The thinking at the time was: how can someone under the age of 35 ever have enough accomplishments to be elected president? They believed that would only happen if they were the child of a famous person or former president.

The Constitution was largely written as a departure from the monarchical British system. By not allowing presidential candidates younger than 35, this would prevent hereditary transmission of the presidency. Past 35, a candidate is more likely to stand on their own merits rather than their family or connections.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-a-presidential-...

Quite right! We can only regret that similar minimum-age limits weren't put in place for other offices.

Here in ye olde Europe (and I believe the same for the U.S.), it is unfortunately common to see extremely young, as in literal college students, parliamentarians -- most of them handsome, well-spoken and opinionated; and some also coincidentally the children of famous politicians or businesspeople :-)

Why do you find it so offensive that people get to choose who they want to be their leader?

All people in all countries choose who they want to be their leader. If Russians didn't like Putin, they'd string his entrails up from a lamp post.

All governments, democratic or despotic can only govern with the consent of their subjects.

It's thus reasonable to dislike the precise mechanisms by which that consent (explicit and implied) is achieved in any particular country.

They really only need consent of 2-3% of very violent people and for the rest to non-violently not consent.

Most people will become sufficiently violent if unhappy enough. The world's always three meals from anarchy.

Sometimes. On the other hand a surprisingly large number of women are raped and dont fight back because they are overwhelmed with various forceful factors. I imagine being raped feels quite unhappy, possibly even more so than missing 3 meals.

I'll have to look more into the 'seasoning' islands full of slaves in the Caribbean during the slave trade years. IIRC they were treated as bad as you can get, were the majority, and didn't consent yet practically didn't overthrow their dictator in most circumstances (Haiti might count as an exception).

> All governments, democratic or despotic can only govern with the consent of their subjects.

That's the definition of a despotic government - ruling without consent. Any rule comes from the end of a gun.

Because those "«people»" choose it for everybody else

I.e., your statement is translated to "that large masses of possibly unqualified people choose wrongly qualified people as having power over other people, with important regard to people in their right mind". It is not a value; it is a concern tackled in systemic planning.

In the US there were similar minimum age limits for other offices. President was 35, upper chamber legislator 30, lower chamber legislator 25.

Of course, seventy-five-year-old presidents can have 55-year-old kids... Oh, hey, GW Bush! Didn't see you over there!

Does someone who is 80 have enough brain cells left to be trusted in this job? How can they possibly?

Well... why indeed? If you don't feel up to justifying it you should support removing arbitrary limits.

“Debate me!”

The minimum age requirement was intended to provide a safeguard against the election of individuals who might lack the maturity and experience needed for such a significant role.

The maximum age is a different consideration.

The obvious argument on the other end of the age spectrum is the lack of personal stake. You are making policies that will not affect your own life much at all.

Indeed, one reason it took so long to get to this point was because Biden/his party was more interested in his legacy than his efficacy.

Isn't that the opposite of not caring for what endures after one is gone.

The problem is precisely in “what” endures. But now, Biden has both soiled his legacy and destroyed the last vestiges of trust in the Democratic party

Decisions affect your children, and their children, and the future of mankind. I don't buy that argument that old people don't have skin in the game

Additionally, we all make decisions collectively in society even though many of them do not affect us personally. I'd argue old people do have interests in many decisions, but perhaps you are not aware of them

It’s not that different

Specifically, it is evaluated as almost impossible that someone could have accrued required experience before the age of 35,

while it is very much possible that an aged individual is mentally proficient.

Big reason for that is that the requirements also have age requirements, which ensures that nobody who is even 35 is electable today.

So the end result of those age requirements is that you prevent people from getting the necessary experience to become good leaders, resulting in way older politicians than most countries. Politicians being too young isn't an issue anywhere, politicians too old however...

Age related declines are absolutely guaranteed and presidents serve for 4 years and senators for 6.

That doesn’t mean no 80 year old is more mentally proficient than the average 60 year old, but we want more than average here.

And in fact people who have greatly declined and are still leagues above most of the rest - because the rest was what it was -, are very real.

So, no, decline is fully independent from state, just like a derivative, a trend, does not determine a value. There exist GDP growth of 15%/yr: they do not indicate a big GDP.

They’re closer to their deaths than their primes. They are not leagues above anything.

Your statement seems to indicate that you cannot see that some people are more competent, lucid, capable, effective, wise etc. than other: such blindness disqualifies from discourse.

They make a valid point. People who have already greatly declined are only getting worse.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump, and Biden are all showing significant issues and they aren’t getting better over the next 4 years.

We are’t picking random people from a Walmart parking lot.

Nobody has greatly declined and is still among the best choices. I’d happily set the same standard at say 75-80 for Congress and Judges here, but Presidents need to be able to quickly deal with complex and novel issues. That’s exactly the kind of problems where age has the biggest impact.

Would that occasionally reject some still capable people? Yes, but there’s over 330 million people in the US, we can pre filter and still have plenty of options.

If you have 5 maybe 10 years left you cant create a plan for the next 20 years and be around to defend it, explain it or refine it. You cant discourage or encourage to take risks.

An old person may have accumulated tremendous valuable experience in their field but it is increasingly hard to start over in a new field.

This is even before our mind and health decays and some of us get to walk the earth as shadows of our former self.

Also, there is no required experience or competence. There should be but there isn't. Aging to 35 helps very little.

I mean to me it seems like that argument can be exactly applied to maximum age which makes it similar consideration.

If you're too old and your memory is faltering, you're "loosing experience". If your conginitive function is declining, your maturity is also essentially declining, all but in pedantic "maturity=age(ageism)" sense

35 doesn’t guarantee anything, neither does does 70+. But in the real world Trump would be 82 at the end of his term, and he was the younger candidate.

> Trump would be 82 at the end of his term

...and Biden will be 82 at the end of his term.

People are concerned with Biden’s cognitive decline at 82.

Trump would be ~6 months older than Biden in 4 years.

And yet here we are!

For the same reason that the president needs to have spent at least 14 years in the USA prior to be elected: so that the people can know the candidate.