COMMENTARY: Our aging presidents – America deserves better
November 19, 2025 | By John Bossange
Watching President Donald Trump stumble down the stairs when exiting of Air Force One, clutching the rail to prevent a fall, and dozing during cabinet meetings reminds us of President Joe Biden doing the same when exiting Marine One, walking like a stick figure across the West Wing lawn, then closing his eyes at important meetings.
Both of these men have shown us why the rigors of the office require a younger person to assume the responsibilities of the presidency of the United States. It’s not just the aging bones and joints that’s a concern. Those failing physical characteristics are more symbolic of the overall health needed to perform a demanding and complex job. As president, Biden searched for words and gave us uncomfortable moments of silence. President Trump struggles to limit his words and focus, rambling through unrelated topics and creating his own uncomfortable moments of babble.
Be it silence or babble, neither has a place in the Oval Office, or at a press conference. Biden’s 2024 debate performance, lack of press conferences, and Trump’s United Nations and Charlie Kirk memorial speeches were embarrassing moments for Americans and world leaders who count on our presidents to be sharp, cogent, accurate, and truthful. Neither have been that, and America deserves better.
As similar as these 80-year-olds are in their shortcomings, there are two significant differences in how they and others responded to their inability to do the work. For President Biden, an inner circle of advisors covered up his weaknesses and apparently never pressed him to remain the “transition” president he promised to be, preventing the Democratic Party from moving forward with a primary process to select another candidate for the 2024 election. This, combined with President Biden’s own refusal to honor his initial pledge and accept his developing cognitive limitations were the ultimate political death knell for the Democratic Party’s chances of winning the 2024 election.
Will the same scenario happen with President Trump? Will his inner circle confront his demented rants and uncontrollable lies? Will President Trump own his cognitive struggles before it becomes its own death knell for the MAGA party? So far, the answers to these questions are a resounding “no.” Fear of retribution has silenced his closest advisors, a loyal vice president, House and Senate members, and many in the media.
Unlike President Biden, President Trump is relying on an oligarchy of support with the courts, Congress, and the military – three key pillars of our democracy. Some might call his time in office a dictatorship because he has used fear and revenge – not the traditional political process for governing – as the foundation for his power as our president. In a nation that has only experienced democracy for 245 years, I believe a dictatorship promoting racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic policies will eventually be seen as foreign cancer, and die.
Equally important, voters did not elect an inner circle of advisors to control dysfunctional presidents, and that’s the danger when a president is unable to stay on top of critical domestic issues and understand the complexity of foreign policy. We experienced that watching the Biden administration’s failure to deal with immigration and the border crisis, inflation, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the behavior of the president’s son, and to productively engage Vice President Kamala Harris.
Now we see a similar situation with the Trump administration as its inner circle is making key decisions about staffing, tariffs, ICE arrests, housing vouchers, tax cuts, health care, relationships with other dictators, and Trump’s treatment of those who oppose him. In both cases, a core of empowered advisors becomes a cabal, and ends up filling the void created by cognitively challenged and confused presidents unable to keep up with the workload. That’s a dangerous precedent for a democracy.
The nation and the world expect America’s presidents to be able to handle the rigors of the job. We are not well served by unelected, loyal party members who fill the vacuum created by aging presidents.
America deserves better.
John Bossange is a resident of South Burlington.