What the “Biden Too Old” Discourse Is Really About

Let’s evaluate the arguments of those who describe Biden as manifestly unfit – and how they preemptively assign blame for Trump’s possible return to “the Liberals” they despise

Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The “Biden too old” discourse is in overdrive again.

Last week, special counsel Robert Hur, tasked by attorney general Merrick Garland with investigating Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents after he was vice president, released his report. Hur found that Biden indeed mishandled classified information – but also decided there was no basis for filing criminal charges. In fact, Hur emphasized the stark contrast in the Trump and Biden documents cases, emphasizing how Biden had fully cooperated with the investigation at all times.

And yet, what we have been talking about is something else entirely. Because Hur also did what should have been expected from a Republican Trump appointee in good standing with this current GOP and used the report for a political attack on Biden: He gratuitously talked about the president’s memory lapses during the investigation, including supposedly not remembering when his son died. He also speculated there wouldn’t be much chance to get Biden convicted anyway because “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Why even bring this up, considering that the report makes it clear the actual reason for not putting Biden on trial was a lack of evidence? But, again, such a political attack is the price Democrats predictably have to pay for Merrick Garland’s refusal to accept that his idea of good-faith nonpartisanship hasn’t existed on the Republican side in a long time.

Equally predictable has been the media reaction: An avalanche of coverage almost entirely predicated on the idea that the Hur Report proved yet again, scientifically and conclusively, that Biden was impaired, senile, too old not only to do his job as president but, crucially, to win the next presidential election. Take the country’s paper of record as an example: Within about 48 hours of the Hur Report’s release, the New York Times news coverage included prominently placed pieces titled “Special Counsel’s Report Puts Biden’s Age and Memory in the Spotlight,” “Biden Cleared in Documents Case; Report Raises Concerns About His Memory,” and “How Old Is Too Old to Be President? An Uncomfortable Question Arises Again.” This was flanked, on the opinion side, by the Times editorial board weighing in with “The Challenges of an Aging President,” Bret Stephens declaring “Democrats Can No Longer Stay Silent About Biden,” Maureen Dowd demanding “Mr. President, Ditch the Stealth About Health,” and Ross Douthat adding “The Question Is Not If Biden Should Step Aside. It’s How.”

“Biden too old” is always lurking and extremely exhausting

“Biden too old” has been with us since at least the 2020 Democratic primaries. It always lurks, and in irregular intervals, it dominates the discussion. Weirdly, the fact that we are all talking about it has never prevented people from demanding Liberals stop silencing anyone who dares to bring up the issue – or, as data-guru-turned-anti-“woke”-pundit Nate Silver put it last September, stop “shrugging off” concerns over Biden’s age. Silver bemoaned what he made sound like an omertà among mainstream media, Democrats, and Liberal elites right when the “too old” trope was about to, yet again, fully dominate the coverage. The New York Times, for instance, reported on the president’s diplomatic trip around the world that month by framing it entirely as a test of his “stamina”: “‘It Is Evening, Isn’t It?’ An 80-Year-Old President’s Whirlwind Trip,” the Times titled, and added: “But Mr. Biden took another objective overseas, too, as he enters an election season facing questions about his age and stamina: showing that he is still up to the challenges of globe-trotting statesmanship.” Overall, in the first four weeks of September, the New York Times opinion section published 39 pieces that mentioned “Biden age” – as Magdi Jacobs pointed out, over the same time period, the Times platformed only 17 opinion pieces that included the words “Trump indictment.” And the September focus on Biden’s age led straight into the October / early November panic over a series of high-profile polls that showed Biden trailing Trump in key battleground states – surely, the prevailing mainstream opinion was, the president’s unpopularity had to be causally related to his age. That doesn’t sound like much of a code of silence surrounding Biden’s age, does it?

Frankly, I hate writing about this. The “Biden too old” discourse is extremely frustrating, exhausting, and it’s a minefield that is simply impossible to navigate without making a lot of people very angry. To some in the Biden camp, any criticism that focuses on questions of age and fitness is inherently part of a bigoted, ageist campaign and/or part of a political hit job. On the other side, critics regard Democrats holding on to someone who they see as a manifestly unfit as evidently disastrous – and believe those responsible within the party, the liberal media, and the whole center-left commentariat should be held directly responsible for the inevitable triumph of fascism. For centrist and center-right commentators, specifically, any pushback against the way Biden’s age is publicly discussed and deployed against him is just more evidence of how silly Democrats are, how irrational and unreasonable this whole center-left and liberal milieu is. Many on the Left, meanwhile, are angry because they were promised, in 2020, that the path to defeating fascism was to support and be part of the Biden coalition; but then the liberal power center didn’t hold up its end of the bargain by transitioning from Biden to someone more capable – instead basically guaranteeing the return of Trumpism to power by arrogantly clinging to Biden.

There does not seem to be much room for a reflection on the “Biden too old” discourse that doesn’t just piss off everyone. Why not sit this one out then? Well, Joe Biden is running for reelection, and he is broadly unpopular. “He is too old” will inevitably be a massive part of the political discourse going forward, and it is important to investigate the arguments and dynamics that shape this debate. I also keep telling myself that I should not make “How does this position me in the discourse?” (Who will like what I write, who will hate it? Will I gain or lose subscribers over this?) the overriding concern and starting point of my writing. So, quite possibly against better judgment, let’s do it.

There are, generally speaking, two different dimensions to consider. There are, first, the broader dynamics governing mainstream media coverage of Biden’s age. On this level, the question is how to explain the editorial decisions that lead to a completely disproportionate fixation on this one issue, turning it, as many people have rightfully observed, into another “But her emails” phenomenon. I’ll leave these questions aside for now, as much of the pushback has focused on this.

I want to concentrate on a different dimension: on the substantive critique that is being advanced in the “Biden too old” category. What is the evidence presented? What are the arguments and suggestions? Do they actually hold up to scrutiny? This critique is certainly coming from the Left too. But in recent days, spurred by the Hur report, it has come in a particularly forceful, aggressive fashion from a political spectrum that I would describe as the center to as far right as you can go within the – ostensibly – anti-MAGA camp: From establishment conservatives, the center-right and people who self-identify as liberals, but with a distinctly anti-left/anti-“woke” bend, which plausibly puts them, labels aside, at the center of the political discourse. Specifically, I want to dissect the “Biden too old” arguments that have come out in the New York Times – from the already mentioned stable of opinionists (Douthat, Stephens, Dowd) and the paper’s editorial board, plus a reaction from Damon Linker, who is prominently holding down that liberal centrism space, titled “What the Hell is Wrong with the Democrats?” On the off chance that any of them ever read this, and considering that I know all these terms – centrism, conservatism, etc – are contested: Don’t worry about the labels. Worry about my assessment of the actual “Biden too old” arguments they are presenting. And those break down, very broadly speaking, into two separate cases: an electoral case, basically: “He can’t win”; and a fitness/ability case, basically: “He can’t do the actual job of president.”

Three points of contention with the “Biden too old” critics

I say it’s only fair if I state my own perspective on the question of Biden’s age clearly before I start criticizing what anyone else has said. In general, I think the age structure of America’s political elite is indeed a real issue worth discussing. This is a “both sides” problem if there ever was one. Compared with other democracies, the U.S. is quite the outlier in this respect: A lot of America’s political leaders are very old. Leaving aside concerns over fitness, such an age structure is almost certainly indicative of a rather unhealthy political culture in which people amass power and wealth and then cling to their position – helped by a massive incumbency advantage, extremely high hurdles for people to challenge for elected office, and too many uncompetitive political races. In other words, politicians remaining in a position of power and influence is not so much due to ability or experience, but to structural factors that remove elected officials and party elites too far from democratic control. It is entirely justified, therefore, from a democratic perspective, to see the fact that the only realistic candidates are two men who would be 86 and 82, respectively, by the end of the next presidential term as a problematic manifestation of these structural and cultural factors.

More specifically on the question of Biden’s age, I do believe that *concerns* both on the electoral level (Can he win the 2024 presidential election?) and on the ability/fitness level (Can he do the job?) are justified. This is, in a vacuum, not inherently a mean, ageist campaign. We are not talking about vulnerable workers and employees who are being discriminated against on the basis of age, but about powerful men, elite in every respect, asking the American people to hand them the tremendous powers and responsibilities of the presidency for four years starting in January 2025. Finally, I do think that Biden’s reelection is very much in doubt right now. Nothing is determined, there is no reason for fatalism. But this is going to be a very close election. Basically a 50:50 call. And Joe Biden is certainly extremely unpopular right now, even by the standards of previous incumbents at a similar point in their first term.

Oh, so enough said then, right? The “Biden too old” crowd is clearly right? Not so fast. I have three larger points of contention with the discourse surrounding Biden’s age. First all, unless it’s just bigotry, fitness is not the same as age. Unless I am completely misunderstanding the state of our knowledge surrounding aging, my general assumption is that there is indeed a greater risk of afflictions that diminish our abilities as we get older. There is, in other words, a general physical decline – which we can compensate through better judgment and experience. Until, at some point, we can’t anymore. Has Joe Biden reached that point? If, on the ability/fitness front, the case is as clear as some very prominent people say it is, I’m sure they have good evidence? After all, the man has been president for over three years – so, there has to be ample evidence for his manifest unfitness then, correct?

Secondly, while all the available evidence tells us that, as of right now, Joe Biden is broadly unpopular, the “Biden too old” critics tend to jump too quickly from there to a) that’s because of his age, and b) and that means people won’t vote for him in November. On the latter point, I recommend reading what Michael Podhorzer has written and said (including on our podcast) about how (not) to interpret horse race and favorability polls. In brief, they aren’t meaningless, but taking them as predictions of voting behavior in a future election that is still months away is simplistic and misleading. People know the difference between being asked to give their opinion on a politician in a poll and voting. Besides, election cycles in 2022 and 2023 have demonstrated that a significant percentage of voters who say they don’t like Joe Biden is still voting for Democrats. That doesn’t change the fact that the general environment is not exactly confidence-inducing. But any argument based on polling should grapple seriously with these questions of what, exactly, polling results can and cannot tell us.

Whatever the exact relation between current polling data and the election in November, Joe Biden is, as of right now, very unpopular. But is that because he is so old? At first glance, the polls seem to suggest a very clear answer. In a much-discussed New York Times/Siena poll that came out in early November and still serves as a key reference point in the discussion today, 71 percent of people said Biden was “too old to be president” (only 39 percent said this about Trump); 62 percent declared Biden “does not have the mental sharpness to be president” (44 percent for Trump). If anything, the numbers have gotten worse since: In a new Ipsos/ABC poll, conducted immediately after the release of the Hur report, 86 percent of people saw Biden as “too old to serve another term” – the corresponding number for Trump was 62 percent. Case closed? Again, not so fast. As Seth Masket discussed from a political science perspective in his newsletter, the evidence that people just don’t like old politicians is actually not very strong. And look at those polls again: Are we supposed to believe that a significantly lower number of Americans deems Trump unfit to serve than Biden? I’d say what’s being measured here are not objective concerns about the fitness of political leaders. There is no such thing as a stable “public opinion” that can be objectively measured in polling. Whatever these polls capture is, to some extent, a reflection of a specific information environment at a specific moment in time. There is, in that sense, something very circular about the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll: The Hur Report comes out, all mainstream outlets go “Biden too old!”, then people get asked: “Do you think Biden is too old?”, and their responses reflect the discourse back at those who have had a significant influence on shaping it.

Does that mean this is all just a media creation? No, that would also be far too simplistic a reading. But there is, in addition to the ebbs and flows of the “Biden too old” discourse manifesting in polling numbers, also the question of which direction the causality actually flows here: Is Biden so unpopular because he is too old – or is he, for various reasons and due to a general frustration with the status quo, very unpopular, and asking people whether or not Biden is too old then offers a way to substantiate and justify that general frustration and dislike?

Again, the takeaway here should not be to dismiss Biden’s unpopularity, or to steadfastly claim that his lack of popularity doesn’t have anything to do with age and perceived lack of fitness. But if you want to make a grand electoral / electability case against Biden centered around his age, I’d say there are some questions to grapple with here that go well beyond simplistic “look at the polls!” takes.

My third and final point of contention with the “Biden too old” line of criticism: What is the way forward? If your argument is that Biden has to go and must not be the Democratic presidential candidate in November, then I’m assuming you have a realistic path forward to offer? I understand and acknowledge that some in the “Biden too old” crowd have been making that argument for quite some time. Fair enough. But now it’s February in a presidential election year – whatever course correction is demanded has to be viable and practical. If you say you *don’t* want Donald Trump to return to the presidency – in fact, your whole criticism is predicated on the idea that Biden must go precisely because he would hand Trump the presidency –, then there must be a realistic off-ramp that leads to what you say is your preferred outcome, a Democratic victory in November?

What do the “Biden too old” folks have to offer?

With all those considerations in mind, let’s look at some of the “Biden too old” cases that have been prominently advanced since the Hur Report came out. Let’s start with the electoral / electability argument. As you would expect, basically all the pieces I’ve looked at point to the polling data. As the New York Times editorial board put it: “A remarkably broad swath of the American public — both Mr. Biden’s supporters and his detractors — have expressed increasing doubts about his ability to serve for another five years because of his age.” They are referring to the Times/Siena poll I have discussed above, as most of the NYT authors do; Damon Linker refers to an NBC poll from a few days before the Hur Report that offers similar numbers.

What is striking, however, is that none of these pieces offer anything in terms of reflection of what these numbers mean. They reference them rather emphatically and suggest it’s all so self-evident. That’s disappointing, seeing that a more sophisticated discussion of polling numbers has been going on for years. Yet in the “Biden too old” realm, polling numbers are apparently still offered as objective, unquestionable evidence for exactly the premise from which the authors start. “After Thursday, millions of Americans will have even greater grounds to fear that it’s the job that might finish him,” Bret Stephens prophesizes – pretending just to present what his fellow citizens will surely take away from the Hur debacle, while actually contributing to exactly this outcome with his punditry.

What about the ability/fitness argument then – is Biden too old to do the job? Actually, according to the New York Times editorial board, Biden has been a pretty good president: “In the most challenging moments of his presidency, in supporting our allies when they are threatened and in steering the U.S. economy away from recession, Mr. Biden has been a wise and steady presence.” And to the extent that they discuss his actual governing record at all, the “Biden too old” pieces that have come out in recent days largely agree. Even Ross Douthat begrudgingly admits that “You can make a case that as obvious as his decline has been, whatever equilibrium his White House has worked out has thus far delivered results largely indistinguishable from (and sometimes better than) what one would expect from a replacement-level Democratic president.” Douthat is evidently really uncomfortable with even this heavily qualified compliment – which is why he adds that “If there has been a really big age effect in his presidency so far, I suspect it lies in the emboldenment of America’s rivals, a sense that a decrepit American chief executive is less to be feared than a more vigorous one.” Douthat himself admits that this just a “suspicion” – I’d call it a completely unfounded and unsubstantiated speculation. And that’s the best – or: worst – he can come up with.

And that’s really all we get in terms of an actual assessment of Biden’s time in office and how it might have been diminished by age and unfitness. Stephens, Dowd, and Linker basically don’t touch on anything that could be classified as Biden’s actual governing record. What is it these pieces offer in terms of evidence for their overall premise that Biden is too old? Well, for one thing, he doesn’t do enough interviews and press conferences. The admission that Biden’s actual record has been solid, for instance, comes towards the very end of the New York Times editorial board’s intervention. Until then, it’s all about the fact that Biden has given fewer press conferences then any president but Nixon and Reagan in the past 100 years. And, would you believe it, “Mr. Biden has even refused to do an interview before the Super Bowl, a practice that allowed presidents to speak to Americans informally before the country’s largest sporting event of the year, unpersuasively citing a desire to give the public a break from politics.” Biden did, of course, address the press on Thursday in reaction to the Hur Report. But that, according to the editorial board, was no good either, since “the president raised more questions about his cognitive sharpness and temperament, as he delivered emotional and snappish retorts in a moment when people were looking for steady, even and capable responses to fair questions about his fitness.” Note the very subjective and specific – one might say: random – criteria by which a good news conference is to be distinguished from a bad news conference.

Bret Stephens also harps on Biden’s supposedly very bad performance in last week’s press conference. He makes sure to tell us the president can’t fool him with such a performance. Instead, Stephens feels comfortable diagnosing a “medical pattern” with Biden’s decline into manifest unfitness – something he and the American people, for which he claims to speak, apparently can say from afar because “Tens of millions of Americans have direct experience watching a close relative slide into dementia.” No references to any actual medical evidence or expert testimony are provided.

Maureen Dowd also *really* didn’t like Biden’s press conference: “Petulance is never a good look. Biden should have taken a breath … Pushing back at the image of a crotchety grandpa, he came across like a crotchety grandpa.” Interestingly, she draws a comparison to Trump who “makes his own verbal slips and shows signs of aging, but he conveys more energy.” I will admit it’s true that whatever physical and mental decline Biden and Trump have experienced manifests differently today. But is the important takeaway from Trump rambling and threatening and fabulating in an utterly incoherent way really that he “conveys energy,” while Biden is “petulant”? Well, Dowd certainly is well in line with the New York Times’ overall assessment of Trump’s “stamina” – as in: “He is heavyset and tall, and he uses his physicality to project strength in front of crowds. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in adulation for several minutes, dancing to an opening song, and then holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina.” That’s from a news article the Times published on Saturday, titled “Why the Age Issue Is Hurting Biden So Much More Than Trump.”

What about Ross Douthat? After all, he – begrudgingly! – admitted Biden has been competent. Ah, but that won’t last, Douthat knows. How can he be sure? Because Biden is like a lightbulb. Yes, a lightbulb “that still burns so long as you keep it on a dimmer.” But it flickers, and “Every flicker is evidence that a change is necessary.” I’m not sure such an analogy holds up all that well medically and physiologically?

Finally, Damon Linker mobilizes the opinion of a personal friend as additional evidence for why Biden is, as Linker puts it, “too old and frail for the job he holds right now,” and certainly not fit to serve another term. He quotes that friend: “Biden looks impaired to me. His eyes are nearly shut with a squint. His face is frozen like he’s on anti-Parkinson’s drugs. He slurs when he speaks. He shuffles when he walks. He’s too old to be President!” Anti-Parkinson’s drugs. That’s very specific. Again, no references to medical evidence or expert testimony are provided.

Overall, there is frustratingly little in terms of actual evidence in these pieces for a premise that the authors all claim is self- evidently correct: Biden is too old. For the job, for the election. Look, I think there is a lot to be praised and a lot to be criticized about the Biden administration’s record so far. On the side of criticism, specifically, I have found the unwillingness or at least reluctance to fully grapple with who and what the Republican Party beyond just Trump has become extremely frustrating; most recently, Biden’s position on Gaza has been morally and politically disastrous. But is any of that causally related to Biden being unfit because of age? Hardly. Has his government been functional and competent (even if I may disagree with the outcomes) mostly because Biden has competent people around him who know what to do? Maybe. But that’s not an argument in favor of the “Biden too old” trope. On the contrary, if Biden knows how to surround himself with people who can compensate whatever he can’t deliver, that should last going forward.

Do they have a solution?

What about, finally, the path going forward? If Biden is too old and needs to go, what’s the plan? Well, the editorial board demands more press conferences (how helpful!); Maureen Dowd just says it “is not going to work”; and Bret Stephens opines that “If ever there was a moment when someone in the White House must summon the grace to let the torch be passed to a new generation, this is it.” I guess others need to figure out what that could look like in practice?

Ah, but to their credit, Linker and Douthat both do offer concrete suggestions. Linker thinks Biden should drop out as soon as possible and tell the delegates he has won so far to support whoever emerges at the Convention as the best person to beat Trump. He reminds us there is precedence for such a move, as Lyndon Johnson dropped out of the race at the end of March 1968 (the Democrats lost the 1968 election to Nixon, of course). “Better late than never remains a wise bit of advice in many situations, including this one,” Linker says. Hm. Or is it more of a platitude?

While I don’t find much solace in Linker’s suggestion, it certainly outlines a path that qualifies as realistic, at least. Douthat, on the other hand, doesn’t seem constrained by realism and offers fan fiction instead. He suggests that Biden should pretend to stay in the race, “continue attacking Donald Trump – until August and the convention, when he would shock the world by announcing his withdrawal from the race, decline to issue any endorsement, and invite the convention delegates to choose his replacement.” Ok! Yes, of course, that would be quite the scandal. But fear not, because, as Douthat argues, “the number of relieved voters would surely outstrip the number of resentful ones.” Surely.

Resignation and accommodation

I am concerned about the election in November and I am concerned about Joe Biden’s ability to be president for almost five more years. But I am also entirely unconvinced by what these authors are presenting here as analysis and perspective. If that’s the best the “Biden too old” discourse has to offer, then I don’t think we should be buying it.

Unfortunately, these preemptive post-mortems are probably having the effect of making a Trump win in November more likely. The “Biden too old” trope they are propagating is contributing to a permission structure that allows people who may not like Trump very much and don’t think of themselves as supporters of rightwing extremism to support rightwing extremism nonetheless.

All of the authors I have looked at claim that this is absolutely not their intention – even though they must be aware that, if Biden stays in the race, which is by far the most likely outcome, what they are writing is damaging his chances. Are they lying to us? Do they secretly want Trump to win? No. That conclusion would be unfair and unfounded. It is not unfair, however, to point out that Ross Douthat has adopted a kind of anti-anti-Trumpism that makes him a lot more receptive to the idea that Joe Biden is *also* a terrible choice. He has also stated consistently that he doesn’t think Trump is the kind of acute threat Liberals claim he is. “There Will Be No Trump Coup,” Douthat infamously chided those silly Libs weeks before the 2020 election; any talk about a “crisis of democracy” was hysterical, he declared in the run-up to the 2022 midterms; and he has recently argued that disqualifying Trump from future office was ridiculous because January 6 was really not an insurrection. Does that amount to an outright pro-Trump stance? No. But Douthat clearly doesn’t like the liberal / progressive vision for America, and he would prefer conservatives to be in charge. That certainly shapes his perspective, on the matter of Biden’s age and everything else.

Damon Linker’s case is very different. He has been clear and precise about the threat Trump and a radicalized Republican Party constitute. He is steadfastly anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, anti-GOP (in its current iteration), and pro-democracy. But he is also very clearly annoyed with many of his fellow anti-Trumpers. In his latest “Biden too old” piece, he has absolutely no more patience for Democrats who complain about unfair treatment by special counsel Hur or the media (“Oh, for the love of God, stop whining!” is what he wants to tell them). You know what, I really get and largely share that sentiment. But I think Linker’s exasperation with what he sees as misled and counter-productive anti-Trump efforts emanating from an increasingly panicky and silly liberal camp – including the efforts to disqualify Trump under the Insurrection clause, which he has called “breathtakingly foolish” – is coloring his analysis too much.

There is, ultimately, a self-serving dimension to these “Biden too old” takes coming from the center to conservative non-MAGA Right. They are preemptively assigning blame – for a possible, maybe even expected Trump return to power – to those who have annoyed them and with whom they have disagreed for some time: the Democratic Party and its liberal enablers and cheerleaders in the media and elsewhere. As the whole center-Left and all the Liberals are supposedly losing their minds, they tell us that they are the only rational actors in the game who are still willing to acknowledge what is so evidently true. And when Trump wins in November, they can say “We told you so.” I can’t help but think of this as a form of resigning oneself to an outcome they claim they are trying to prevent. A particular kind of accommodation even.