in different realms, and so it is
sort of different. I mean a barring grave disease or
something else. Most two year olds are the same, and
most thirty year olds are the same, and that it
cannot be said of seventy, eighty, ninety or one hundred
(34:03):
year olds.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Let's go to Charles in Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Charles, Welcome
to the middle Hi.
Speaker 18 (34:10):
Hello, good evening.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
How's it going going well?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Go ahead.
Speaker 18 (34:13):
My opinion on term moments is, I'm twenty nine years old.
I think whether you're the president or whether you're working
in the Congress and the Senate or the House, it
isn't the place of seventy year olds and eighty year
olds to be making decisions that aren't necessarily going to
impact them long term. I'm twenty nine, so I'm in
(34:34):
a very formulative phase I think in my life where
we're choosing to have kids and buying homes and settling down,
and I think some of these decisions some of these
politicians are not necessarily going to have to live with
and respectfully so from the other caller, Mick Jagger is
an entertainer, So whether he's performing tiptop all the time
on stage isn't really comparable to a president who's making
(34:56):
decisions that affect the world. I would say, right, leader
of the free world.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Are you going to make your decision on who you
vote for in the presidential race, Charles, based on the
age of the candidate?
Speaker 18 (35:08):
Unfortunately, I think I would if we had competent people running,
I think, but unfortunately, I think in this case gives
you the letter of two evils and see who will
fit you based on your.
Speaker 17 (35:22):
Own seats in this country.
Speaker 18 (35:24):
So I'm not necessarily partisan, but I think that's kind
of the way that the country runs nowadays. So age
isn't necessarily a factor in.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That, right, Charles, Thank you so much for that call,
Doctor Aronson. You know, Charles brings up something that Philip
was talking about earlier, which is, you know, the people
who are eighty years old are not going to have
to deal with the effects of climate change, are not
going to have to You know, the amount of people
who have student loan debt in this country is absolutely
(35:54):
not represented in our congress right now. They don't have
that kind of student lon de because they're much older.
What do you think, well, I.
Speaker 9 (36:01):
Think again we're sort of looking at one side of
that picture. So the other thing is when you're very old.
You know, if Biden is elected again, he's not going
to run. I mean even term limits. Aside that there are,
you know, it will end. Whereas younger people have ambitions
and sometimes they'll do things for the short run, when
(36:22):
you have older people, they can afford to do what's right.
They also everybody says, oh, they don't know what it's
like to be young or whatever, but they know what
it's like to age beyond that. I mean, when I
became a geriatrician, I was in my late twenties, and
I thought of old people as them, you know. So
when I talk about you know, younger callers doing that,
(36:44):
it's because we all start young and it's it's unimaginable
to us that we will become old. But as you
become older, you realize and you can look backward. There
are some advantages to not having ambition for the next thing,
or needing the money, you know, for your new house
and kids. And I think we tend to just talk
(37:04):
about the bad things and not see the advantages of
being able to look retrospectively and being able to not
have a skin in the game. Actually, and so you
can do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Let's go to Randy, who's calling from Minnesota. Randy, welcome
to you. Go ahead. Not a great line there, Randy, Sorry,
maybe you can call back and let me just go
to Kathy, who's calling from Illinois. Kathy, go ahead, welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 23 (37:31):
Thank you. I find this conversation fascinating. But I think
that there's a question that belongs as part of this
conversation which hasn't been brought up yet, which is why
politicians in this country tend to stay around in politics
as long as they do. And I think that if
you really get down to it and you look at
(37:52):
how people get into politics and stay in politics in
this country, it's pretty much about fundraising and make money,
and right from the get go, that eliminates a lot
of people who probably would have very good credentials in
terms of what they could accomplish in public office. But
if they're not a good fundraiser, they're not even going
(38:13):
to be at the table. And then once you are
in office, you spend much of the next four years
raising money for your next campaign in your next election.
So politicians don't necessarily want money to be taken out
of politics, nor do their big donors who buy influence
over time by keeping the politicians who they've helped elect
(38:35):
in office. And so I think that until we can
start taking money the massive amount of money that goes
into politics in this country, I don't know, short of
mandating that people retire at a certain age, which I
am not in favor of for some of the reasons
that have been discussed on this show, I don't think
that that's I don't think that people are going to
(38:57):
leave as long as they can leave office, you know,
significantly wealthier than when they came in, and it's hard
to leave that amount of power that they accrue as
a result of all of the fundraising that is part
of that job.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
That's a great point, Cathy, Thank you so much. Philip
Bailey brings up two thoughts. One, Mitch McConnell's been one
of the biggest opponents of campaign finance reform over the years.
And two, there were so many people when Diane Feinstein
was really having so much difficulty earlier this year and
(39:33):
even last year, we're saying, why does she stay in
there so long? Is the what is her own goal
in staying in office? At that point?
Speaker 10 (39:43):
This is I think the most sensitive part of the conversation,
which is, what do you do? You know, for a
lot of people, retirement is death, right, It's the job,
It's the activity that keeps you going, that keeps you
you move and shaking. And I think that is a
legitimate question to ask of our older elected officials. I
think we often have that same conversation for older athletes, right,
(40:06):
like this fear of retiring, like, oh, if I retire,
I'm not gonna be relevant anymore. But what else am
I going to do with the rest of my life,
particularly if you're eighty one years old or ninety years old,
particularly becoming an advisor?
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I guess to that younger generation.
Speaker 10 (40:19):
But I think you are hearing, particularly from your younger callers,
like let's look at even social Security, for example, which
sovereignty is.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Going to be an issue in twenty thirty four.
Speaker 10 (40:28):
From the nineteen forties to nineteen fifties, we had older
politicians Fdr Harry Trupan, Dwight Eisenhower. What was the theme
of the nineteen sixty election, right JFK and Richard Nixon
at that time much younger man. JFK's whole point was,
this is a turning of the page to a new generation.
It was the whole point of Bill Clinton when he
was elected nineteen ninety two. I do think over the
next four years, whether it's twenty twenty four doesn't look
(40:50):
like it, there will be a generational shift with this election,
but definitely in twenty twenty eight. I do think you're
going to see a generational shift conversation, right because look
at the Democratic side with Governor whit Or of Michigan,
Governor Newsom of California, Shapiro, and Pennsylvania Governor Wes Moore
of Maryland, much younger people are who are considered to
be in line for the potential presidential candidates. I do
think that we are basically in the nineteen fifty six
(41:12):
nineteen fifty eight period repeating that with older politicians who
are clearly aging out, and I think the turn will
be probably in twenty twenty eight. That will be the
generational shift on climate change, on the debt, in these
host of other issues.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Louise Aronsen, I love those points.
Speaker 9 (41:29):
I also think it's interesting that everybody's so concerned and
yet they're still running. You know, the approvals low. We
have a system in which everybody seemed or the vast
majority of people seem to want someone younger, but the
system somehow can't generate a younger candidate now. So it
(41:49):
brings me again to think about is age the only
problem here? And I would say it clearly is not.
It is among the problems, and we're going to have
to sort that out, not just in politics, but generally.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I want to try to squeeze in another call here.
Pete is with us from Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Hi Pete, welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Hey Jeremy, thank you. Excellent discussion this evening. On that
topic of forced retirement. I wanted to bring up airline
pilots who they get their first class medicals every six
months and they fly with chief pilots, but still when
they reach age sixty five, they're done, and we do
that for safety reasons. I think there's an issue with
old politicians, maybe more like an age of seventy five,
(42:34):
as far as they're done, because while they don't have
to respond as quickly as an airline pilot does, judgment,
d and other mental abilities are very important for being
a politician, just as they are for an airline pilot.
That's what I wanted to say.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, okay, great, Pete. You know Louise Aronson. I was
speaking with a friend the other day who's in his thirties,
and I said, when do you want to retire? And
he said, I have to retire at sixty at the
accounting firm. I Matt, you have to retire at sixty.
There are a lot of places in this country that
have forced retirement ages.
Speaker 9 (43:07):
There are also a lot of countries where the age
of retirement for women is younger than for men, which
makes absolutely no sense, given that women live longer and
often miss some work time because they're having children. So
just because we have rules doesn't mean they make sense.
And a lot of the retirement ages were set at
a time where on average we lived decade we were
(43:29):
you know, we died decades earlier. So I think we
need to modernize that if only economically right. We can't
complain about social security and then tell people they can't work.
And what I'm seeing is two groups of people. They're
the people who love their jobs and keep working while
they can. And they're the people who are so poor
that they have to keep working or go back to
(43:49):
work to survive because they cannot retire at fifty or sixty.
Five and eat or have a roof over their heads.
So again, as with the rest of society, is becoming bimodal,
where the have nots are really having problems.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Let me just take a look at what's coming in
through our email Listen to the middle dot com. Diana
from Fort Myers, Florida, Rights, I'm a Republican, but I
have no more sympathy for Mitch McConnell than I do
for Joe Biden. Their time has come and gone. They're
not on the top of their game. I suppose an
age limit is the only way to go. Since we
would never agree to a cognitive test, which is a
shame because people do age differently, who would give it
(44:26):
and could we count on getting the real results? Probably not.
Emily and Duluth, Minnesota, Rights, I fully support President Joe Biden,
but there is no candidate who's from jen X my generation.
I will vote for President Biden, but age for me
is a factor. There should be an age limit for
any office. And Kathy Wrights, do we really not have
any quality leaders in their late fifties? Even I don't
(44:47):
believe that people in their seventies and eighties are useless,
but they shouldn't be running the country. Philip Bailey, your
thoughts on those comments.
Speaker 10 (44:58):
Again, I think that we're talking about is really the
health of our democracy more than just the health of
the politicians who represent it. And put it this way,
Let's say we have a person who's thirty eight years
old and runs for president in this country and they
have student loan debt.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Now how the voters feel about that? Right?
Speaker 10 (45:15):
Like, if you say you want younger people to run,
guess what that's going to necessarily have. You're going to
inherit all those younger people problems, Which is my life
isn't settled. I'm still trying to pay bills and get
through life.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
All right. Before we wrap this hour, we have a
competency test to do with our guests right now. We're
calling it whose drum line is it? Anyway? And if
you win, you are allowed to run for office no
matter your age. Tolliver and tell them how the game
is played.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Listen, first, I want to be clear. If Mick Jagger
was eligible to run for president, I'll be the first
line of phone bank for him.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Come on, now, the.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Game is simple. I've laid a popular drum line from
a popular artist and you just have to name the
artist and the song. You can jump in at any point.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Let's get it, Oh Madonna, it's like a virgin. Yeah,
we go, come on, come on.
Speaker 9 (46:07):
I knew I would lose.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
You got it all right?
Speaker 15 (46:15):
Well?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
At the free concert.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yeah. I want to thank my guest Philip Bailey, a
Pulitzer Prize winning national political correspondent for USA Today, and
doctor Louise Aaronson, a professor of gerontology at UCSF and
author of the New York Times best selling book Elderhood.
Thank you both for joining us.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Thank you interesting conversation.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Thanks absolutely, and join us next week, same time, same place. Tolliver,
what is our topic for next week's show?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
What role do you think the US should play in
the wars in Ukraine and Israel and Gaza?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
The president of President Biden says we are facing an
inflection point and he's asking Congress to pass one hundred
and five billion dollar military aid package, most of which
would go to Israel and Ukraine. So we want to
hear from you what you think. You can call us
at eight four four four Middle and leave us a voicemail,
or call in live next week, or go to listen
to Middle dot com, drop us a line while you're there,
(47:08):
sign up for our weekly newsletter. Remember the Middle is
also available as a podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts
on the iHeart app or wherever you listen to podcasts.
We're brought to you by Long Noook Media, produced by
joe An Jennings, John Barth, Harrison Pattino, and Danny Alexander.
Our digital producers Charlie Little. Our technical director is Jason Croft.
Our theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Special thanks
(47:31):
this week to Louisville Public Media and to our partners
Illinois Public Media, Nashville Public Radio and iHeartMedia, and the
more than three hundred and seventy public radio stations that
are making it possible for people across the country to
listen to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We'll talk to
you next week.
Welcome to the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson along here with Tolliver.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, Tolliver, Jeremy, I'm a firm believer that you were
dung as you feel. My heart feels twenty and my
knees feel sixty.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Setting us up for what I'm sure is going to
be a very interesting topics to that, because this is
one that sortive is on everybody's mind, but no one
really wants to talk about the age of our leaders,
so we are going to talk about it. I first
want to welcome, by the way, the listeners in Anchorage,
Alaska tuning into Alaska Public Media. Welcome to the middle.
Before we get to our topic, Tolliver, last week's show
(00:39):
about the opioid crisis brought in so many personal stories,
very powerful calls on air, but so many voicemails as well.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
My name is Stuzany, Hi, my name is Rod Hi,
my name is Christine.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
Hey, my name is Andrew.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
I'm a former cocaine addicts and.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Alcoholic and is over twenty five years and it's possible
to do it. I just wanted to show some hope
there to the people who are listening that are really struggling, or.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
The people who love someone who is struggling.
Speaker 7 (01:05):
I am being told no, I cannot have pain management care,
and it's affecting my life. I am trying to find
a conversation to start about people like me who are
in chronic pain and need pain management but don't have
the opportunity because of the opiod crisis.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
You can harp all day and all night about educating people.
Speaker 6 (01:30):
What needs to be done is that.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
People need to be able to go to some type
of a clinic and make their pain go away. I've
been and recovering for over thirty years. I think addiction
is a disease of loneliness that people treatment isolation and
what we really need is connection.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Thanks to everyone who called in so the question this hour?
Are our political leaders too old? President Biden is eighty,
Former President Trump now the leading candidate to run on
the Republican side seventy seven. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority
leader eighty one. Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley ninety. He's
now the oldest serving US Senator after Democrat Diane Feinstein
(02:11):
died in office last month. Former governor and UN ambassador
Nikki Haley, who is fifty one, has been making an
agent is an issue in her campaign for president. She
says in the America, she sees the permanent politicians will
finally retire.
Speaker 8 (02:28):
We'll have term limits for Congress and mandatory mental competency
test for politicians over seventy five years old.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, I'm sure we are going to get to competency
tests and term limits this hour, Tolliver, what is our
phone number?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And while we wait for your calls, let's meet our
panel guests. Philip Bailey, Pulitzer Prize winning national political correspondent
for USA Today based in Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Philip, Welcome, Jeremy. What's going on, brother.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I'm doing well. And let's bring in our other panel guest,
doctor Louise Aaronson, jeriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco,
author of the New York Times best selling book Elderhood.
Doctor Aronson, welcome to you.
Speaker 9 (03:22):
It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Well, Philip, you are in Kentucky, which is the home
of Mitch McConnell. You've been covering his career for years.
We mentioned him. I am not going to play the
tape of him freezing up because it will trigger the
silence alarms on all the radio stations that carry the show.
They have those so that you don't have dead air
and it goes it turns an alarm on. But what
do you think about him in particular and his insistence
(03:45):
that he's fine at age, at his age eighty one,
and that he's going to remain the leader of Senate
Republicans despite what we've been seeing.
Speaker 10 (03:56):
Senator McConnell, as we all maybe some of your listeners don't, no,
is a survivor of polio. He's been very guarded about
his health all the time that I've known him, very
very private about that. There have been incidents in the
past where he fell at his home here in Louisville.
I mean, people were wondering about his health, and he
came out pretty quickly with a picture showing that he
(04:16):
was aoka. I think this situation was different because there
were sort of a rolling disclosure.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Right.
Speaker 10 (04:23):
We see the first initial freeze, then we find out
that he had fallen at other situations, you know, back
with through Waldorf Astereo Hotel in Washington, DC, we had
found out he had fallen, but then there were other
incidents where he had fallen and we didn't know about.
Then there was the second freeze up. So these very
public incidents and moments I think certainly was something that
(04:44):
McConnell doesn't like to talk about. He likes to sort
of keep a strong, very stoic sort of presentation. But
I can tell you here in Kentucky, even whether there
are political enemies of his or political allies, for a
good number of weeks, the conversation was about what is
his health and what is his future?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
What's can Tucky's future? As a result of.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That, Louise, is there a difference in your mind between
Mitch McConnell and President Biden and former President Trump when
it comes to their age and our question this hour?
Speaker 9 (05:13):
I guess if there's one point I'd want to make,
it's that it's less about age and more about health
and ability to do the job. We have all known
people who were young and couldn't do a job, and
people who were old and couldn't do a job, and
it's more about the match between the person's ability and
the tasks they need to do. In my mind.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
All right, well, let's get to the phones again. Our
number is eight four four four Middle. Let's go to
our first caller, Jan Is in Kansas. Jan, Welcome to
the Middle.
Speaker 11 (05:46):
Thank you so much, Jeremy, Well, go.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Ahead, tell us what you think. Are our political leaders
too old?
Speaker 12 (05:53):
Well? I think it was wonderful what the doctor said,
because I am a long time registered nurse and have
worked in many many fields of nursing, and at seventy four,
i'm working and as she stated, you know, I don't
(06:14):
think so much it's a it's a matter of numbers
and what age a person is. I think it's you know,
the quality of their work, their ability to do what
they need to do and want to do, and the
spirit in which they do it. And I think when
(06:34):
a person's age starts coming into it, I think that
that's very detrimental and I don't think that that is
an appropriate way to really judge what a person is
doing and how they're doing their job.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Well.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And do you think of the people that we're talking
about tonight that we mentioned President Biden, for example, do
you think that he is too old, You think that
he looks like he's doing his job the way that
you would hope that he would at any end, I think.
Speaker 12 (07:05):
I think, I swear if I was, I wish that
I could be and do and think as quickly as
this man does, because and the thing about it is that,
as with myself, he has had, he has a lineage
of experience, and he brings that lineage with him in
(07:28):
all of his thought processes and in the way that
he presents it to the public.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I feel, h Jen, thank you so much for that call.
I want to go to another one here. David is
joining us from Houston, Texas. David, Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 11 (07:42):
Go ahead, Hi, good evening.
Speaker 13 (07:45):
Yes, so I disagree with the previous caller. I think
that age does it already does play a role in
our elected officials, and that you have a minimum age
of thirty five. I think, on the other end that Masima,
I mean just starting at sixty five to seventy, I
think that's fair. I mean, you have these politicians that
(08:06):
are you know, you know, that are that are just
that are you know, as they get older, their their
views change, and which is which is you know, great
people's we change all the time, but I just don't
think it's it's very fair to to our younger voters
and such that that this is this is really all
the I mean, they're their only choice. So I agree
(08:27):
with the notion that age should play a role on
the other end, not just the beginning of of a
of a young elected official.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Philip Bailey, what about that point that he made about
there is a minimum age. The Constitution requires candidates for
the US House to be at least twenty five and
at least thirty for the Senate. More for president. There's
not a maximum age, right.
Speaker 10 (08:48):
Well, we all have to remember when the Constitution was written.
What was the average age of Americans back in those days? Right,
like that that time period that was considered middle age
or older. Americans are living longer therefore, are like the
officials right, are living longer. And I think the reason Jerry,
this is such a sensitive topic is because of all
the demographics, the one demographic we all transition into is
(09:10):
getting older. And I think the reason why President Biden
is getting so much of this and polling shows seventy
seven percent of Americans think he is too old to
run for reelection, including sixty nine percent of Democrats.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
By the way, I think the reason for that.
Speaker 10 (09:23):
Is that he's the main engine of this because when
you look at right wing memes, online media, right wing
conservative media, cable news commentary, it is heavily focused on
President Biden and these sort of stutter steps, him falling.
He did have a stuttering problem, right remember, for most
of his life as well. Democrats for the most part,
do not focus on from a president Trump's similar slip
(09:45):
ups or gaffes or moments where he's sort of out
of it a little bit is versus peach and presentation.
They're focusing obviously on other things. I think the question
for us is not should there be a maximum age
or minimum age.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
It is, as the doctor said, a question of capacity.
Speaker 10 (10:00):
And I think for many people, for many Americans, those
right wing memes have seeped in and they do have
a general sense that EH is the president up for
this right, not just to be president, but to run right.
There was reports now about him having to take a
different type of schedule, where a different type of shoes
and different type of exercise just to stay up for
a grueling campaign like this. It's a legitimate question. But
(10:21):
I think the sensitivity is because we all age eventually.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Just checking in on social media, little this, little that,
on TikTok writes to us, I believe they are all
too old, as their beliefs are set from the nineteen fifties,
even the forties, in fact, from their parents, set from
the early nineteen hundreds. You know, Tolliver, there's a Pew
Research Center poll that finds Americans think the ideal age
for a president is somewhere in their fifties. Both President
(10:48):
Obama and President George W. Bush were in their fifties
for most of their presidencies.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Absolutely, And before President Biden, the oldest president in US
history was Ronald Reagan, the Gipper, who.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Famously made a joke about his.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Age in a debate with Walter Mondale in Kansas City
in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 14 (11:05):
I recall yet, that President Kennedy had to go for
days on end with very little sleep during the Cuba
missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that
you would be able to function in such circumstances?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Not at all, mister Truett.
Speaker 15 (11:17):
And I and I want you to know that also,
I will not make age an issue of this campaign.
I am not going to exploit for political purposes my
opponent's youth and inexperience.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Got to laugh there, even from Walter Mondale. Stay right
there more than middle. Right after this break, This is
the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. If you're just tuning, in
the Middle is a national call in show. We're focused
on elevating voices from the middle geographically, politically, and philosophically,
or maybe you just want to meet in the middle.
My guest this hour Philip Bailey, national political correspondent for
(11:55):
USA Today, and doctor Louise Aronson, a geriatrician at UCSF
and author of Elderhood. We're asking you, are our political
leaders too old? Tolliver, what's that number again?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It's eight four four four Middle.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
That's eight four four four.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Six four three three five three gollahad and give us
a call.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Philip Bailey, we said we were going to talk about
term limits. Let's do that. Is there any chance of
term limits happening in Washington?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
No? Uh, to be point blank.
Speaker 10 (12:23):
I mean, every once in a while you hear politicians
talk about term limits. But guess what, people in this
country might hate Congress, but those same polls find that
they love their congress person. Right, So when you get
your congress person in who you've been voting for, oh,
suddenly you don't believe in term limits because you want
that person in and out here in Kentucky. I remember
in twenty ten US Senator Ran Paul as a candidate,
(12:45):
swore he was going to only serve a certain amount
of terms.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, guess what, he didn't live up to that. Right.
Speaker 10 (12:51):
But what's interesting, though, Jeremy, I think, is that America
is an outlier when it comes when we're compared to
other democracies.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Right.
Speaker 10 (12:57):
Pew research finds that President Biden, who is the ninth
oldest leader in the world. Right, that is, to put
that in perspective, the median age of world leaders is
sixty two, right, two decades younger. Usually in autocracies we
have older leaders like this. The US Senate its average
age is sixty four. That makes it the seventh oldest
(13:17):
legislative body. Even the House, which has an age of
limit or requirement of twenty five, is a little bit
younger at age fifty eight. And the reason I think, Jeremy,
this affects Americans, and you see Americans getting so wrapped
up into this conversation.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Many of our campaigns are about the future. Right When
politicians are they're talking about what we.
Speaker 10 (13:35):
Have to look ahead as as Americans and what are
the two big issues both for conservative young people and
liberal young people the debt and climate change? Is an
eighty year old a ninety year old ELECTI official going
to be dealing with the debt and climate change?
Speaker 5 (13:47):
No.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Twenty two to twenty five year old voters are more
concerned about that, Louise.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
What about competency test the other thing that Nikki Haley
brought up? What are those and are they used very
much for the elderly?
Speaker 16 (14:00):
Oh?
Speaker 9 (14:01):
Well, there are different types of competency. There's sort of
cognitive competency and there are assessments we do in medicine
to try and determine if somebody has some cognitive dysfunction
and then eventually is trending towards having a dementia. There's
also sort of legal competence, and those things tend to
be separate. So in other words, and we also think
(14:21):
about decision making capacity, so those are things we do clinically.
We also know that most people are diagnosed fairly late.
It has no country has found a way of including
that in a way of assessing older politicians. Now, is
this something we have to deal with as a society
more broadly? Probably we have to acknowledge though that there
(14:44):
isn't an easy answer. We're living decades longer than we
used to, and the country on the one hand says
these people should get out of the way, and on
the other hand says why we have all these dependent
older people? So you can't actually have it both ways.
We need to figure out a way for people who
can to keep working and for those who need help
(15:06):
not to. I also think it's not just cognitive capacity,
but one of the big risks of getting older is
your chances of ill health and death do increase. That's
just facts, right, because we all end up dead eventually,
ideally in old age. So is there a way of
looking at someone's health and assessing their functional ability that
(15:31):
would be useful. We have metrics for that, but that
doesn't necessarily say whether you can govern. Right, we had
a president in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Well, And also it seems like every time a doctor
comes out and gives the report on the president, like
the president's private doctor comes out, they always say, oh,
they're in perfect health. There's nothing wrong with the president.
Everything is great right now. So I don't know if
you would even trust what comes out if a president
were to take a competency test. Let's go to Ben
in Utah. Ben, go ahead, Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Hey.
Speaker 16 (16:02):
Thanks. My comment was just I think there should be
term limits just because you know, when you're growing up
and you're taught a certain way for so long, and
it becomes actually a fabric of who you are, and
once you start getting older, it actually becomes you and
(16:23):
there's no middle ground there anymore. And I feel like
there's no changing your point of view when you become
a certain age and I feel like the fifties, Yeah,
there's still leeway. There's no middle ground for you anymore.
That's what I think it's so partisan with our politics nowadays,
(16:43):
is because when you get so old, there's not really
room for you to change your mind anymore, because you've
been taught a certain way to be for so long
that that is just what you are. There's no changing
you at that point. And so that was my point.
We're so partisan now that are older elected officials, there's
no more trying to change their minds, and there's no
(17:05):
leeway to reach across the hild anymore. At that point,
there's no meddle at all.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Ben, Thank you so much for that call. Philip Bailey,
what about that? Do you find as you talk to
voters around the country that they believe that older politicians
are more sort of setting their ways about the partisanship
that has polarized Washington.
Speaker 10 (17:25):
Well, certainly, I think that there's a sentiment in the
voters that I've spoken with that, look, if a person's
been in office for so long with a certain ideology,
are they more than likely are locked into that ideology.
But I think the real question and the issue we're
having here in debate we're having isn't really a debate
about age, right. We're debating the fact that we don't
have access to our political system because oftentimes of jerrymandering
(17:45):
and money. The reason why we see older politicians do
well is because you have to have a lot of
money to run for office.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And I don't know about most of you all.
Speaker 10 (17:51):
I got a lot more money in my pocket than
that when I was twenty two years old. Yeah, right,
And I look at someone like David Hogg, the survivor
of the Parkland, Florida massacre. He's launching this new group
called Leaders We Deserve, which is vowing to elect feeless
progressives under the age of thirty five, right under the
age of thirty for state office, but under the age
of thirty five for federal office. And the main issue
(18:12):
he's going to run into, I think is going to
be access and money. The question I have I'm looking
forward to seeing in some of the polling and conversations
with future stories is for twenty twenty four, how engaged
will that eighteen to twenty four demographic be. If age
is such a big issue, right, such a big deal,
will we see youth voters upend and overthrow some of
these politicians at the ballot box.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Let's go to Anya, who is in Saint Louis, Missouri. Anya,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 17 (18:39):
Thanks for having me so I am. I'm speaking title
from an academic perspective. I'm a PhD candidate and cognitive
neuroscience who studies cognitive aging and dementia, and I will
I would like to press this by saying that I
am in favor of termal limits and age limits. However,
I have my reservations about cognitive evaluation. I'm not sure
(19:03):
how that would be implemented. So we know that on
a group level, as older adults, cognitive cognitive decline is
all by but inevitable right.
Speaker 18 (19:16):
Especially after the age of sixty five, but there's a.
Speaker 17 (19:19):
Lot of individual variability.
Speaker 19 (19:21):
My concern is how which measures would be used. Some
of the measures that are currently out there most widely
used clinically, are you know, simple memory tests that even
though they they might capture some some form of cognitive decline,
(19:41):
they're not maybe as sensitive to things like problem solving, ability,
decision making. My concern is, you know, who who would be,
you know, in charge of this infrastructure, and I'm wondering
if there would have basically have to be new, validated,
(20:02):
reliable measures that could capture things that are specific to
making decisions in the government. But then on the other
side as well is also that you know, some people,
even if they might not score as well on some
of these very simple cognitive tests, they might still have
(20:22):
fairly preserved cognitive functions in those areas.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Let me let me take your call to Louise Aronson.
What do you think, doctor Aronson about about that?
Speaker 9 (20:34):
I agree it's similar to what I was saying earlier
that we don't really have the right methods to sort
this out. I think another really important point is that
there are certain measures of cognition that decline, but what
we don't talk about is on the other side. Now,
of course, we do sort of have, you know, younger
ages where people aren't allowed to run for office, but
we know that impulsiveness, ability to make complex decisions, to
(20:58):
rain in your emotions, all those things are not very
well developed in younger people. So what tends to happen
is that we talk about the negatives of aging and
not the positives where people, when tested if they don't
have a dementia, and the majority of older people don't
have dementia, are able to more reliably come to accurate
(21:20):
conclusions than younger people. One of the statistics I love
is from Harvard Business Review, which showed that diversity of
age in a group leads to better productivity and more
interesting outcomes, just as diversity of all other kinds. And
that's partly age, and that's partly because we do come
with different generations and different values, and pulling all that
(21:43):
in the mix, just as mixing race, religion, or anything
else leads to better outcomes.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah, I will say that one of my favorite people
that I've ever known died last year at age one
hundred and two, and right up until the end was
absolutely sharp as attack and filled with people around her
who were much younger, who would come and you know,
hang out, take her out to dinner, all these things.
I agree that age diversity a group with it with
(22:09):
varying ages, is very good. Let's go to Suzanne, who's
calling from Nashville, Tennessee. Hi, Suzanne, welcome to the middle. Well, Hi, Hi,
go ahead, tell us what you think.
Speaker 11 (22:22):
Well, I would like people to think about the fact
that Mick Jagger just released his first album in seventeen years,
is singing fantastically. He's eighty years old. The man just
keeps going. He's confident in what he does. He's dancing
all over and I'm seventy five and I'm still dancing.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
So what do you think when people say that, for example,
President Biden is too old, or President Trump, former President
Trump is too old, or Mitch McConnell's do all this
time for them to let somebody younger come in.
Speaker 11 (23:01):
I don't think it's a matter of age. And I
was thinking that when Ben was talking that the older
someone gets can be actually an advantage, and the doctor
just said that as well. To look at how they operate,
(23:24):
how they handle things, you only have to look at
a few speeches by mister Trump and mister Biden and
see a very big difference in their ability to clearly
present something in a positive way.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Who do you think is doing a better job at
presenting something in a positive way between those two?
Speaker 11 (23:47):
Oh my gosh. I've watched every speech that's been telecast
by both of them, and I've watched both conventions always,
and I have to say Biden, and when Ben was
saying that people get stuck in their ways, I mean,
(24:09):
he is really modern in a lot of the things
that he wants from America. He's listening.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Well, Suzan, I'm going to take your question there, your
comment to Philip Bailey. Philip Bailey, as you talk to people, Now,
how much pressure is there from let's say, let's talk
about President Biden from Democrats on him to consider whether
or not to run this time.
Speaker 10 (24:38):
Well, now that we see that Congressman Dean Phillips is
gearing up for a primary challenge, I think that there
is a growing at least voice in the Democratic Party
that hey, look, maybe we should put somebody as a
contrasting voice against President Biden. I do think that again,
this anxiety is also based upon it looks like we're
more than likely going to have a rematch of twenty
(24:58):
twenty between Trump and but Jeremy. I think there's one
piece here, and I think the doctor can maybe chiming on.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
This as well.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
How age plays out differently in different communities. I know,
for example, in the African American community, listening to your elders,
the idea that your elders represent a museum of knowledge,
I gravitate towards older African Americans who are in their
late seventies, eighties, and nineties, who can remember a time
where America was very, very different, and they are a
treasure right in our community, so I think. And also
(25:28):
I'm interested in the fact that always talking about compopetency
tests or age limits, I'm very interested to see with
that even past constitutional mustard and not be considered completely agist, right.
I mean, I think about any sort of tests around
public office, and I think of some of these eighty
year old grandmothers in Alabama and Georgia, Mississippi, they might
have an issue with that.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Let me go to another call here. Nadia is joining
us from Nevada. Nadia, welcome to the middle Hi, Hi,
go ahead. What do you think are political leaders too old?
Speaker 20 (26:01):
I kind of feel like, with the passing of Diane Feinstein,
I think, you know, there should definitely be a sort
of cognitive test. But as another caller was implying, you know,
it's kind of hard to assess that because it's relatively
new science that we're you know, dabbling with. People are
living older life expectancies that are really unprecedented, so it's
(26:23):
pretty unique. I'm within the demographic of being a young voter.
I'm twenty four going on twenty five. I'm a political
scientist at U and LV. I'm currently pursuing my master's.
So you know, this is actually like what we're talking
about in my American pro sum class. We're really studying
voter behavior and I really think, you know, term limits
(26:45):
there're something that could be really unique to America. I mean,
George Washington had the opportunity to you know, kind of
become another king and you know, have the endless see
in office, and he really set the precedent with leaving
at two terms for the presidency, And you know, I
think it's so interesting that we accept two term limits
(27:06):
for the presidency, but we don't accept it for other
bodies in our legislature. So I think it's really unique
and interesting to Western society as a whole that you know,
there's a two term limit for presidency, but there isn't
for other offices well.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And in fact, there are term limits in many states
on judges, but there are not term limits for federal judges.
Louis Aaronson your thoughts, Oh.
Speaker 9 (27:33):
Well, the political thing isn't necessarily my expertise, but I
do think we're going to have to have some way
as a society of making it easier for people to
step away without feeling like they're stepping off a cliff.
I mean, in theory, we will all have to retire
at some point, and I suppose if you're a very
powerful person that is even more difficult. In my practice,
(27:57):
I start talking to people years before, because if you
don't have a good plan, it does feel like you're
losing your identity. And maybe we as a society need
to make it easier for all of us to transition,
so we don't end up in situations I think I'm
not sure I want to call people out, but we've
mentioned at least two politicians who clearly stayed or are
(28:19):
staying past when their health suggests otherwise.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Tolliver, You know the US is not the only democratic
country in the world with political leaders who are much
older than the populations they serve.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Yeah, that's right, Jeremy. When Mahatir Mouhammad was re elected
as Prime Minister of Malaysia in twenty eighteen, he was
the world's oldest leader. Listening here to an interview he
did with Britain's Channel four, how does.
Speaker 14 (28:41):
It feel to be, at ninety three, the world's oldest
head of government.
Speaker 21 (28:46):
Well, it's surprising and sometimes inch myself to find out
where that I'm really the primarista Again, Well, I didn't
expect to be prevous.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Because you're older than the queen even Yeah, whnd you.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And the Queen of England of course has passed away
since that interview, but the now former Prime minister is
still alive. Stay right there. More of the middle coming
right up. This is the middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We're
talking about the age of our political leaders. My guests
are Philip Bailey, political columnists for USA Today, and doctor
Louise Aronson, a professor of gerontology at UCSF and author
(29:24):
of Elderhood. Our number is eight four four four Middle.
You can reach out to us also at Listen to
the Middle dot com. Let's get to some more calls,
and we're going to go to Roy, who's joining us
from Saint Louis.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Roy, Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 22 (29:38):
Hi, good show. I'm really glad you're talking about this subject.
I lived at d C when Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's
and nobody knew about it, at least not widely. And
you know, it is a concern. You know, you got
to look at aging in this country, and the number
of people with Alzheimer's is really founding. I think the
(30:02):
least we could ask for is that there'll be a
more open discussion of this and perhaps even testing for
the candidates. And I think if both Biden and Trump
were tested, I think Biden would pass. I don't know
about Trump. He says the most ridiculous and out of
(30:23):
the blue things that you know a person with mental
disorder might say. And I just don't know what he's
suffering from. But anyway, but I think it's an important
subject and I think that more people should be talking
about it.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Well, thank you so much, Roy for that call. And
let's let's get another one in here. Let's see here,
how about Richard who is in ann Arbor, Michigan. Richard,
welcome to the middle. What say you?
Speaker 6 (30:54):
How are you? I was just thinking that I've heard
so many callers say that it's not about the number,
but it's about the ability to do the job. And
I was just wondering, like, what happens when at some
point midterm their ability falls off and they can't do
(31:14):
their job. There's no system in place to actually take
them out of that job. We have to sort of
either wake them out through their term, which they usually
try and get reelected anyway, or at some times they
just stay on forever.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Well, there is the twenty fifth Amendment, Philip Bailey, in
the case of the president, there is the twenty fifth Amendment,
although hasn't been used.
Speaker 10 (31:40):
Right, there's the twenty fifth Amendment. There's expulsion for legislative
bodies as well. I think again, what you're hearing is
that logjam we have in our political system Jeremy like,
people just don't know what you're supposed to do with
someone if there is an issue with their age and
their abilities. But look, one of your callers, the twenty
four year old student, made the point about George White
Washington voluntarily imposing that two term limit on the presidency
(32:05):
that wasn't formalized in our constitution until when Fdr Right,
as my fellow guest here mentioned, someone who was in
a wheelchair, wheelchair who had age and issues with his
health was in office, and then when he died, it
was such a shock to the country that the country
said wait a minute here, Like the voters kept wanting
him to be president right each and every time. So again,
(32:27):
I think that the answer here, I'm looking for two things. One,
how we younger voters actually respond in twenty twenty four,
particularly as Dean Phillips is challenging looks to be appeared
to be a challenging Biden. But at the same time,
I'm also interested to see if we're going to have
a larger conversation about how difficult it is to get
into involved in our democracy from a money and jerry
(32:49):
mandering standpoint, which makes people have more faith in these
politicians who are already there.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
And one last point.
Speaker 10 (32:55):
Remember everyone talks bad about Congress and the presidency, but
they'd like it when they have a veteran member of
Congress who's a crude power, who's a steady hand.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Right.
Speaker 10 (33:05):
So a lot of communities we are concerned. I'll say
it this way, Joe Biden, Donald Trumpen et cetera. Mitchell
column may just have a bad case of eighty, right,
because when we talk about Mick Jagger, he doesn't. It
is really just his age. It's how age affects you.
I don't know what I'm going to be like forty
years from now. Right when I'm seventy nine, eighty years old.
I hope I'm as spry and as active as I
(33:26):
am today, but I might wear eighty differently.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Than you do or anyone else on this panel does well.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And actually, Louise Arenson, you've written about the fact that
you know, if you've met one eighty year old, you've
met one eighty year old. Its case my line, Yes,
I'm just gonna say, good line.
Speaker 9 (33:42):
Diversity increases with age in terms of our health and
ability to function in different realms, and so it is
sort of different. I mean a barring grave disease or
something else. Most two year olds are the same, and
most thirty year olds are the same, and that it
cannot be said of seventy, eighty, ninety or one hundred
(34:03):
year olds.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Let's go to Charles in Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Charles, Welcome
to the middle Hi.
Speaker 18 (34:10):
Hello, good evening.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
How's it going going well?
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Go ahead.
Speaker 18 (34:13):
My opinion on term moments is, I'm twenty nine years old.
I think whether you're the president or whether you're working
in the Congress and the Senate or the House, it
isn't the place of seventy year olds and eighty year
olds to be making decisions that aren't necessarily going to
impact them long term. I'm twenty nine, so I'm in
(34:34):
a very formulative phase I think in my life where
we're choosing to have kids and buying homes and settling down,
and I think some of these decisions some of these
politicians are not necessarily going to have to live with
and respectfully so from the other caller, Mick Jagger is
an entertainer, So whether he's performing tiptop all the time
on stage isn't really comparable to a president who's making
(34:56):
decisions that affect the world. I would say, right, leader
of the free world.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Are you going to make your decision on who you
vote for in the presidential race, Charles, based on the
age of the candidate?
Speaker 18 (35:08):
Unfortunately, I think I would if we had competent people running,
I think, but unfortunately, I think in this case gives
you the letter of two evils and see who will
fit you based on your.
Speaker 17 (35:22):
Own seats in this country.
Speaker 18 (35:24):
So I'm not necessarily partisan, but I think that's kind
of the way that the country runs nowadays. So age
isn't necessarily a factor in.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That, right, Charles, Thank you so much for that call,
Doctor Aronson. You know, Charles brings up something that Philip
was talking about earlier, which is, you know, the people
who are eighty years old are not going to have
to deal with the effects of climate change, are not
going to have to You know, the amount of people
who have student loan debt in this country is absolutely
(35:54):
not represented in our congress right now. They don't have
that kind of student lon de because they're much older.
What do you think, well, I.
Speaker 9 (36:01):
Think again we're sort of looking at one side of
that picture. So the other thing is when you're very old.
You know, if Biden is elected again, he's not going
to run. I mean even term limits. Aside that there are,
you know, it will end. Whereas younger people have ambitions
and sometimes they'll do things for the short run, when
(36:22):
you have older people, they can afford to do what's right.
They also everybody says, oh, they don't know what it's
like to be young or whatever, but they know what
it's like to age beyond that. I mean, when I
became a geriatrician, I was in my late twenties, and
I thought of old people as them, you know. So
when I talk about you know, younger callers doing that,
(36:44):
it's because we all start young and it's it's unimaginable
to us that we will become old. But as you
become older, you realize and you can look backward. There
are some advantages to not having ambition for the next thing,
or needing the money, you know, for your new house
and kids. And I think we tend to just talk
(37:04):
about the bad things and not see the advantages of
being able to look retrospectively and being able to not
have a skin in the game. Actually, and so you
can do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Let's go to Randy, who's calling from Minnesota. Randy, welcome
to you. Go ahead. Not a great line there, Randy, Sorry,
maybe you can call back and let me just go
to Kathy, who's calling from Illinois. Kathy, go ahead, welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 23 (37:31):
Thank you. I find this conversation fascinating. But I think
that there's a question that belongs as part of this
conversation which hasn't been brought up yet, which is why
politicians in this country tend to stay around in politics
as long as they do. And I think that if
you really get down to it and you look at
(37:52):
how people get into politics and stay in politics in
this country, it's pretty much about fundraising and make money,
and right from the get go, that eliminates a lot
of people who probably would have very good credentials in
terms of what they could accomplish in public office. But
if they're not a good fundraiser, they're not even going
(38:13):
to be at the table. And then once you are
in office, you spend much of the next four years
raising money for your next campaign in your next election.
So politicians don't necessarily want money to be taken out
of politics, nor do their big donors who buy influence
over time by keeping the politicians who they've helped elect
(38:35):
in office. And so I think that until we can
start taking money the massive amount of money that goes
into politics in this country, I don't know, short of
mandating that people retire at a certain age, which I
am not in favor of for some of the reasons
that have been discussed on this show, I don't think
that that's I don't think that people are going to
(38:57):
leave as long as they can leave office, you know,
significantly wealthier than when they came in, and it's hard
to leave that amount of power that they accrue as
a result of all of the fundraising that is part
of that job.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
That's a great point, Cathy, Thank you so much. Philip
Bailey brings up two thoughts. One, Mitch McConnell's been one
of the biggest opponents of campaign finance reform over the years.
And two, there were so many people when Diane Feinstein
was really having so much difficulty earlier this year and
(39:33):
even last year, we're saying, why does she stay in
there so long? Is the what is her own goal
in staying in office? At that point?
Speaker 10 (39:43):
This is I think the most sensitive part of the conversation,
which is, what do you do? You know, for a
lot of people, retirement is death, right, It's the job,
It's the activity that keeps you going, that keeps you
you move and shaking. And I think that is a
legitimate question to ask of our older elected officials. I
think we often have that same conversation for older athletes, right,
(40:06):
like this fear of retiring, like, oh, if I retire,
I'm not gonna be relevant anymore. But what else am
I going to do with the rest of my life,
particularly if you're eighty one years old or ninety years old,
particularly becoming an advisor?
Speaker 3 (40:17):
I guess to that younger generation.
Speaker 10 (40:19):
But I think you are hearing, particularly from your younger callers,
like let's look at even social Security, for example, which
sovereignty is.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Going to be an issue in twenty thirty four.
Speaker 10 (40:28):
From the nineteen forties to nineteen fifties, we had older
politicians Fdr Harry Trupan, Dwight Eisenhower. What was the theme
of the nineteen sixty election, right JFK and Richard Nixon
at that time much younger man. JFK's whole point was,
this is a turning of the page to a new generation.
It was the whole point of Bill Clinton when he
was elected nineteen ninety two. I do think over the
next four years, whether it's twenty twenty four doesn't look
(40:50):
like it, there will be a generational shift with this election,
but definitely in twenty twenty eight. I do think you're
going to see a generational shift conversation, right because look
at the Democratic side with Governor whit Or of Michigan,
Governor Newsom of California, Shapiro, and Pennsylvania Governor Wes Moore
of Maryland, much younger people are who are considered to
be in line for the potential presidential candidates. I do
think that we are basically in the nineteen fifty six
(41:12):
nineteen fifty eight period repeating that with older politicians who
are clearly aging out, and I think the turn will
be probably in twenty twenty eight. That will be the
generational shift on climate change, on the debt, in these
host of other issues.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
Louise Aronsen, I love those points.
Speaker 9 (41:29):
I also think it's interesting that everybody's so concerned and
yet they're still running. You know, the approvals low. We
have a system in which everybody seemed or the vast
majority of people seem to want someone younger, but the
system somehow can't generate a younger candidate now. So it
(41:49):
brings me again to think about is age the only
problem here? And I would say it clearly is not.
It is among the problems, and we're going to have
to sort that out, not just in politics, but generally.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
I want to try to squeeze in another call here.
Pete is with us from Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Hi Pete, welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Hey Jeremy, thank you. Excellent discussion this evening. On that
topic of forced retirement. I wanted to bring up airline
pilots who they get their first class medicals every six
months and they fly with chief pilots, but still when
they reach age sixty five, they're done, and we do
that for safety reasons. I think there's an issue with
old politicians, maybe more like an age of seventy five,
(42:34):
as far as they're done, because while they don't have
to respond as quickly as an airline pilot does, judgment,
d and other mental abilities are very important for being
a politician, just as they are for an airline pilot.
That's what I wanted to say.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, okay, great, Pete. You know Louise Aronson. I was
speaking with a friend the other day who's in his thirties,
and I said, when do you want to retire? And
he said, I have to retire at sixty at the
accounting firm. I Matt, you have to retire at sixty.
There are a lot of places in this country that
have forced retirement ages.
Speaker 9 (43:07):
There are also a lot of countries where the age
of retirement for women is younger than for men, which
makes absolutely no sense, given that women live longer and
often miss some work time because they're having children. So
just because we have rules doesn't mean they make sense.
And a lot of the retirement ages were set at
a time where on average we lived decade we were
(43:29):
you know, we died decades earlier. So I think we
need to modernize that if only economically right. We can't
complain about social security and then tell people they can't work.
And what I'm seeing is two groups of people. They're
the people who love their jobs and keep working while
they can. And they're the people who are so poor
that they have to keep working or go back to
(43:49):
work to survive because they cannot retire at fifty or sixty.
Five and eat or have a roof over their heads.
So again, as with the rest of society, is becoming bimodal,
where the have nots are really having problems.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Let me just take a look at what's coming in
through our email Listen to the middle dot com. Diana
from Fort Myers, Florida, Rights, I'm a Republican, but I
have no more sympathy for Mitch McConnell than I do
for Joe Biden. Their time has come and gone. They're
not on the top of their game. I suppose an
age limit is the only way to go. Since we
would never agree to a cognitive test, which is a
shame because people do age differently, who would give it
(44:26):
and could we count on getting the real results? Probably not.
Emily and Duluth, Minnesota, Rights, I fully support President Joe Biden,
but there is no candidate who's from jen X my generation.
I will vote for President Biden, but age for me
is a factor. There should be an age limit for
any office. And Kathy Wrights, do we really not have
any quality leaders in their late fifties? Even I don't
(44:47):
believe that people in their seventies and eighties are useless,
but they shouldn't be running the country. Philip Bailey, your
thoughts on those comments.
Speaker 10 (44:58):
Again, I think that we're talking about is really the
health of our democracy more than just the health of
the politicians who represent it. And put it this way,
Let's say we have a person who's thirty eight years
old and runs for president in this country and they
have student loan debt.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Now how the voters feel about that? Right?
Speaker 10 (45:15):
Like, if you say you want younger people to run,
guess what that's going to necessarily have. You're going to
inherit all those younger people problems, Which is my life
isn't settled. I'm still trying to pay bills and get
through life.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
All right. Before we wrap this hour, we have a
competency test to do with our guests right now. We're
calling it whose drum line is it? Anyway? And if
you win, you are allowed to run for office no
matter your age. Tolliver and tell them how the game
is played.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Listen, first, I want to be clear. If Mick Jagger
was eligible to run for president, I'll be the first
line of phone bank for him.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Come on, now, the.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Game is simple. I've laid a popular drum line from
a popular artist and you just have to name the
artist and the song. You can jump in at any point.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Let's get it, Oh Madonna, it's like a virgin. Yeah,
we go, come on, come on.
Speaker 9 (46:07):
I knew I would lose.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
You got it all right?
Speaker 15 (46:15):
Well?
Speaker 2 (46:15):
At the free concert.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Yeah. I want to thank my guest Philip Bailey, a
Pulitzer Prize winning national political correspondent for USA Today, and
doctor Louise Aaronson, a professor of gerontology at UCSF and
author of the New York Times best selling book Elderhood.
Thank you both for joining us.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
Thank you interesting conversation.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Thanks absolutely, and join us next week, same time, same place. Tolliver,
what is our topic for next week's show?
Speaker 2 (46:42):
What role do you think the US should play in
the wars in Ukraine and Israel and Gaza?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
The president of President Biden says we are facing an
inflection point and he's asking Congress to pass one hundred
and five billion dollar military aid package, most of which
would go to Israel and Ukraine. So we want to
hear from you what you think. You can call us
at eight four four four Middle and leave us a voicemail,
or call in live next week, or go to listen
to Middle dot com, drop us a line while you're there,
(47:08):
sign up for our weekly newsletter. Remember the Middle is
also available as a podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts
on the iHeart app or wherever you listen to podcasts.
We're brought to you by Long Noook Media, produced by
joe An Jennings, John Barth, Harrison Pattino, and Danny Alexander.
Our digital producers Charlie Little. Our technical director is Jason Croft.
Our theme music was composed by Andrew Haig. Special thanks
(47:31):
this week to Louisville Public Media and to our partners
Illinois Public Media, Nashville Public Radio and iHeartMedia, and the
more than three hundred and seventy public radio stations that
are making it possible for people across the country to
listen to the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson. We'll talk to
you next week.
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