Would you support an amendment limiting the Presidency to those under 70 after 2028?

[Obama24]

Whether Biden or Trump wins this November, the sitting President will be over 80 years of age in 2028. Biden will be 86 years of age; Trump will be 82 years.

At that point we will have been governed by someone over age 70 for 12 years as of January 2029.

We have only had a few elderly Presidents before, but each has been problematic in their own way. William Henry Harrison died a month into office.

Eisenhower had potentially fatal health issues in his second term (heart attack and stroke).

There linger questions about the mental fitness of Ronald Reagan in his second term and whether or not prodromal Alzheimer's symptoms may have been experienced by him.

There are open questions and discussion over the mental competency of both Biden and Trump.

We already cap the Presidency to those at or above 35 on one end; why not limit it to those at or below 70 on the other?

[courts]

no

[Obama24]

no

Your reasoning?

A person under age 35 cannot become President as our Founders considered that a good age wherein the person would have accrued enough maturity and experience to govern a country.

But conversely, does not the risk for age related diseases such as dementia and cardiovascular disease rise with extreme age?

Why risk a potentially mentally or physically compromised President? I think we've had enough Presidents die in office. We also did not do very well in the last two years of Wilson's term when he was too mentally disabled to govern effectively.

Also, as noted, every single time we have had an aged President there has been some issue, especially in their second term. If Eisenhower's heart attack or stroke weren't as mild, we would've had a President Nixon in 1957. There is an open question of Reagan's mental acuity in his second term.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

[Obama24]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Who wants to live in a gerontocracy?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Who wants to live in a gerontocracy?

Well, both party primaries had alternatives far below the age of 70 and both of them completely bombed. Both 2020 and 2024 saw this. And there's no sign of an anti-old president third party run.
Evidently, people don't care about having old presidents and/or old presidential candidates.

[TDAS04]

No. I don’t support such age limits at all, but if we absolutely had to have one, 80 would make more sense. 70 is way too young to be automatically disqualified from holding public office. But I don’t think age should be an automatic disqualifier in any case. There are competent 80-somethings who are more than capable enough to lead, and age limits could potentially result in the US missing out on a great presidency.

[Vice President Christian Man]

The 25th amendment already addresses this.

[Del Tachi]

It would be unfair to apply this rule to presidency without having a similar one for Congress or the Supreme Court.

[MABA 2020]

Honestly no

As bad as it is that Americas only options for leaders are mentally suspect old men I don't like the idea of this sort of restriction. The age limit on the other end should also be lowered to 18 because if the people want to elect a president in their 20's so be it.

[President Johnson]

No.

I think a fixed age limit is wrong, because people tend to age differently. There are 75 year olds who are mentally sharp and physically just fine, while there are 60 or 65 year olds that are pretty much a trainweck. Age isn't only determined by X number of years on the planet. That's also true with regard to the age of their ideas. Biden has younger ideas than Boebert, although she's not even as old as his youngest daughter.

[Ferguson97]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Who wants to live in a gerontocracy?

The voters, apparently. Why else would Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump have had such success?

[President Johnson]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Who wants to live in a gerontocracy?

The voters, apparently. Why else would Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump have had such success?

Some even on his forum raised the question, whether it isn't an indictment of Gen X politicians that they were unable to beat this group of people. You can also add Pelosi, Schumer and Mitch to that list.

[Associate Justice PiT]

It would be unfair to apply this rule to presidency without having a similar one for Congress or the Supreme Court.

     Honestly not such a bad idea. I don't know if I'd go as far as is posited by the topic creator, but it's a serious problem that we still have the same cadre of career politicians running everything who won't give up power until it's wrested from their cold, dead hands. We should not be so indifferent to the issues caused by having all of our highest offices occupied by dinosaurs.

[courts]

we have too much age based discrimination in the work force as it is

[Associate Justice PiT]

we have too much age based discrimination in the work force as it is

     In general I agree, but no other sector is as dominated by people so old. Biden and Trump are both older than the vast majority of top CEOs, not to mention McConnell, Grassley, Pelosi, Hoyer, &c.

[TDAS04]

If younger Americans don’t want gerontocracy, maybe more of them should vote, and take it seriously. And it’s not simply a matter of the ages of our leaders; if more young people got involved in the electoral process, issues that young voters in particular care about could be taken more seriously, maybe even as seriously as such senior issues as Social Security and Medicare (well, probably not that seriously).

[Progressive Pessimist]

I don't think that's worth pursuing an amendment over. There are dozens of more important things we should prioritize.

Anyway, after this election, I doubt we'll see too many senior nominees for some time.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It would be unfair to apply this rule to presidency without having a similar one for Congress or the Supreme Court.

An argument could be made that one individual member of Congress at that age is not a huge deal even if infirm, Feinstein in her last days was concerning but the Senate continued on and once she croaked there was little succession issue. But I agree with the general sentiment.

[politicallefty]

It would be unfair to apply this rule to presidency without having a similar one for Congress or the Supreme Court.

     Honestly not such a bad idea. I don't know if I'd go as far as is posited by the topic creator, but it's a serious problem that we still have the same cadre of career politicians running everything who won't give up power until it's wrested from their cold, dead hands. We should not be so indifferent to the issues caused by having all of our highest offices occupied by dinosaurs.

I think it's one of those things like term limits though. There are definitely problems, but you're creating a whole other array of issues by establishing hard limits. The issues with the House are primarily partisan gerrymandering and districts that have become way too big. I'm not sure what to do about the Senate. I'm not particularly fond of it as an institution for a multitude of reasons (part of it being that so-called "club" mentality). I would ask two questions here.  The first is whether or not the US is unique in having something of a gerontocracy. If so, why?

I think we need term limits for SCOTUS, but that's because they're not elected by the people. If the only reform made to SCOTUS was a hard age cap, it'd just encourage nominating younger and younger Justices. If there was a minimum age, perhaps it could work. However, that would just be another way of having a set term limit (which I do think we should have for SCOTUS).

[Schiff for Senate]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

In search of a problem?? If you're looking to find the problem, look no further than the roster of 2020 presidential candidates: the Republican and Democratic nominees were both of record age, and miraculously, they were both somehow younger than the respective runners-up for the nomination (and now we're getting a rematch where they both are 4 years older!!). The winner of the election, i.e. our sitting president, is clearly not fully "up there" mentally (and I say this as someone who is forced to support him for reelection nonetheless - just because of how crappy his opponent is), and if you don't consider that a problem I'm not sure what your definition of problem is.

Ideally, there ought be no minimum or maximum age, but I definitely think that as long as there's a minimum age for the presidency, it makes perfect sense for a maximum age to be in place, too.

[Obama24]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

In search of a problem?? If you're looking to find the problem, look no further than the roster of 2020 presidential candidates: the Republican and Democratic nominees were both of record age, and miraculously, they were both somehow younger than the respective runners-up for the nomination (and now we're getting a rematch where they both are 4 years older!!). The winner of the election, i.e. our sitting president, is clearly not fully "up there" mentally (and I say this as someone who is forced to support him for reelection nonetheless - just because of how crappy his opponent is), and if you don't consider that a problem I'm not sure what your definition of problem is.

I definitely think that as long as there's a minimum age for the presidency, it makes perfect sense for a maximum age to be in place, too.

A good chunk here want Biden as President for Life, but will not admit it openly.

[Schiff for Senate]

This is a solution in search of a problem.

Who wants to live in a gerontocracy?

The voters, apparently. Why else would Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump have had such success?

Some even on his forum raised the question, whether it isn't an indictment of Gen X politicians that they were unable to beat this group of people. You can also add Pelosi, Schumer and Mitch to that list.

That, I think, has more to do with seniority than anything else - and of course, seniority in Congress usually also means seniority in general. All three have decades of experience in Congress and rose up the ranks of the legislative leadership.

This is a solution in search of a problem.

In search of a problem?? If you're looking to find the problem, look no further than the roster of 2020 presidential candidates: the Republican and Democratic nominees were both of record age, and miraculously, they were both somehow younger than the respective runners-up for the nomination (and now we're getting a rematch where they both are 4 years older!!). The winner of the election, i.e. our sitting president, is clearly not fully "up there" mentally (and I say this as someone who is forced to support him for reelection nonetheless - just because of how crappy his opponent is), and if you don't consider that a problem I'm not sure what your definition of problem is.

I definitely think that as long as there's a minimum age for the presidency, it makes perfect sense for a maximum age to be in place, too.

A good chunk here want Biden as President for Life, but will not admit it openly.

...What? It seems you're just finding strawmans at this point, because I have yet to come across a single poster here who has espoused such a view.

[FDB]

we have too much age based discrimination in the work force as it is

Nobody should be working over age 70 in an ideal country anyway

[Associate Justice PiT]

The first is whether or not the US is unique in having something of a gerontocracy. If so, why?

     This is an interesting question that I really wanted to address. Pew did an article on this, and it seems America may not be unique, but it is unusual. Biden is in the top 5% of world leaders in age, and countries that are considered freer usually have younger leaders than those that are less free. I'm not familiar with the Cameroonian government, but I suspect Paul Biya is not surrounded by other 91-year olds either.

     As for why, President Johnson raises an interesting point earlier in this thread about Gen Xers not being able to beat these people, and with Ramaswamy I would add Millennials at this point too. There have been younger candidates, but they don't beat the elders. Some of these elderly leaders like McConnell and Pelosi are protected by heavily skewed constituencies that allow their party to protect them. But it is quite striking that Trump and Biden were able to easily weather age-based concerns and I think that points to a legitimate issue with candidate quality among Gen X and Millennial politicians. Why that issue might exist and why it might be worse here than elsewhere, I'm not sure and I would be interested to hear others' thoughts on that.