Opinion: Why don’t voters care if a presidential candidate is old?
Former vice president Joe Biden speaks at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference in Washington on April 5. By Helaine Olen Helaine Olen Opinion writer focusing on politics, economics and American life Bio Follow Opinion writer April 23 at 1:54 PM Age discrimination is a major issue in American society. According to some reports, a majority of people older than 50 will be involuntarily separated from their jobs at least once.
How could this be? How can a society that worships youth on the job and in the culture turn into what Malcolm Harris, author of “Kids These Days,” calls a political gerontocracy? Well, you can thank a confluence of factors, ranging from the decades-long impact of the inordinately large baby-boomer generation, combined with how the particular personalities of a number of older candidates reflect what kind of older candidates we like — and which ones we don’t.
Then there is personality. As I’ve noted in the past, age works particularly well in Sanders’s favor because he plays the long-established role of the elderly truth-teller and moral authority. His positions — down with capitalism, up with increasing Social Security benefits — have been his positions for decades, no matter how unpopular they once might have been. That consistency particularly appeals to younger voters.
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