‘A seismic shift’: How US President Joe Biden altered perceptions of age

Rumblings astir Biden’s property began good earlier helium was elected successful 2020.

When Biden, a erstwhile vice president, started to mull his candidacy for the White House, critics pointed retired that helium would beryllium 86 years aged if helium completed 2 afloat presumption successful office.

“The contented won’t needfully beryllium whether he’s acceptable to service travel January 2021, but what toll the presidency takes connected adjacent the healthiest of people,” Paul Kane, The Washington Post’s legislature correspondent, told CNN arsenic acold backmost arsenic 2017.

Biden, however, was hardly an outlier successful the 2020 race. One of his closest Democratic rivals, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, was adjacent older: He was 78 astatine the clip of the primaries.

On the run trail, Sanders played up the “advantages to being old”, adjacent arsenic helium appealed to younger demographics.

“Having a agelong grounds gives radical the knowing that these ideas that I americium talking about, they are successful my guts. They are successful my heart,” helium told an Iowa municipality hallway successful 2019.

Many experts picture the US authorities arsenic a “gerontocracy”, led by elders. In the US, determination are nary precocious limits to however aged a nationalist office-holder tin be, lone limits to however young.

Currently, the mean property of Senate members is 64. That mean is the aforesaid for Supreme Court justices, who scope successful property from 76 to 52.

But Miringoff noted that Biden’s ascent to the presidency successful 2020 coincided with a play wherever galore of the foremost governmental figures successful the US were connected the precocious extremity of the property spectrum.

"It's been an unusual play successful that astir of the governmental leaders connected some sides person been elderly," Miringoff said, pointing to figures similar Sanders and Senate Republican person Mitch McConnell, 82.

Miringoff argued that this opened the doorway for critics to ore connected concerns astir age. Furthermore, helium said, bias related to someone's property is considered socially acceptable successful a mode that biases astir contention oregon sex are not.

Studies amusement mixed perceptions erstwhile it comes to property and politics. A 2022 paper successful the diary Political Behavior, for instance, recovered that younger candidates were seen arsenic little qualified, little experienced and little conservative.

It besides recovered a “small but statistically important penalty” successful the support ratings for older candidates.

Nevertheless, the survey recovered “few differences” successful however property affected wide elector support.

“We were funny to spot whether radical preferred an older oregon younger campaigner arsenic good arsenic whether older radical liked older candidates and younger radical liked younger candidates,” 1 of the study’s authors, Jennifer Wolak, told the Niskanen Center, a deliberation tank.

“And we recovered it didn’t substance astatine all,” she explained. “Young radical did not similar younger candidates. Old radical did not similar older candidates.”