Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday. “I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony c…

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday.

“I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony counts,” Swalwell said, making a reference to President Biden’s age in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” on Saturday.

“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, speaking about the 2024 election. “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”

Swalwell’s comments come after Trump was ordered to pay almost $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case and amid increased scrutiny faced by the president on his age and memory in the wake of a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report noted that Biden had problems with memory and recall.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    1495·
    9 months ago

    I don’t think it’s particularly ageist to say that octogenarians should generally be avoided for a 4 year commitment to leadership roles. It’s no more ageist than barring 16 year olds from the job imo.

    That said, in a battle between risky to lose competence midway and blatantly incompetent now the former always wins

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
      351·
      9 months ago

      Agreed. That being said it sucks to be stuck choosing between two ppl who won’t live long enough to see the ramifications of their decisions and policies.

      • GoodEye8@lemm.eeEnglish
        98·
        9 months ago

        I don’t see how that matters. Do you think Clinton, Bush or Obama made better choices because they got to live to see the outcomes materialize? I don’t think so which is why I don’t think it matters.

        You want a president who makes decisions that benefit the people not a president who makes decision s that benefit them (or a group of elites). In that sense it doesn’t matter if Biden won’t see the results of his decisions, as long as he makes decisions that benefit the people. When it comes to Trump we can now be pretty certain he will make decisions that benefit him.

        • nyctre@lemmy.world
          54·
          9 months ago

          Exactly this. One could even argue that Biden being older makes him harder to be influenced by exterior factors such as bribes and whatnot. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

    • Twentytwodividedby7@lemmy.world
      153·
      9 months ago

      Trump isn’t exactly a spring chicken either. He now has a half a billion dollars in judgements that he owes in addition to being within 4 years of Biden’s age. The issue is the double standard and blatant disregard for the fact that he has numerous conflicts of interest that should disqualify Trump

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        5·
        9 months ago

        Oh I fully agree and this is absolutely being used to try to give another too old person the same position. Especially considering trump is both already senile and most importantly a fucking fascist who has attempted to overthrow the government after losing an election

    • twistypencil@lemmy.world
      54·
      9 months ago

      I think it is different, 16 year olds have no experience, limited knowledge of the world, and under developed pre frontal lobes. You want experienced leaders with wisdom, much more than inexperienced leaders with a lack of wisdom, they aren’t equivalent

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
        21·
        9 months ago

        Yes, it’s obviously a different scenario. The risks are different. But, along with wisdom, you want presidents to be alive.

        When Biden took office in 2020, he was 78. The government’s actuarial tables say that there was basically a 50/50 chance he’d make it 8 years.

        Having survived 4 years, if he’s elected again he’ll be 82. The actuarial tables say he’ll probably still be alive at the end of his term, but he might not make it to the next set of midterms.

        Now, Biden is in good health. With his health and the great medical care he gets, he’ll probably do better than the actuarial tables say. I’d say the odds are good he’ll outlive Trump, even if he’s an older man. But, it seems reckless to put a guy into office when there’s a very decent chance he’ll be dead before the end of his term.

        Then there’s the matter of his mental sharpness. There are strong signs it’s fading. President is mostly a job about delegation, but still, you need to make some decisions, and at least understand what it is you’re delegating. Trump, again, is probably as bad or worse, but it doesn’t seem good to trust a guy with clearly fading mental abilities to a stressful job that benefits from a sharp mind.

        If we all trusted his VP to step in and run things well if there were a problem, that would be one thing, but her approval ratings are even worse than his. Sometimes that happens when a president doesn’t want the VP to steal the spotlight. But, in this case you’d think both Biden and Harris would benefit from everybody thinking that she’s doing a lot of work, doing it extremely well, and could easily step in as president.

        • twistypencil@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          Also, I’m not convinced there are strong signs his mental acuity is degrading. Everything people point out are things Biden had been doing for decades, or since birth. The amount of times I’ve seen people say look, he is cognitively impaired because he can’t get his words out! The guy has had a stutter his whole life, he mixes up some facts here and they’re, he’s been doing that forever. Memory and cognitive specialists don’t seem to think he has some growing problem (see On the Media show this week)… So what are these strong signs, except for the media publishing no led than 45 articles about this, with no facts to justify them?

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            9 months ago

            Also, I’m not convinced there are strong signs his mental acuity is degrading.

            I think it’s clear that he’s not as sharp as he was 30 or 40 years ago. But, he was always someone who made a lot of gaffes. But, I think it’s not dementia, just a typical lack of sharpness that comes from getting old.