Democrats just flipped their biggest disadvantage onto the opposition.
So, about that age issue: It’s now officially a Republican ailment, as of 1:46 p.m. yesterday, the moment President Joe Biden quit his reelection campaign and was supplanted by Donald Trump, 78, as the oldest presidential nominee in American history.
Democrats are ecstatic to be rid of this distinction. Since Biden’s debate debacle on June 27, the preoccupation with Biden’s age, fitness, and, yes, decline had become their crushing, almost incapacitating, burden. As such, Democrats’ prevailing mood since Biden’s exit tweet landed has been one of overwhelming relief, as if the entire party just passed a collective kidney stone. Instantly, they seem decades younger.
For all the uncertainty that still looms for Democrats—starting with who their nominee will be and whether Vice President Kamala Harris, if nominated, is up to challenging Trump—they’ve now flipped what’s arguably been their single biggest disadvantage onto the opposition. Biden has certainly battled some troublesome non-elderly issues (inflation, immigration, the Middle East), all of which Harris would inherit as her own. But his age had been the reelection campaign’s biggest encumbrance by far, a source of consistent doubt and exasperation and, by the end, exhaustion and anger.
[Read: Biden’s greatest strengths proved his undoing]
Now, just like that, all of those paragraphs that began with “Biden will be 82 on Inauguration Day and 86 at the end of a second term” can be tossed over into the noisy neighbor’s yard: Trump will be 78 on Inauguration Day and 82 at the end of a second term. All of those polls in which massive majorities of voters across the political spectrum kept saying—screaming—that Biden was way too old to be running again are no longer operational. All of those surveys showing that most Americans support a mandatory retirement age for elected leaders are no longer germane, at least not for the Democrats, as a reelection issue. (Nearly four in five voters support some kind of age limit for elected officials in Washington.)
Also: Harris’s age begins with a 5. Is that even legal?
Fairly or not—and the media probably deserve some scrutiny for this—Americans have consistently declared themselves more concerned about Biden’s age and fitness than Trump’s. Trump has projected himself as the more robust and vigorous candidate, perhaps benefiting from his relative size, the frenetic crowds and chaos that surround him, and the enduring boom of his voice (compared with Biden’s hoarse whisper). Trump’s ubiquity in the news conveys an indefatigable presence, tiresome as it often is. His supporters have readily advanced his nonstop efforts to mythologize himself as some kind of superhero alpha. Not only did Trump survive an assassination attempt two weekends ago; he had the stage presence to project defiance while doing so, raising a fist and shouting out a command (“Fight!”) that became a rallying cry at last week’s Republican National Convention, in Milwaukee. That is a skill.
Harris could catch some blame for allowing the recent saga of Biden’s decline to reach the depressing—possibly hazardous—point that it did. She should prepare for questions on what she knew about Biden’s condition over the past three and a half years she spent vouching for him. They are legitimate questions, especially if Democrats want to make age an issue, which they should—because it mostly belongs to the other side now.
[David A. Graham: Has anyone noticed that Trump is really old?]
Trump could come in for more scrutiny about his health now that he has the whole shuffleboard court to himself. Forty-three percent of U.S. voters said in a survey last year that both he and Biden were “too old to effectively serve another four-year term as president.” And within a few hours of Biden’s announcement yesterday, clips began circulating on social media of Trump in recent months appearing confused, losing his train of thought, and mixing up basic facts. He has said, on multiple occasions, “Obama” when discussing Biden; blamed Nikki Haley for not securing the Capitol on January 6 (he meant Nancy Pelosi, presumably); and said that Biden was marching the nation into World War II and that Viktor Orbán was leading Turkey (as opposed to Hungary).
Voters will certainly have questions—or should. Trump has released minimal data about his physical and mental health. He measured 6 foot 3 and weighed 244 pounds at his White House physical in 2020, with a body mass index classified as obese. The “cognitive test” that he is always talking about—the one he supposedly “aced”—lacks credibility. The same could be said for the doctor’s note he released during his 2016 campaign asserting that he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” (The doctor, Trump’s personal physician, Harold Bornstein, later said that Trump dictated the letter to him over the phone.)
Trump’s two closest challengers in the Republican primaries tried to make his age an issue, with limited success. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that this year’s version of Trump has “lost the zip on his fastball” compared with the candidate of eight years ago. “Now, it’s just a different guy,” DeSantis said. “And it’s sad to see.”
Haley said in New Hampshire in January that “the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to win this election.” Haley’s campaign stump speech also included a call for mandatory mental-competency tests for candidates over 75, though she managed to omit that from her speech endorsing Trump in Milwaukee last week.
Harris might just steal that idea for her own campaign.
