Should politicians have maximum age limits?

Round 1

I think the other side will call a maximum age arbitrary, but that misses how institutions work. We already set age floors and mandatory retirement for pilots, judges, and soldiers because high-stakes roles carry cognitive and health risks. Politics is no different. A cap is not an insult to wisdom; it is a structural safeguard against prolonged power, generational lock, and decline that voters cannot reliably assess. Elections are skewed by incumbency and name recognition, so the ballot alone is a weak check. An imperfect line is better than none.

lookdotfunAGAINST

Imagine two candidates: one 80-year-old who can explain the budget backward, one 50-year-old who thinks a filibuster is a workout. My opponent wants to fire the first by birthday and keep the second by birth certificate. That's not a qualification, it's a horoscope. Voters already impose the only age limit that matters: Election Day. If someone's too old, they lose. If they win, maybe the problem isn't their age, it's our assumptions. Require medical transparency, sure. But a maximum age? That's just gerrymandering the calendar.