In the United States and around the world, the dangers posed to democracy have become both more numerous and more dire, but also easier to spot. Voter suppression, disinformation campaigns and outright coups are neither subtle nor morally ambiguous tactics, and their practitioners — almost always from the far right — have grown brazen, taking less and less care to hide their true motives. But even at this moment of overwhelming peril for our democratic institutions, whose significance is recognized by an increasing number of Americans, one anti-democratic policy has gained support from a startling number of people across the political spectrum: barring older citizens from holding public office.
Two polls released in September found that nearly 75% of respondents (including 71% of Democrats in one survey) favored establishing a maximum age for elected officials, a substantial increase from a YouGov poll conducted at the beginning of the year that found 58% support. While the motivations for favoring an age cap vary, most supporters are not tyrants in waiting. Instead they have bought into a simplistic solution to the broader and deeper problem of inequality that faces our democracy. Such a ban is virtually impossible to implement, since it would require a constitutional amendment. It would accomplish very little, compared to how severely it would disenfranchise tens of millions of older Americans. In fact, the entire idea of an age cap presents a dilemma: How can we thwart the most virulent attacks on democracy if we don't really believe in it ourselves?
