By Sushil Kutty 

 

 

ONE IS old, the other is older. But while President Joe Biden is being given the benefit of doubt of being a victim of the ‘gratuitous’, both are also being told every next day that their age is a factor in the American presidential stakes this time. For ‘President Trump’, there is also the defeated rival Nikki Haley, forever reminding him of his ageing hairline while not sparing President Joe Biden for losing his fluency and flow with age. Nikki Haley herself is around 53. Nikki wants both Biden and Trump tested for their “cognitive” faculties, certain that Trump is beyond the bend to be skipper and Biden is Trump’s silver foil in the Democratic set-up, not much further from dementia than Trump is from whatever it takes to getting lost in the woods. Remember, Donald Trump mixed Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden also self-mistakenly mistook somebody for somebody else. In Nikki’s book, Trump, 77, and Biden, 81, have more wrinkles than they are showing. But Nikki is biased and wouldn’t retire with grace. Just like Trump who still refuses to accept the 2020 results even if older and wiser, or perhaps because he’s older and wiser. Trump’s greying hair and Biden’s silvery mien – Americans cannot get over the “wrinkled and sagging reality “staring them in the face”. The fact is, age is the “defining issue” of the 2024 presidential campaign.

 

Loads of Americans can’t think of a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” bent on denying another old man a lapsed second term. If Joe Biden wants to lead them for yet another four years while Trump is taking potshots at President Joe Biden’s “hazy memory”, resurrecting the “Sleepy Joe” nickname that he had given to Biden in 2020. “I don’t think he knows he’s alive,” Trump told a crowd of supporters. Sympathetic Americans assert President Joe Biden is a victim of “elder abuse”. Trump’s supporters believe Biden himself is the abuse that Americans are being subjected to. Blame it on Special Counsel Robert Hur, who was the one who pronounced Biden as the “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. Since then, Biden and the Biden camp have been trying their best to shake off the image and the implications. Biden often gives the impression he cannot point himself in the right direction. The pits was when Trump did an impression of “Biden losing his way on stage”. It was savage. And completely uncalled for. Trump’s legions cackled. Trump himself was as merciful as a barracuda.

 

The 77-year-old made fun of the 81-year-old and the entire stage shook in mirth. Trump might be “struggling with diminished cognition” but remains nastier than a confused ray-fish. Haley’s calls for mandatory cognitive tests for 75 and above aged politicians must not be forgotten. Memory shouldn’t rot. America is too tolerant of ageing. American justices of the Supreme Court and American Presidents, so many of them are ageing dinosaurs except that the ageing American judge and the ageing American politician never go extinct. But with focus on the “President’s age”, people are no longer shying away from or struggling to talk of “ageing politicians” with vanishing hairlines. It is not ideology, but who of the two can stand farthest from the wall and shoot the distance. Cogent and cognitive aren’t the only factors. Going forward, further in age, how much does incontinence play a role in their night-life? Who’s left with the energy to get the job done the next day? Dozing away in the Oval Office is not an option. Imagine placing orders of bedpans and diapers with the White House Chief of Staff fully engaged and the Press Secretary scared of nosy White House correspondents asking too many questions.

 

This could apply to both Trump and Biden though it’s Trump who makes it his business to remember that Biden is battling memory loss. Then, again, it’s Biden who remembers telling Donald that if both were in high school, he would take Trump “behind the gym and beat the hell out of him”. Age and memory, how much do they matter to a President? Age, particularly that of President Biden, coupled with his memory, is to many Americans a “bigger problem” than Trump’s indictments. President Joe Biden’s age has caught up with him while pulling Trump’s closer. American stand-up comedians and late night comedy shows have picked Biden and Trump’s age for laughs and it is not funny. Everybody is talking of age, writing of age, joking about age and some are apoplectic. Nobody is delirious with joy. Biden is the oldest American President so far and Trump could be in his wake if Americans let him. For now, it is between “old and senile” and “old and unhinged”. Biden rides a bike and Trump has bike-gangs rooting for him, whoever said America is not a country for old men. (IPA)