Donald Trump turns 78 years old today, making him just three years younger than President Joe Biden. But polling shows that U.S. voters are more focused on Biden's age than Trump's.
Why? Is the media to blame? Are the polls wrong? Vox explores some theories: https://flip.it/6usn_i
For ongoing coverage, follow @2024-elections-AxiosNews
A ballot measure left voters to decide whether 81 is too old for some political jobs. It was one state’s answer to an issue that has been a focus of national debate this #election cycle.
Voters in #NorthDakota approved a ballot measure that sets a maximum #age for representing the state in #Congress. Experts said they believed ND was the first state to impose such a requirement on members of Congress, though they said the measure is likely to be challenged in court.
The ballot measure, to amend the ND Constitution, bars congressional candidates who would turn 81 or older by the end of the year before their term ends from being eligible for office.
"Had Joe Biden stood on stage for 33 seconds saying nothing, looking off to the side, his face occasionally straining, there would be nonstop coverage by the major media citing it as evidence of poor mental health. They would certainly demand to know what’s wrong with him. But the media is giving Trump a pass on this."
"Republicans have no clear shot at him any more. There is no longer a strong case against Biden’s re-election. With that, I think what we are beginning to see is the election is increasingly becoming a referendum on Trump and not Biden."
"Getting old is one thing… Losing one's mind is quite another."
And: "Biden is getting older. Trump is losing his mind."
But: "Despite the clear signs that Trump is in an active state of mental disintegration, a broad swath of Americans have somehow gotten it into their heads that Biden is worse."
Wonder what role the media are playing to produce that result?
"Stories about Biden’s age swamped the media [with Hur's report]. Judd Legum of Popular Information found that in the four days after Hur’s report appeared, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal together published 81 articles about Hur’s assessment of Biden’s memory, suggesting that Biden was sliding into dementia and should not be running for reelection."
"Hours before the hearing was about to begin, the Department of Justice released a transcript of Biden’s interviews, held in the two days after Hamas attacked Israel as he rushed to respond to that crisis. The transcripts belied Hur’s portrayal of Biden’s answers; among other things, he clearly knew the exact date Beau died."
Hur is a Republican hitman, doing what GOP hitmen always do. And the media remain shamefully pliant as these games are played.
"Hur wrote a slanderous report that claimed Joe Biden was 'an elderly man with a poor memory.' The primary evidence for Hur’s slander was Biden’s alleged inability to recall the date of his son Beau’s death.
The transcript shows that Hur’s claims are despicable lies. In fact, Joe Biden volunteered the month and day of Beau Biden’s death—May 30."
"The media lapped up Hur’s lies and slander without question. The revelation that Hur lied about and distorted Biden’s testimony is receiving a fraction of the media attention that Hur’s weaponized lies received in the first instance.
That outcome was predictable because Hur is a MAGA political partisan."
"First came the transcript, in which Joe Biden was clearly documented to remember the date his son Beau died, if not the year (that’s normal for most people). And then came the hearing in which Robert Hur could not remember complementing Biden on his memory until Democrats read him the transcript."
~ Greg Dworkin
Robert is a Republican hitman. Hitmen typically have no shame.
"Today, March 12, the full transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden was made public in advance of the special counsel’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. And as reporters noted, the Biden of the transcript looks quite different from the forgetful Biden described in the report. 'Biden doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be,' wrote the Washington Post."
"I guess I don’t care if he mispronounces 'Venezuela' while appearing to get high on his own supply, I care about the fascism. Project 2025 is a fascist endeavor.
If we were a healthy society, we would prioritize a return to decency and the rule of law. We would swiftly arrest Donald Trump and his co-conspirators for their complicity in an attempted coup, which somehow this country seems to have forgotten."
“'But His Age' is simply 'But Her Emails' as we saw with Hillary Clinton — it’s a gaslighting mantra for simpletons who don’t want to think too hard about the fact that we are the targets of a global fascist criminal movement attempting to eviscerate democracy. The New York Times and cable news know this, and they’ve placed their bets on fascism."
"So Hur said that Biden couldn't remember when his son died within several years and that was proof that his memory was shot but now the transcript has been released and it turns out Biden immediately recalled the MONTH and DAY."
Robert Tracinski points to the ugly ageist meme that Biden's old, and notes:
"And it’s not just the right. For months now, Biden’s age has been the white whale of the New York Times."
Then he adds,
All of these discussions about whether Biden or Trump are showing signs of an aging brain merely demonstrate how much people are missing the point of this election."
"Up to the very moment Biden took the stage, the commentariat was wondering: How will he come across? Will he trip on the way to the lectern, freeze while on camera, or reveal some other ‘doddering’ weakness? And, how can he make anyone care about what he’s done?
You didn’t hear any of that once the speech was over."
"The oldest president in history just gave the fiercest State of the Union address in history.
Joe Biden proves once again that age is nothing but a number. …
After weeks of media coverage stoking concerns about his mental acuity, Biden’s ferocious speech and gleeful, unscripted engagement with unruly Republican backbenchers undercut attempts to make his age the central issue."
Dan Pfeifer writes that "Thursday night demonstrated the folly of Trump’s 'Sleepy Joe' strategy":
"Donald Trump and the Republicans smelled blood. President Biden had recently been on the defensive about his age. A series of polls released over the weekend heightened Democratic concerns. The Republicans knew the press would treat a misstatement or minor gaffe during Biden’s State of the Union address as a campaign-ending transgression."
"Before the speech, MAGA Inc., a Trump-aligned Super PAC, released a brutal ad concerning Biden’s age that questioned whether he would survive a second term.
And just to twist the knife, they ran the ad during Morning Joe, which, like Message Box, is a staple of the President’s media diet.
Republican House members in the room tried to goad Biden into a mistake."
"Marjorie Taylor Greene, dressed in full MAGA regalia, staked Biden out as he walked to the dais and then tried to interrupt him while he spoke about border security.
None of it worked. Biden delivered a boffo performance, and the media coverage and online conversation have all been about the strength and vigor he demonstrated."
The ugly ageism would not have legs without the media, without may callow, heartless and soulless young journalists baying for blood because Biden is "old." As is Trump, but he's given a free pass….
I'm a firm believer in the dictum by which I was raised: What goes around, comes around.
I hope when those young reporters live to be old and gray, as many of them likely will, they'll look back and feel remorse — even shame — at their behavior these days.
L O L G O P notes the media's gross ageist fixation on Biden's age (as Jack Shafer of Politico says approvingly, the press "is all over Biden now" re: his age), and asks, Why? Why this fixation, when Trump, who is three years younger and in obvious mental decline, is given a free pass:
"I think the 'legitimate' press thinks it’s their job to keep Donald Trump close, functioning like an electoral college-bias for him."
"We probably can’t stop them from aiding fascism in this way. But we can at least let them know that we see what they’re up to."
I watch many hot-shot younger journalists who so obviously take delight in promoting an indefensible ageist narrative about Biden, and who are as pleased as punch with themselves, and think of George Washington Carver's famous appeal to us to practice kindness, including compassion for the aged, since we will one day be old, too, if we live long.
Jennifer Mercieca notes that right-wing authoritarian voters need an Übermensch who can shield them from dealing with complexity. And this is why they run Biden down for being old:
"If you wonder why they're always running down Biden for being old, for being, you know, mentally incompetent and not as physically strong as Donald Trump or mentally strong."
"All of those comparisons are made because they want to say that Biden is a beta, and that Trump is an alpha... That he's a strongman Übermensch and he, as the strongman, will become dictator in order to affect the MAGA agenda."