Next US president will be oldest in history. Why do voters keep electing aging leaders?

Americans cannot agree on much these days, but one source of unanimity is that aging is better than the alternative. However, one of the most striking yet less-noticed facts of contemporary politics is that Americans have also shown a striking affinity for selecting — and keeping — old people in political office. Really old people.

No matter who wins the November election, on Jan. 20, Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in the oldest man ever to take that oath of office. The average age of U.S. presidents entering office is 56.4 years. Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest president at 42. The next one will be either 78 or 74.

The median age of all Americans is 38.2 years, less than half Joe Biden’s.

Vice President Mike Pence is first in line to the presidency now. He’s a youngster at 61. Nancy Pelosi is second, and she’s 80, the oldest House speaker ever. Her two top Democratic aides in House leadership are 80 and 81. Kevin McCarthy, the GOP’s House leader, is a youngster at 55.

Behind Pelosi in presidential succession is Senate president pro tempore, Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, who is 87 and was born early in Franklin Roosevelt’s first term.

The Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, is 78, now the longest-serving majority leader ever. His Democratic counterpart, Chuck Schumer, turns 70 next month, and his deputy, Dick Durbin, is 75.

The combined ages of President Trump, Pelosi and McConnell total 232 years. The nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, is only 12 years older. Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he quilled the Declaration. The signers’ average age was 44.

The coincidental advanced ages of the nation’s current political leaders have raised all kinds of serious new questions, including ideological rigidity, stale policies and mental and physical vigor.

Also unanswered is why younger voters so routinely elect, reelect and then reelect again such cadres of old-timers. Pelosi even needed help standing up after one photo op this year. Dianne Feinstein, now in her fifth six-year Senate term, is 87.

Recently, concerns have focused on presidential and candidate health and full public disclosure. Pelosi has even announced plans to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove a sitting president. Practically speaking, she can’t do this unless Democrats controlled the House, which they do, the Senate and the White House, which they might.

At 74, Trump was a prime candidate for deadly complications from COVID-19, though even that age cohort has a 94% recovery rate. Trump’s doctor cleared him for a return to normal activities as of Sunday, and the president resumed campaign travel Monday.

Joe Biden, who turns 78 next month, would be even more susceptible, but he has practiced ostentatious precautions, in contrast to Trump. Biden has largely appeared online from his Delaware basement, traveled outside less frequently and only to speak before “crowds” of barely a dozen, all precisely spaced in socially-distanced circles.

His wife, Jill, who’s 12 years younger, was seen pulling her husband farther back from reporters the other day. But when he thought TV cameras were off, Biden has moved closer to hosts with his ubiquitous mask off or down.

These precautions also happen to serve a very useful political purpose for the ex-senator, whose travels for decades were mostly confined to rail commutes from Delaware to Washington, D.C. Biden’s limited routine this fall has largely kept his few appearances to early mornings in controlled environments that minimize opportunities for the occasional confused ramblings or viral gaffes.

They also free Biden from the exhausting travel and appearance regimens of the normal presidential campaign. In the recent past, such complicated logistical efforts to speak to and be seen by a maximum number of people every single day could encompass a half-dozen media interviews or scrums and events in two or three locations, spliced by hours traveling in the sterilized air of a chartered jet to key electoral states with perhaps six hours of sleep in another hotel.

Except for Western swings, Trump’s pre-COVID-19 style was to return to the White House each night, even with campaign stops in three states and a Washington fundraiser.

And while a president changes every four or eight years, congressional leaders don’t, thanks to a lack of similar term limits and voters’ propensity back home to stick with incumbents most of the time. Pelosi, for instance, entered the House in 1987 when gas prices were under one dollar, and a dozen eggs cost 78 cents.

Her chief deputy is Steny Hoyer, who took office weeks after Ronald Reagan became president, and who now is seeking his 21st House term.

Trump was basically unchallenged for the Republican nomination this year. Biden was one of 24 in the Democrats’ field, ranging in age from Pete Buttigieg at 38 and Tulsi Gabbard at 39 to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s twice as old at 79. For their own reasons, clearly including familiarity, Democratic voters quickly winnowed that field of serious contenders to the two oldest.

In their infinite revolutionary wisdom, the Founding Fathers did not prescribe a maximum age for the presidency. Back then, nature would take care of that. They did, however, set a minimum age for president of 35. In those days, the average lifespan was 38.

Which made George Washington his era’s version of a definite old-timer when he took office at 57. As Revolutionary War leader, General Washington needed no bitter political campaign. He was simply acclaimed president.