No way to run a country

Dear Debriefers,

I'm a European: this year's presidential election in the United States isn't my election. But as well as being pivotal for America, it will affect the whole world. And it's turning, in part, on questions tied to disability.

I was planning a few paragraphs on how people are reacting to Joe Biden's health. But it turns out we need more to untangle ableism and ageism from the question of fitness to be a head of state.

The case of the President's health shows us how far inclusion can go, and the limits of undoing ableism. To understand it we need to reject outright prejudice, and assess the unique forms of competencies and job adjustments in this case.

As well as looking at structural barriers in politics, we see what a better world could look like and how preconceptions about age and ability might stop us getting there.

Reader support makes the Debrief possible. Thanks to Laura for a new contribution.

“No way to run a country”

As the US Presidential election heats up, concerns over President Biden's ageing and health have led to calls that he step aside. These gained intensity after Biden's stumbling performance in a CNN debate that made Donald Trump look like the coherent one.

The New York Times editorial asking him to leave the race summed up Biden's performance:

“He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence.”

Many of Biden's critics have used ageist or ableist arguments to make their case. One of the most stark examples of this is the Economist magazine's cover using a picture of a walker embossed with a presidential seal alongside the title “no way to run a country”. The text laments watching “a befuddled old man struggling to recall words and facts”.

But much as the Economist uses discriminatory words and images to make its point, it captures some of the national feeling. After the debate a poll showed 72% of registered voters believe the president does not have the mental and cognitive health to serve as president. Voters consistently agree that Biden is “too old” to be President and more are concerned with his age and mental and physical health than Trump's criminal charges and threats to democracy.

Biden himself says that he's taken multiple neurological exams that show he's in “good shape” and “not going anywhere”. Multiple reasons have been given for his debate performance, from a cold, over-preparation, or an excessive schedule. Meanwhile, people speculate if Biden has Parkinson's. And while this article focusses on Biden, similar concerns have been raised with respect to Trump.

Rejecting outright prejudice

Before we go any further we should reject the discriminatory ways that these concerns are being phrased.

Using a walker has nothing to do with whether one is fit to be President. Disability advocates have rightly critiqued the ableism that associates use of a mobility aid with incompetence. Walking slower or slurring speech are just that – they don't mean that someone can't do other tasks.

Likewise, generalisations about age are inappropriate and harmful. People age in diverse ways and merely knowing their biological age does not tell you what they can or can't do. One review finds Biden at 81 is the ninth oldest national leader in the world, with the ages of the others running from 36 to 91 years old.

Understanding competence and adjustments

Whether or not an individual is ready for a role needs a look at their personal situation. And there are techniques for a more objective assessment of whether someone can do a particular job.

The first is taking a competency-based view of skills, knowledge and behaviours needed rather than relying on vague intuitions of what a good candidate is. And the second is to examine job adjustments needed to perform those competencies or to reshape the role.

Both techniques are especially complicated in the case of a head of government.

Biden isn't doing great in public appearances, but that's only part of the job. In many ways his administration is well-run. But is it more important to be a figurehead, or an executive? There isn't a set of job requirements for the Presidency. Part of what an election is for is deciding what job it is voters want done. Some voters value coherency and ability to explain a policy platform as a key competency. Others don't.

As for job adjustments, this line is also blurred for an executive given the intensity of personal support they receive. For example, there were leaks of how Biden's staffers prepare him for events, including showing him how to walk a few steps to a podium. Some people say this is standard advance work to prepare a President's movements down to every footstep. Others see a “conspiracy of silence” about his abilities and obsessive management of the President's every appearance.

Structural barriers in politics

And so what if a politician did need disability-related accommodations? It's hard to see this neutrally because politics is performed in an environment shaped by ableism. As well as structural barriers and discrimination modern politicians are on display and the media and public pick apart their physical and intellectual performances in gruelling jobs. Rather than, say, scrutinising their policies.

There are prominent politicians with disabilities in the US. Particularly interesting are those using assistive technology to perform their roles, including Senator John Fetterman using closed captioning after his stroke. Representative Jennifer Wexton made a speech to Congress using text-to-speech technology. Both were frustrated with how the media covered them, excessively focusing on the need for the technologies rather than what they were saying.

The Economist magazine's image of a mobility aid reveals as much in ignorance as it did in prejudice. Franklin Roosevelt rolled the country from a wheelchair for over a decade. This is one of the perpetual cycles of ableism. Rather than learning from what's gone before, the burden is on disabled people to prove and prove again what we can do.

Franklin Roosevelt's Presidency is also telling in illustrating how he managed his disability. Roosevelt had gloriously wide-ranging adaptations that would make any disabled person envious. They included customizing a massive battleship with an elevator and a bathtub.

At the same time Roosevelt suppressed media coverage of his disability. He had many adaptations to disguise his mobility while campaigning, including assistance to look like he was standing. One of the most effective Presidents of the last century had to keep secret the things that allowed him to do his job so successfully.

The limits of undoing ableism

Even if we got rid of structural barriers, individuals still have physical and mental conditions. There's a limit to how much we can relativize work competencies or propose job adaptations. Our motivations are very different, but we still don't want to get into the situation of the UK government department declaring thousands fit to work just before they died.

Just because critiques are made in discriminatory ways does not mean they are false. Voters have a right to demand high standards from the President and there's growing evidence for the argument that Biden isn't meeting them.

I won't make a judgement here. I don't know enough about Biden's situation and it's hard to know at a distance. In fact, I find these judgements hard enough in my own life. In the last few years I've had rapid mobility changes and it's not simple at all to tell the difference between social prejudice, inaccessible environments or lack of support, my own ableism, and my own abilities or understanding of them.

Again, all this is even more complicated in the case of Biden. We're not good at talking about cognitive decline in general and especially not for politicians. An excellent article from Lynn Casteel Harper shows how ageism makes it impossible to fairly judge the President.

And as Harper writes, the Biden team hasn't made a narrative to acknowledge the changes he's going through. Doubling down on assertions of youthfulness or fitness “props up” the assumption that someone is unfit if they don't have those things:

‘What if, without shame, they acknowledged that Mr. Biden cannot zig-zag the globe and be in top debating form—or keep “burning the candle at both ends,” as my mother would say—but he knows how to build and lead a team, delegate appropriately, and ask for help when he needs it? Maybe it is too dangerous to admit and embrace aging in this way, and maybe ageism’s stranglehold is so strong that it would not help anyway, but it seems equally counterproductive to ignore aging altogether and cede the premise that being “too old” is automatically disqualifying.”

A vision of a better world

A presidential election is based on stark contrasts. Whether it's between the two candidates, or the options that Biden has. Anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite calls for a bolder vision, the possibility to reimagine what these contrasts are and how a President performs their role:

‘I reject the reasoning that Biden should step down. It’s ableist because it ties the value of a human being to a single model of cognitive function, and anti-communitarian because it’s every man for himself. I also reject its counterpoint, that Biden should double down. I’m not comfortable in either camp.

I don’t want a better candidate. I want a better world. One that offers more options than “step up” or “step down.” One that doesn’t impose false binaries — employed or useless, competent or incapacitated, “independent” or burden —  onto the messiness and ambiguities of being human.’

What might stop us getting there

Currently we are not in the better world but one where, as the New York Times editorial reminds us, the election will decide “nothing less than the future of American democracy”. Trump needs to be beaten. Biden is currently behind in many polls, although polling gurus 538 still give him a slight edge over Trump. There's a lot to play for up until November.

Some of the arguments to ditch Biden are tactical. One of them is that electorate's views of his age and ability are enough to dump him even if one does not share their opinion. This could well be correct reasoning but in anticipating other people's prejudice one often ends up reproducing it. Not supporting him because he won't win is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But one of the most dangerous ways ableism and ageism are harming this election is that they obscure the politics in play. It's long been clear that armchair diagnosis of Biden or Trump not only reproduces stigma but fails to judge them by their actions. Rather than seeing wider social conditions we look just at individual challenges.

As Rebecca Solnit argues, by focussing on Biden's health, the media is repeating the mistake it made in 2016 of not making clear what's at stake in the election. It's easier for people to call on Biden to step down because of his health rather than look at why the Democratic party's policies aren't more appealing and why Trump has any chance at all.

The highest stage and highest stakes

Whoever we are, navigating life's changes is complicated by society's limited and limiting conceptions of ageing and changes in ability. Whether we struggle with our own perceptions or how others see us, social bias makes it harder to know when to stay or when to go.

And in this election the tensions are supercharged. How the candidates, voters and media react to age and perceived ability will play a key role in determining the years ahead. Ageism and ableism are key actors in a drama played out on the highest stage, for the highest stakes.

Good luck to all of us.

Peter

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the many friends who I spoke with over the past weeks to understand this issue. In particular to Ashton Applewhite whose dialogue was essential. Thanks to Ashton and to Áine Kelly-Costello for review of an earlier draft.

And, of course, to the individuals and organizations whose support makes the Debrief possible.