Biden’s Age Handicap
Yesterday I saw two TV commercials for the upcoming NFL football season. Both of them highlighted fast running, tackling, and catching passes (and instantly being tackled). Seeing it immediately made me realize why Joe Biden is polling roughly equal to Trump for President, with some pundits venturing if the election were run today Trump would win or come close. To those of us on the Left, this seems both frightening and barely credible.
Even setting aside the flaws of polls in predicting elections—especially 14 months out—one can still be alarmed by at least one poll showing a horse race at 46 vs 46 pct. Who are the 46% favoring Trump? Let’s say 20-25% of the U.S. population are die-hard Trump supporters; many of them are members of a cult who could even find justification for Donald Trump murdering a child in broad daylight. Another 10% are from the ranks who are not die-hard Trump supporters but who would vote for any Republican in any election.
That leaves another 10-12% of the Americans who support Trump against Biden for reasons not immediately clear.
It’s clearer if you take popularity of football as a symptom of the ageist mindset that undermines Biden’s stature.
The most critical factor in Biden’s poor poll numbers is the belief that Joe Biden is too old to run again for president. It’s not just because of right-wing media’s caricature of Biden as a doddering victim of dementia. The mainstream press, social media, and Democratic doubters just can’t stop talking about Biden’s age at every opportunity, with left-leaning cable and social media joining the chorus.
It’s not politics, it’s culture that disadvantages Joe Biden
While watchingthe football ads, I realized Biden’s anemic support has less to do directly with his chronological age than with his apparent lack of vitality and quickness. The contrast is stark when compared with top American football players—men who are watched and admired by at least a third of Americans every week, September through January. Some surveys show as many as 2/3rds of American adults watch the Super Bowl.
The popularity of American football crosses genders: the online polling service statista.com found that 32% of adult women in the U.S. name football as their favorite sport (versus 43% of men)—and since 31% of American adult women don’t have a favorite sport, fully 46% of women who do have a favorite sport prefer football.
Football may be America’s favorite sport because it prizes explosive speed, power, and agility, which in combination are the province of young men. It’s no accident that the average retirement age of an NFL player is 27 years, (because of the pummeling that slows them down physically and head injuries that slow them down mentally). Biden is the opposite of those pre-retirement young football players—he’s slow in speech and motion, and on camera appears stiff and frail. These qualities fit with the perception that aging brings with it a lack of capability; even though based on the record of successes 32 months into his term, Biden is one of the most capable presidents of all time. But he’s far from exciting, and excitement counts for a lot in the American electorate.
The last factor is noise, where Donald Trump outplays Biden by an order of magnitude, and Trump’s loud bluster conveys an impression of energy and strength. Americans either like or are very tolerant of noise, the evidence of which is the volume of TV ads: noise gets attention, and even negative attention is better than none. Travelers returning from foreign countries, particularly European, are subjected to the relatively high level of noise of public spaces in the U.S. I say “subjected to” rather than “assaulted by,” since there is a large fraction of Americans who must prefer the noise as a measure of vitality.
Biden’s polling shortfall is more of a cultural than political issue. American culture is extremely ageist, despite the virtues of aging in experience, judgement, people skills, and ability to compromise. Boosting Biden by touting political, economic and foreign policy successes is not enough to counter the assumption of incapacity due to age. Messaging must use a counter-narrative for Biden against the cultural deficit—especially a deficit that sharpens by contrast with the excitement of football this fall and the next, as Election Day approaches.
How is it that Trump, who is only four-years younger than Biden, manages to avoid any discussion about his age? I guess it comes from his having been an illusionist for his entire life. It is still frustrating the it is only Biden who is considered old. But the Democrats seem trapped. If they raise Trump’s age, it only keeps the debate going about Biden’s age. Do I wish Biden was 60 instead of 80? Certainly, but as Mark suggests, people have to focus on the catastrophe that a second Trump term would create and weigh that against voting for an 81-year-old candidate.