Downside of a Youth Culture
We in the United States live in a youth culture. According to this culture, nearly everyone over 50 has dementia. Eight years ago, it was Donald Trump that people tried to accuse of having Alzheimer’s. This cycle it’s Joe Biden.
The retirement of the Baby Boomers has unleashed a raft of attention on dementia, memory care, and brain meds. Dementia is a new and growing market.
Into the midst of this frenzy, and during this particular election cycle, Columbia University has begun a longitudinal study. Early results are available..
Of course, I read the study because as an elderly person, I am often expected to have dementia.I wake up every morning asking whether I have it yet. (The only people who don’t think I have it are the doctors who are equipped to diagnose it.) They see me on a regular basis and haven’t mentioned it to me yet. I’ve counted backwards by 7, and drawn the clock. I guess that’s enough for now.
And I’m not running for president. But let’s take this frenzy apart so we can make an actual determination of the fitness of Biden or Trump to run for president.
In the first nationally representative study (link is external and opens in a new window) of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years, Columbia University researchers have found almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment. People with dementia and mild cognitive impairment are more likely to be older, have lower levels of education, and to be racialized as Black or Hispanic. Men and women have similar rates of dementia and mild cognitive impairment.
The study goes on to say that even at the most epidemic level, only 35% of elderly Americans will have dementia when they die-- no matter what their ages.
Nonetheless, the medical industrial complex almost wants us to have dementia. In order to keep research money flowing for new drugs, and to fuel the projections for proposed new memory care facilities, the demented market must grow.
In truth, the odds of either Biden, or Trump, having full-blown dementia are pretty slender. They don’t fit the characterizations above. Both are white, highly educated beyond college, and still working, meaning using their minds. They are men of privilege. Other things thought to stave off dementia are a healthy diet and a fair amount of exercise. Biden exercises, while Trump assumes exercises are bad for you. I’m not sure about Biden‘s dietary habits, though I know Trump is a fast foodie.
Mary Trump wrote in her memoir that Trump’s father had Alzheimer’s. The family did not want to tell him that he had it, so they let him get dressed every morning, walk down to the kitchen, eat breakfast and then go to the office, where he wasn’t allowed to do anything. By this time, Donald was already running things. ( Since Alzheimer’s cannot be diagnosed without an autopsy upon death, I really don’t know whether he had it, as Mary Trump is not the most impartial source.)
All this evidence is simply to show you that the conversation about dementia is overblown and useless. After all, these men are capable of spending time with reporters, foreign leaders, and biographers. Instead, it only shows the ageism of the American population. I suffer from this ageism on the regular, and after a while, even I have begun to suspect I am old.
But if I am to be thought old, I would much rather be thought of as wise than demented.
OK now for the bottom line. Should either of these men be presidential candidates? Of course not.
Both of them must have a savior complex or a grain of narcissism that makes them feel they cannot be replaced. There’s no question that they can be. If nothing else, 80 -year-old men who will not live to see the rollout of all of their policies should not be making policies for 20-year-olds. The world is changing too quickly for their decisions to be appropriate.
And that is why I would not want to be president. Why should I be making decisions for my grandson’s world, even if I am completely competent, which I’m sure I’m not, I will not have the context to see the world emerge that he will have to live in.
And that is why we must find better candidates than these men, no matter what their competencies. Is two aging white men the best that America can do? God I hope not.