What's with all the Ageism in These Threads??

[Eyeball_Kid]

39. I'm over 65 and I worked for many years in public services for seniors.

Call it ageism if you want. I don't care what you call it. It's absolutely true that people who reach their senior years have an increasing risk of disabilities with every year that passes BECAUSE of their age alone. Just look at the stats, look at the increases in health insurance costs, look at the actuarial tables. It happens and it's unavoidable.

We sometimes don't know when people begin to lose capacity. Folks who are losing capacity often sense that something is wrong and they do whatever they can to compensate so that it APPEARS that they're competent when they are not. I encountered this situation countless times. Cognitive abilities DO diminish.

I watched Sanders closely during the 2016 primary campaign, I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but I saw a 74 year-old man struggle with the exhausting campaign pace. He lost color in his face, his posture became more slumped, his vocal quality diminished, his rhetoric became stiff. After he lost the nomination and took time off, he came back refreshed and revitalized. This was, IMO, a testament to the fact that national office is a grueling endeavor that takes a significant toll even on the most physically fit, no less presidents who are less so. Look at those early 2009 photos of Obama and compare that to his eighth year in office. And HE'S perhaps the most youthful and fit president we've had, ever.

Someone brought up Reagan and his two terms. Yeah. Reagan couldn't do two terms. He was cognitively incapable of running he executive branch after he was elected to his second term. And he was 73 at the start of the second term.

The job is too grueling and demanding for people in their 70s, with exceptions that become more rare with each advancing year. When we "choose" candidates for president, we have to admit that we really don't know who these people are or what they can do. We have to make educated guesses as to their fitness for office. And one factor in making those guesses is the time a person has been alive and the "arc" of competency/capacity on which each person stands. We don't allow people who are YOUNGER than 35 to become president, and THAT'S not called "ageism." That's called, smart. The same is true for those older than 70 or so. It's smart to consider resilience, endurance, stamina, and sustained mental acuity in the advancing years. There's too much at stake in the office of the president.

I was not in favor of HRC nor of Trump, nor of Sanders because of their respective ages, although I did vote for Sanders and Clinton during the campaign season.