Hot topic in US election campaign: How old is too old?

When Nikki Haley, the only female candidate for the US presidency, kicked off her campaign early this year, she called for “mental competency tests” for politicians over 75, a proposal that prompted a question for which there is no clear-cut answer – how old is too old?

Haley’s suggested test threshold at 75 was aimed at both Donald Trump, who is 77, and Joe Biden, who is 81 and the oldest president in US history. Haley, who is 51, argued that it was time for a new generation of leadership. “We won’t win the fight for the 21st century if we keep trusting politicians from the 20th century.”

A series of polls since Haley became the first Republican to challenge Trump in the race for the party’s primary elections has shown that most Americans on both sides of the Democrat-Republican divide agree that it is time for generational change.

In mid-September, Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee and a towering figure in the party for decades until he fell out with Trump, echoed Haley’s call for generational change by announcing he would not run for re-election as Utah’s senator.

“At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s,” said Romney, who is 76. “Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.”

Roughly three-quarters of American voters say Biden would be too old to be effective if he won re-election next year. About half of US adults think Trump would be too old for the office. While the age difference is only three years, Biden is widely seen as less vigorous than Trump.

Surveys show that most Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of a re-match between Trump and Biden next year. But barring a political miracle, this is what they will get.

Trump will be the nominee of the Republican Party – polls give him an overwhelming lead to win the primaries, 56 per cent versus 14 per cent for his closest rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. There is no serious challenge to Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.

If he won re-election, he would be 86 at the end of his term. Trump would be 82. Both men would be close to the end of the life expectancy for men in America, according to data published by the US Social Security Administration.

Concern over the age of elected officials in key positions deepened in August when Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, froze for more than 30 seconds, unable to respond to a question. McConnell, who is 81, had a similar episode in July when he froze mid-speech. But after medical exams, the Capitol physician declared him fit to continue working.

The incidents have put a spotlight on the relative age of US lawmakers compared with the median age of all Americans, which, according to recent census data, is 38. In contrast, the median age of senators is 65, the second highest on record, and the median age of members of the House of Representatives is 58, also one of the highest on record.

Which is what prompted Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, to describe Congress as “the most privileged nursing home in the country.”

The sharp-tongued Haley, one of the country’s most prominent politicians of Indian descent, added: “We need to have mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75.”

The remarks raised eyebrows but brought into the open what is often termed “Washington whispers” about the age and mental acuity of the country’s lawmakers. The idea of cognitive testing really boils down to the question of how long someone should be allowed to work.

A 1986 law banned mandatory retirement for reasons of age for most professions. There are few exceptions where it is legal to force employees to leave by a specific age. They include commercial airline pilots whose retirement age is 65, though there are efforts to raise it to 67.

In lengthy debates involving pilot unions, airlines and legislators over the implications of the move, one question has never come up in public: would passengers be comfortable flying with a pilot aged 80?

The likely answer – no, thank you – explains the discomfort with the idea that an octogenarian will almost certainly hold one of the world’s most stressful jobs, the US presidency.

To put the aged US leadership in global perspective: as gerontocracies go, it is not in the lead. Iran and the Vatican, for example, are run by men much older than the American leadership. But there was one US senator, Republican Strom Thurmond, who set a record by reaching the age of 100 while in office, a month before retiring in 2003.

Staying with the aviation comparison, I wonder what the passenger’s view would be if told that the senior citizen in the pilot’s seat had an experienced co-pilot 30 years younger. In this scenario, imagine pilot Biden and co-pilot Kamala Harris, now his vice president.

Also read | India women’s reservation bill: Need of the hour, but how many years to go?

In television interviews, Haley has attacked Harris as incompetent and a failure and speculated that Biden would not live through a second term, which would by law give Harris the presidency. Therefore, she has argued, “This (election) is really me running against Kamala Harris.”

Also read | Hasan Minhaj's undoing: The deception beneath the laughter

Even in the increasingly bizarre world of American politics, predicting the natural, age-related death of a president in mid-term is without precedent. Perhaps even more unusual is the fact that Haley and Harris have something in common – they are both of Indian descent.

One Indian-American woman attacking another on the highest level of US politics is a spectacle worth watching. Material for a Netflix drama?

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE