Written by Ethan Perritt
When Donald Trump was elected to office, he broke a record—the oldest incumbent president. At seventy years of age, some questioned his ability to competently govern (beyond the signs of incompetency he had already shown.) Now, with this new campaign underway, we’re seeing the potential of a Sanders presidency which would leave us with an even older president at seventy-seven. By these high ages, however, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia begin to set in. It’s an unfortunate fact of life but we, as responsible citizens, should not allow someone with a high risk of developing these disorders into office.
To offset this, I would propose a presidential age limit. Currently, one must be thirty-five to run for the presidency. This is typically justified through arguments based on life experience, brain development, and the overall wisdom someone gains with age. But to argue there should be an imposed maximum age requires a different approach.
Firstly, we have to loop back to the point of developing dementia and other disorders that increase in risk with age. When looking at president Trump, many psychologists have attempted to diagnose him with early stages of dementia—and narcissistic personality disorder (but that’s a different issue.) This problem will only increase with age. And voting someone like Sanders into office could spell danger for the mental integrity of the office.
Secondly, it’s an issue of understanding the modern landscape. While we all might make fun of people in their 40s not understanding SnapChat or the likes, it’s an entirely different issue when the leader of the free world cannot comprehend how much influence the internet has as a whole. Sanders—or someone his age—doesn’t have the connection to anyone below the age of thirty that a president needs to have. Because while teenagers and children can’t vote, they’re still being affected by policy put forth and deserve representation.
I’m not entirely sure what the maximum age should be. Maybe seventy, maybe seventy-five. But Barack Obama was forty-seven when elected and he was a brilliant president despite his flaws. He was able to connect with some youth culture and truly understand the issues of the time.
I believe that someone over seventy cannot properly represent a nation with such a variance in age. And the increased risk of developing mental disorders is not something the American public should take a chance with.
