Call me ageist if you want - but Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both past it: Yorkshire Post Letters

Perhaps the most unedifying spectacle to come out of much-troubled America recently is that of a 74 and a 77-year-old trading feeble reasoning – and even feebler verbal blows – at each other.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both clearly way past their physical and mental peaks; at times it is absolutely excruciating to watch them struggling to sound coherent, even when using scripts.

Biden appears to be a decent man, with an impressive, sporting, academic and career background in the law and politics. None of that can justify him seeking to take up leadership of his country at 78, then aspiring to still be doing so aged 86.

As for Trump, old age might well be seen as the least of multiple reasons why he is totally unworthy to lead anything, let alone the destinies of a nation that still views itself as exceptional.

If it chooses him to lead them again in November, I would respectfully suggest the country is merely exceptionally unwise. Trump seems to be the most notable example of Grumpy Old Man Syndrome; as he ages, he becomes ever nastier and angrier.

We have political problems aplenty of our own, thankfully, we have yet to mutate into what we might call a geriatricracy. That is a path the USA should divert from, come the next presidential election in 2024.

Understandably, many reading this will regard me as ageist; perhaps justifiably so. For the record, I am no spring chicken; aged 61, with a modestly successful career in modern history and politics teaching firmly behind me.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson