{"id":7698,"date":"2024-06-21T07:20:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T11:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=7698"},"modified":"2024-06-21T07:21:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T11:21:32","slug":"its-about-competence-not-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2024\/06\/its-about-competence-not-age\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s about Competence, Not Age"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">[In February], a gratuitous swipe ramped up <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the <a href=\"https:\/\/thischairrocks.com\/2022\/11\/27\/too-old-to-be-president-take-umpteen\/\">ongoing discussion about Biden\u2019s age<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;to a fevered pitch. When the Department of Justice declined to prosecute the President for his handling of classified documents, the special counsel went on to call Biden a \u201cwell-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory\u201d who had \u201cdiminished faculties in advancing age.\u201d Ouch! Biden didn\u2019t like it. Neither did the progressive commentariat, which cried foul.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s get a couple of things straight: &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s not ageist to call Trump and Biden old. They\u2019re old!<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;ageist to call someone \u201ctoo old\u201d for a job. Plenty of younger people aren\u2019t up to a given task. Plenty of olders are. Age-based assumptions are as harmful and ignorant as racial or gender stereotypes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-68259335\">ableist to shame people for memory lapses<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, as special counsel <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Robert Hur<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;did.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The conversation shouldn\u2019t center age. It should center capacity.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If a candidate loses an election because they\u2019re perceived as \u201ctoo old,\u201d don\u2019t blame age.&nbsp;Blame ageism. Blame ableism too. Blame a culture that stigmatizes and discriminates against people who are no longer young and people with disabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Age and ability are different. That distinction is fundamental. The current discourse conflates the two, making it far harder to get to the heart of the matter: <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s the person mentally and physically up to the job?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That\u2019s why questions about candidates\u2019&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">competence<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;are completely legitimate. That\u2019s why geriatrician <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Louise Aronson<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;(and countless <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">other experts<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;on aging) recommend <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/11\/19\/us\/politics\/biden-age-health.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">focusing on cognitive and physical health<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> instead of age when evaluating leadership ability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Voters are entitled to be informed about the health of the people who represent them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Testing is not the answer. Even doctors have a hard time assessing cognition. No test is neutral.&nbsp;Biden is a terrible campaigner and a skilled legislator. Trump is the reverse. How to evaluate those skills and deficits? How to compare the results?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Team Biden vehemently maintains that the President\u2019s strengths as a diplomat more than compensate for his shortcomings as a debater. Let us see those strengths in action. More interviews. More events. A world leader needs to be able to communicate. Voters can forgive a stutter. Silence, not so much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brushing these concerns under the rug, or dismissing them as ageist or as partisan, does no one any favors. It makes it harder to challenge ageism and ableism on legitimate grounds. It\u2019s not good for democracy. And enough with the headlines about age! They\u2019re <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thischairrocks.com\/2023\/04\/29\/enough-with-the-headlines-about-age-not-for-the-reason-you-think\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a distraction<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;from things that&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">actually<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;matter: stopping a genocide, mitigating climate change and preventing World War III.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[In February], a gratuitous swipe ramped up the ongoing discussion about Biden\u2019s age&nbsp;to a fevered pitch. When the Department of Justice declined to prosecute the President for his handling of classified documents, the special counsel went on to call Biden<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2024\/06\/its-about-competence-not-age\/\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">It\u2019s about Competence, Not Age<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\"> &#8250;<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7699,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-voices-views"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7701,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions\/7701"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}