WiNK

Age is a funny thing and can be used both as a positive and a negative, depending on the situation. For a president to be elected, they must be 35 or older, but from there the range has been great. Our youngest president to be sworn in was Theodore Roosevelt at the age of 42, and the youngest to be elected was John F. Kennedy, at the age of 43. The oldest is our sitting president, Donald Trump, sworn in at age 70. Looking at the election in the coming year, the top three democratic candidates, at the moment, are all above the age of 70: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. The addition of 77-year-old Michael Bloomberg continues on this trend of older candidates. With Donald Trump as the Republican candidate, it looks as though we may potentially have two candidates on the older side.

Does this mean that we as a country are looking for a leader who is older? Age comes with wisdom and experience, both powerful tools, but the argument for a younger candidate would be that they are looking to improve their own future as well. As Mr. Cataldo put it very well, we "look for youth and vigor but are frightened by the lack of experience." Although, in a DLI U.S. History class discussion, we came to the conclusion that unless you have experience as a president, you may not have much of an advantage over someone half your age. Although, Biden had the closest to this experience as you can get, as Vice President. A candidate's past is not the only factor, but their future is a factor as well. Especially with current discussions like climate change, for younger presidents, it will still be their world when these issues go into further effect. This is not to say that older presidents do not care about the world, but it will not be theirs when long term effects set in.

Another argument for younger candidates is that they may not be able to connect with younger voters. For Alice Purkiss, '21, this seemed to be an issue, as she felt that older candidates understand their world from when they grew up, but it has changed greatly and continues to. For issues like LGBTQ and Women's Rights, they are ever-changing and progressing. Junior Emma Shorten feels as though some older candidates may be "more experienced, but not in the generations to come." In other words, they do not have the experience that younger generations have, making their points of view different. As Alice Purkiss put it, younger candidates may be more willing to do something different.

For an older candidate, they are more predictable because we have seen more of their past. They have experiences and they are often what we are used to as a country. Mr. Cataldo's argument is that "sameness wins every time, white old guy." We'll see if that's true.