Biden needs to take a mental capacity test. Courtesy | Facebook

When the president of the United States, perhaps the most mentally taxing profession in the country, proudly announces that he has traveled to all 54 states, it is time to consider screening our older politicians for mental competency.

This is what Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador, is calling for in her new campaign for the Republican presidency. In a rally in Charleston, she made clear that her platform seeks to eliminate the problem of older politicians in America by establishing mental competency tests. 

“In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire,” Haley, 51, said on February 15th. “We’ll have term limits for Congress. And mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.”

Haley has picked up on an important issue for America in our current time. Our politicians are reaching their expiration dates. Joe Biden is the first octogenarian president, and if he seeks reelection, he will be 86 by the time he leaves office. If Donald Trump is elected president in 2024, he will be 88 at the end of a four-year term. Many other politicians have reached an advanced age. There are currently 16 senators and 36 representatives over the age of 75, making the median age of the 118th Congress the highest ever. 

As the age of our politicians increases, so does the likelihood that their mental capacities decline. According to the Population Reference Bureau, 10% of the population aged 80, and up to 25% of the population over 90, has dementia, a disease that would prevent the president from executing the functions of his job. Joe Biden seems to be evidence of such a politician whose mental capacity is declining. Last November, he made the fascinating yet totally inaccurate comment that “We have more chickens than anywhere in the nation in Delaware, but we don’t have turkeys.” While this type of language flub alone is not enough to provide evidence for a mental disorder, it is sufficient enough to justify a mental capacity test. 

A mental capacity test is a short test designed to screen older citizens for cognitive disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. One such test is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Assessment, a 10-minute long examination in which a subject completes basic tasks such as drawing a clock, repeating words, and identifying pictures of animals. These tests do not measure intelligence, only basic cognitive function. Most notably, former President Donald Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on this test, which he took of his own free will, but Biden has yet to take any sort of cognitive exam.

However, implementing mental capacity tests will not be as easy as electing a president to do the job. Such restrictions on elections cannot be established through an executive order, they require a constitutional amendment, which would need to be ratified by three-fourths of all states. Haley is proposing that she act outside of the Constitution and the powers allowed by the presidency when she promises to establish mental competency tests. This is an issue that should not be solved by one person, but by bipartisan collaboration and tough discussions among politicians and the public.

If an amendment was passed to mandate mental capacity tests for all incoming federal politicians over the age of 75, voters would be both informed about their politicians’ capabilities and reassured that they will be represented properly. 

Having older leaders is not wrong, far from it. We need representatives with life experience, the more the better, to ground the radical ideas of the youth in reality. If mental competency tests are enacted, older representatives who are both mentally competent and wise beyond their years could continue to serve their country without fear of criticism or pressure to retire, for they proved their mental competency at the beginning of their term.

Interestingly, the Department of Defense requires that every person involved with the handling of nuclear weapons be evaluated for their mental capacity, except for the most important person, the one who is in charge of pushing the button, the president of the United States. Let’s repair this inconsistency and ensure that the safety of our country, and the safety of the world, is in the wisest of hands.