Age and the Passing of the Torch: Sydney Williams
http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
For Queen Elizabeth, 1992 was her annus horribilis. I had my own – far less significant – diem horribilis last Sunday. Unlike Elizabeth’s year, some of what happened to me was, surely, age related. I had tested positive for Covid that morning. Then, feeling groggy and with slurred speech, I fell twice. Apart from a bumped head, bruised hip and ego, no damage was done. Nevertheless after the second fall, we called health services. Shortly thereafter I was taken by ambulance to a clinic and later to Middlesex Hospital. Tests showed no signs of a stroke or brain injury, and on Tuesday I came home, with a cane but that was because of the bruised hip.
The effects of age are not necessarily chronological, and they differ greatly from one individual to another. My father died at 58, while his father died one day shy of 90 and his mother at 92. While they became physically frail, both had their wits until they died. Cancer, heart disease, and senility are more common as one ages. Muscles lose tone and bones become brittle. But there are those like Henry Kissinger who are physically able and mentally alert at 100. Many people don’t let age stop them. The Wall Street Journal, last June 25th, published an article, “Why High-Powered People are Working in Their 80s.” In it they quoted data from the Census Bureau that roughly 650,000 Americans over 80 were working last year. My younger brother who turns 81 in October continues to work as a partner in an investment firm. My father-in-law went to work most every day as an admiralty lawyer, until he died at 77. Old age, mental acuity, and employment are not incompatible. For some, but not for all.
While Republicans have been vocal about the President’s physical and mental failings – based on visible evidence of dementia – the question of age has now been raised by Independents and Democrats. An August CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that “roughly three-quarters of Americans say they’re seriously concerned that Biden’s age might negatively affect his current level of physical and mental competence…” On the other hand, Alex Keyssar of the Harvard Kennedy School takes a more nuanced view. According to the July 17, 2023 issue of the Harvard Gazette, he “believes Democrats who cite age as a major election concern are probably really expressing ‘a desire for energetic leadership, a force for new ideas, new spirit, and new energy.’” Perhaps. But it seems more likely that the Democrat leadership is concerned that fibs, gaffes, and stumbles now define Mr. Biden – not good for his re-election chances, especially when his Vice President’s approval numbers are lower than his.
With Donald Trump currently leading the battle for his Party’s nomination, Republicans are caught in the same vise; thus a rising, bipartisan, interest in younger leaders. At his January 21, 1960 inauguration, John F. Kennedy spoke of “passing the torch” to a new generation. That happened. Eisenhower was the last President born in the 19th Century. Franklin Roosevelt was fifty when he was elected in 1932, the first President younger than my grandfather. Kennedy was elected at age forty-three, the first President younger than my father. Bill Clinton was the first President elected younger than me. My grandfather, father and I were all in our 50s when the nation first elected Presidents younger than we were. Today, our three children are all in their 50s. It is time to pass the torch. Following a recent TV interview in which President Biden touted his ‘wisdom’ and ‘experience’ as reasons to vote for him, Bonnie Wong, director of the neuropsychology program at Mass. General, allowed that there is some validity to the idea that with age comes wisdom. On the other hand, there are those who feel differently: H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote in his 1919 book Prejudices: Third Series, “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” Age does bring perspective, but drifting minds are not compatible with wisdom. Nevertheless, it now appears that the 2024 election will consist of two, deeply flawed, old men, both accused of corruption and neither wise. We can picture them “yodeling,” as Lance Morrow wrote in Thursday’s The Wall Street Journal, “across the valley at one another: ‘Not guilty! Not guilty!’” Or, as P.G. Wodehouse more colorfully put it in The Inimitable Jeeves, the prospect resembles “…when Aunt is calling Aunt, like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps…” This is not a prospect most Americans want.
It is not just the last two Presidents – both running for re-election – who are old. The average age in the U.S. Senate today is 65. Political leadership in Washington resembles the Soviet Union’s Politburo of 1982 when the average age was 70. But age, alone, is not the issue. We all know octogenarians and even nonagenarians who are mentally alert and physically spry. While he was writing of women, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words are universally applicable: “The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” Having cognizant-alert, elderly advisors has merit, as they can provide a sense of continuity and, despite Mencken’s warning, offer wisdom to new generations of more energetic politicians who will listen to, respond to and be honest with the people.
We who are older must adapt to life’s challenges. As J. Alfred Prufrock says, in T.S. Eliot’s eponymous poem: “I grow old…I grow old. / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” But that does not mean that our political parties should make the American people choose between one old man who is riven by an oversized personal ego and who speaks hatefully of those who cross him, and a second, even older man who trips boarding airplanes, who cannot speak without a teleprompter, and who utters non sequiturs that baffle his audience and his advisors.
Watching President Biden makes one wonder what it would have been like to observe President Woodrow Wilson after his October 1919 stroke? That was not permitted, as his wife and doctor kept him hidden from prying reporters. That cannot be done today. However, the White House keeps the President’s appearances to a minimum, and mainstream media, out of deference to the office, remains mute about Mr. Biden’s deteriorating mental capabilities. But our allies and enemies are aware of what is happening. Not a good look for the most powerful nation on earth. Age matters, but what is most important is how one ages. In the U.S. today, it is time to pass the torch.
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