Washington Is Turning On Biden as 69% of Democrats Say He’s Too Old to Run

Washington’s simmering gerontocracy problem is about to explode

Sen. Mitt Romney’s announcement yesterday that he would not be seeking reelection was a broadside pointed directly at Washington’s gerontocracy (rule by the elderly).

"At the end of another term, I'd be in my mid-eighties,” Romney said, alluding to the same age the two leading presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, would be. “Frankly, it's time for a new generation of leaders. They're the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in."

Romney’s statement is another sign of the shifting Washington consensus on the question of age, Romney giving voice to concerns held by much of Biden’s own party but which have been a forbidden subject here in Washington — until now. The seismic shift has happened quickly: all of a sudden the power brokers in Washington see age as a genuine issue. 

One the same day as Romney’s announcement, a prominent liberal Washington Post columnist also called for Biden to withdraw, citing concerns about his age.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius devoted his entire column (titled, “President Biden should not run again in 2024”) to the subject. A shrewd observer of the Washington scene, Ignatius’s column was generous, crediting the president with a “remarkable string of wins” and praising his “steady hand” which “passed some of the important domestic legislation in recent decades.”

Unlike the kind of opportunistic “sleepy Joe” swipes we’ve seen from former president Trump and his ilk for years, Ignatius says it was a “painful” column for him to write given his “admiration for much of what they have accomplished.” What compelled him to speak out, he says, is deep concern over Biden’s ability to defeat Trump, citing a raft of ominous new polling.

77 percent of Americans, including even 69 percent of Democrats, believe Biden is too old to serve another term, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll last month.

America magazine, described by the Washington Post as "a favorite of Catholic liberal intellectuals," has likewise called for Biden (who is Catholic) as well as Trump to withdraw. “Joe Biden and Donald Trump need to take a page from Pope Benedict,” the headline reads, referring to the aging German pope who resigned in 2013 — the first pope to do so in 600 years. 

And Vice President Kamala Harris is all of a sudden defending Biden’s age, as if on script. “I see him every day. A substantial amount of time we spend together is in the Oval Office, where I see how his ability to understand issues and weave through complex issues in a way that no one else can, to make smart and important decisions on behalf of the American people have played out,” she said in an AP interview last week. Harris was stressing her ability to step into the job if she had to “take over the job of being president.” 

Acknowledgement of the downsides of Biden’s age follows a humiliating months long saga in which some of the most powerful elected officials in the country have had high-profile lapses in public. After two incidents in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze while speaking, Google searches for the term “gerontocracy” spiked, as I reported for The Intercept. The episodes follow multiple falls McConnell has suffered in recent months, including one that resulted in a concussion and hospitalization.

90-year-old California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s decline has been punctuated by several widely-publicized memory lapses. Things she’s forgotten including how to vote, even her monthslong absence from the Senate for health reasons, and the fact that she granted her daughter power of attorney. 

The national security implications of dementia are on the table now, after a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank warned that dementia among U.S. officials poses a national security threat, as I reported in The Intercept this week. As Senate Minority Leader, McConnell is a member of the so-called Gang of Eight, a group that enjoys the most privileged access to classified matters of anyone in Congress. Feinstein, for her part, is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, affording her access to sensitive intelligence.

Read my full story for The Intercept here.