[NickC25]

Because if you look at the entire history of presidents with the notable exception of Barack Obama, every president has been a geriatric white dude. They've been conditioned to believe that geriatric white dudes are the only ones capable of holding the office. So, when compared with the younger black/indian woman, the natural choice was to select the old white (orange) guy.

[mikestew]

Because if you look at the entire history of presidents with the notable exception of Barack Obama, every president has been a geriatric white dude.

That’s not even true within my lifetime, let alone historically. People freaked the fuck out because Reagan was going to be all of 70 when he took office in 1982. That’s nothing compared to the fossils that they’re propping up in front of a microphone these days. 70 year olds in Congress these days are nicknamed “The Kid”.

[dragonwriter]

> Because if you look at the entire history of presidents with the notable exception of Barack Obama, every president has been a geriatric white dude.

That's only true for an incredibly expansive definition of geriatric: Teddy Roosevelt was 42, Kennedy 43, Obama and Grant 46, etc. By a commom conventional standard of "geriatric” in general use (65+), only Buchanan, Harrison, Reagan, Trump, and Biden qualify at the start of their first term, and only 16 total would at the end of their last term.

> So, when compared with the younger black/indian woman

Harris was closer to (but still older than) both the mean and median age at start of term for a President than Trump was (even if you compared her in 2024 to Trump when elected in 2016). Gender and age, sure, but the whole geriatric thing as a long-term bias evident across the whole list of Presidents is unjustified (there's probably a decent argument that the current electorate has a geriatric bias, but its not a long-term historical one.)