To the Editor:
Re “Voters Wonder What’s Too Old for a President” (entrance web page, Feb. 10):
The polls present {that a} majority of the U.S. voting inhabitants thinks President Biden is just too previous to run for re-election in 2024.
I’m a thriving 81-year-old psychologist who has taught graduate psychology programs about getting older. I imagine that the belief that he can be unfit to serve relies largely on our prejudices about getting older.
Women and men of their 80s are a strikingly various group. Growing older isn’t just about decline. Older people can outperform youthful individuals on checks of intelligence which are based mostly on accrued information and expertise. Optimism and satisfaction improve with age.
Whereas the president reveals age-related indicators of reminiscence loss, analysis has additionally proven that some cognitive abilities improve with age.
Allow us to not permit our prejudices to cloud our resolution concerning the subsequent president.
Alan Swope
Oakland, Calif.
The author is emeritus professor in medical psychology at Alliant Worldwide College.
To the Editor:
The time has come for the Democratic Celebration to have its “Goldwater second,” whereby a handful of get together grandees march, nevertheless reluctantly, into the Oval Workplace and inform President Biden that it’s time to go, a lot as a delegation led by Senator Barry Goldwater did in 1974, when President Nixon was advised that he confronted impeachment.
I don’t base my opinion totally on age, and even competence. I’m moderately sure that Mr. Biden is far more succesful behind the scenes then he’s in entrance of cameras, and I applaud him for all that he’s achieved in his 4 years in workplace.
However the picture that he presents in public paints him as an previous and feeble man who’s incapable of being the top of any group, not to mention the president of america and the de facto chief of the Western world.
An excessive amount of is at stake within the 2024 election. For the nice of the nation, and for the preservation of democracy, the Democratic Celebration can’t permit the destiny of the nation’s future to be held in such feeble palms.
It’s time.
Richard J. Brenner
Miller Place, N.Y.
To the Editor:
All of the tales about President Biden’s age and occasional verbal errors — what about Donald Trump?
I recommend merely begin by placing their statements facet by facet. Evaluate all of the instances that Donald Trump has misspoken. Evaluate Mr. Biden’s capability to speak about advanced points versus Mr. Trump’s capability to do the identical.
You’ve had so many tales about Joe Biden’s age — do the service of giving equal remedy to Mr. Trump’s phrase salads, mix-ups and the truth that he talks with the verbal capability and the understanding of a kid about advanced, severe points.
Robyn Watts
New York
To the Editor:
Inexplicably, lots of President Biden’s advisers, staffers, appointees and congressional allies appear to imagine that many doubtless voters are literally shopping for their patently false claims that the president is constantly mentally sharp and suffers from no vital cognitive impairment or reminiscence points.
The report submitted by Robert Hur, the particular counsel, has bolstered such longstanding considerations whereas additional emboldening members of Group Biden, who pressure to persuade us that what we’re seeing and listening to merely isn’t so.
For these well-meaning — but delusional — partisans to know how they’re being perceived, they may wish to learn the previous fable “The Emperor’s New Garments.”
Todd Blodgett
Mason Metropolis, Iowa
The author has labored for the Reagan administration, the Republican Nationwide Committee and the F.B.I.
Trump’s Risk to NATO: A Inexperienced Mild for Russia
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Says He Gave NATO Allies Warning: Pay In or He’d Urge Russian Aggression” (information article, nytimes.com, Feb. 11):
At a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, former President Donald Trump recalled a dialog he had with one other nation’s chief. That chief requested, “If we don’t pay” sufficient in NATO payments “and we’re attacked by Russia, will you defend us?”
Mr. Trump’s response: “No, I’d not defend you. In actual fact, I’d encourage them to do regardless of the hell they need. You gotta pay.”
That’s how Mr. Trump treats our pals in Europe.
After all we would like European international locations to contribute to their very own protection, but it surely’s absurd to encourage contributions by inviting Vladimir Putin and Russia to invade these international locations and “do regardless of the hell” the Russians need.
Is that the sort of America we would like? As a result of that’s what we’ll get with Mr. Trump.
Mike Barrett
Ashburn, Va.
To the Editor:
Re “NATO Weighs Isolation After Trump Outburst” (information evaluation, entrance web page, Feb. 12):
Former President Donald Trump doesn’t perceive the idea for America’s exceptionalism on the world stage. As Joseph S. Nye Jr. has written, a nation’s affect depends on each onerous and delicate energy. Onerous energy refers to army and financial power. Gentle energy refers to a nation’s tradition, values and another issue: alliances.
America’s dozens of alliances around the globe are an integral a part of U.S. nationwide protection technique, with NATO on the core. Mr. Trump’s short-term pondering blinds him from understanding that undermining NATO would considerably weaken America and, correspondingly, strengthen America’s enemies.
Bruce Sheiman
New York
To the Editor:
Donald Trump’s assertion that he’d sic the Russians on NATO members who haven’t paid their payments is fairly wealthy, coming from a person who’s infamous for stiffing his personal collectors.
Elizabeth Block
Toronto
