Decisions and reality

the presidency

I got off a Facetime call at about 1 pm with my son, a thirty-something who is keenly politically aware but not in the political or security businesses (he is a population guy, he tells me, meaning he models various populations with math skills I did not know humans had).

Months ago, he rued to me that he could not understand some of his high school cohort who were so dismissive of a Biden reelection bid. My son ran through the long list of legislative achievements of this current administration, then summed up by saying “How would I not support the most successive president of my lifetime?”

Last week we discussed the Biden reelection conundrum. My son had not changed his view of Biden having been successful in many (certainly not all) of his agenda items but agreed that Biden’s age no longer provided confidence he could fulfill the tasks of the job through another four year term.

When we spoke this afternoon he noted he is reading a Joseph Ellis history, The Cause and Its Discontents. My son mentioned on Ellis’s rendition of George Washington voluntarily surrendering his wartime commission in the Maryland State House across town on 23 December 1783 upon completing his mission of defeating the British in the War of Independence. My son then went on to compare Washington’s act with “these two guys we have now. How did we get to where we are as a country?”

Curiously, I finished Rick Atkinson’s final book of the Liberation Trilogy yesterday early. The Guns at Last Light is, of course, includes the description of Franklin Roosevelt passing away early in his fourth term at 63 years old. Of course Roosevelt was POTUS during the Great Depression and World War II, conditions we mercifully do not confront.

As we look back on photographs of FDR, one marvels that he won the 1944 campaign as he was clearly dying. That does not mean the nation did not then (and today) also thank him for the grit he brought in carrying the country to war’s end. FDR fell short of that end, dying of a brain aneurysm induced by stress high blood pressure, chain smoking cigarettes, and the inability to walk away from the pressures of running the world.

Yes, the Presidency is an extraordinarily tough job. If one does it effectively, it is all encompassing. Americans generally reject people we believe are not going to do that job when elected—or we have. Sure, Jimmy Carter may make it to the century mark on the 1st of October this year but he left the White House stresses 44 years ago in January. There is a reason that our most trusted military officers and career Foreign Service Officers retire at what seems a relatively young point in life: they have been through pressure cooker positions. The presidency is even more harsh on that score.

Any candidate for Chief Executive must govern while running for office across 50 states for the votes of hundreds of millions of citizens.

Donald Trump, as I opined several times, is not younger than Joe Biden by any meaningful number of years. Trump has always mangled facts, whether deliberately or out of laziness or out of ignorance, and shows the same age-induced strains. His candidacy is not serving the nation any more than Biden’s was and he shows similar deterioration of age that are well beyond what someone ought bring into the White House at the beginning of another four year term.

Are we ever served well by asking someone in his late 70s or early 80s to seek election for this position? This is not a partisan attack but a bloody serious question. I am younger than either of these men but know the wear and tear I have experienced in my rather mundane life. It is unfathomable that we are seeing another candidate of the same years, with numerous indicators of deficits in his own abilities, continue in this race. Are we any more convinced a candidate elected at age 78 can fulfill a term than we were for one who was 82?

SERIOUSLY, people?

I advocated Biden’s departure from the race 11 days ago when I similarly raised questions about Trump’s age. This is not ageism but bowing to the realities all of us, if we are lucky enough to reach so many years, confront as the birthday candles accumulate. Please don’t forget that the average life expectancy for men in the United States is 73.5 years, according to https://www.seniorliving.org/research/life-expectancy/calculator/

It’s an appropriate question we all need ponder.

This does not mean Trump and Biden cannot continue contributing to our nation but they were both elevating risk beyond a reasonable level.

Thank you to Joe Biden for stepping aside for the sake of the nation.

Actions create consequences. Sometimes they result from actions but often from inactions as well. We ought remember that.

Thank you for reading this column. I welcome any criticisms, support or rebuttals as I genuinely want to increase our measured, civil debate on the issues we confront. Please feel free to circulate this if you find it of value.

Thank you to the subscribers who pledge resources to this newsletter as you make a difference in my work.

I restacked a column today called “An Old Woman sitting on the Sidewalk” by Robert Leonard in his Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture substack. I recommend we all think about Leonard’s wise thoughts built on painful observations.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Rick Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light: The war in Western Europe, 1944-1945. New York: Henry Holt, 2013.

Joseph Ellis, The Cause: the American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2021.

“Life Expectancy Calculator”, seniorliving.org, retrieved at https://www.seniorliving.org/research/life-expectancy/calculator/