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.