Jonathan V. Last writes for The Bulwark, a site created by Republican Never Trumpers. I find there sone of the most interesting writing about the political issues of our day.

Last offers sound advice to President Biden about defusing the age issue: Make a virtue of your age. Don’t pretend to be 40. Speak up for the wisdom and experience of your years.

Age is not what separates Biden from Trump. Biden will protect our institutions from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Trump has already made deals with them.

Last writes:

My headline probably oversells it: Biden can’t defuse the political problems his age creates for him. But he can mitigate them…

But first I want to lay out the strategy Biden’s team should be using. It has three components:

  1. Hang a lantern on his age.
  2. Make it relatable.
  3. Put it in context.

Contra the conventional wisdom, I think Biden’s hasty press conference last Thursday was a good idea that was executed fairly well. It’s important that Biden takes ownership of “elderly.”

In fact, I’d have him go further. He ought to mention it every time he speaks in public. He ought to joke about it. He should have a handful of stock lines ready at all times: People talk about life before the internet? I remember what it was like before we had electricity!

The cornier the better.

Biden should set the expectation that he’s going to have senior moments in every appearance. Hell—he should flub things on purpose sometimes and then wink at the audience and razz them if they don’t catch it.

If we’ve learned anything from the Trump years, it’s that one problem is a tragedy, but a thousand problems are just white noise. So don’t be defensive about the age and don’t complain about the media fixating on it.¹ Lean all the way in. Make it a part of the candidate’s identity.

Next: Make it relatable.

Nick Grossman mentioned this today and it ought to be said constantly: We all get mixed up. I call my kids by the wrong names probably a dozen times a day. When I go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for one of them and have to give their birthdate, I always get the month and day right. But the year? I have to stop and think about that every damn time.

Sitting here typing I could not even tell you without looking it up what year we started The Bulwark. I think it was 2018, but it could have been 2019.

Our brains are set up to have amazing recall and processing speed that generally peaks in our 20s and declines every year after. It is not an accident that Einstein did his most important work at age 26.

Finally, there’s the context: We don’t choose our leaders based on recall and processing speed. 

What does it mean to grow old? It means that you’re not as quick on your feet as you used to be. Old people, in general, don’t want to get dragged into real-time debates with 45-year-olds. The synapses don’t fire as quickly; the gift of gab wanes. You very rarely look at an old guy and think, “That dude is slick.”

But slick isn’t what we want in our leaders. We want wisdom.

There is a reason that we have a minimum age for voting in this country and not a maximum age—it’s because we don’t trust young people, with all of their rapid recall memory and synaptic lightning, to be wise enough to vote.

By the same token, we don’t have a maximum voting age, because we recognize that the losses elderly people experience in the ability to rapidly process are over-balanced by the accumulated wisdom of years and experience.

Especially in a president, we value wisdom over speed.

And Joe Biden has demonstrated the power of wisdom throughout his term. It allowed him to reach deals with Republicans in Congress. It led him to focus like a laser on the economy and get America back on its feet. 

It was wisdom that let Biden understand the stakes in Ukraine and wisdom that helped him navigate the maintenance of our alliance against Vladimir Putin. It is wisdom that allows Biden to see the incalculable benefits America receives from leading the global order.

Just as it was wisdom that made Biden cooperate with the special counsel and respect the rule of law.

President Biden is the wisest guy to sit in the Oval Office since Reagan and that’s not in spite of his age—it’s because of it. 

Meanwhile, the problem with Donald Trump is NOT that he, too, is old. The problem with Trump is NOT that he sometimes forgets what day it is, or who he’s running against.

The problem with Trump is that he’s a madman who wants dangerous things.

He is on Putin’s side. He sees NATO as a threat to American prosperity. He thinks laws must not apply to him. He believes that democracy is only useful to the extent that it provides him advantage. He thinks that dictatorship would be preferable—so long as he gets to be the tyrant. 

If I were Biden’s speechwriter, I might put it like this:

Am I elderly? You betcha. Don’t move like I used to. And I have the occasional senior moment. I’ll probably have one during this speech, just so folks from the New York Times have something to write about.

But I know what the hell I’m doing.

Let me tell you about getting older. You aren’t as fast on your feet. You have to think a moment before you remember stuff.

But also: As you get older, you’re able to see what really matters. You’re able to let go of your ego and focus on what’s important. That’s why I was able to work with the Republicans in Congress even while they said nasty things about me in public: Because I didn’t care what they said—I’m too old for that. What I did care about was passing gun reform laws that both parties knew we needed.

I cared about lowering the costs of medicine for seniors and capping the price of insulin. I cared about infrastructure—getting roads and bridges fixed and new semi-conductor factories built so that young people could get good jobs and provide for their families.

And let me tell you what else age has done for me: It made me realize that I’m the president of all Americans. Not just the people who voted for me. Because I’m old, I understand that it’s my duty to make sure that even the people who run around saying that I’m part of a crime family—God love ‘em—are able to get good jobs, and have broadband internet, and have more and better police keeping their communities safe.

So am I old? You bet. I’m 87. No, wait, 78. I forget. Whatever—I’m old. Older than you. And that’s why America is prospering, everyone who wants a job has one, crime is coming down, more people have health insurance, and the Russians and the Chinese understand that there’s a united West, led by America, opposing them and holding them to account.

Thank you, Jonathan V. Last!