Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren Volebam Here, politicians often act like children, whether it's calling each other names, getting into slap fights on the legislative floor, or simply taking their toys and stomping off to another sandbox. The way lawmakers act, you'd be surprised they aren't still in preschool. The truth is that many countries around the globe require their elected officials to have
some life experience under their belts. That includes the US or you have to be at least thirty five years old to be eligible to take the keys to the White House for the article. This episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke with John Siri, a government and politics professor at Pomona College. He said, most advanced democracies have an age requirement for the top executive office. It's
just a matter of where they said it. The US Constitution imposes three eligibility requirements on anyone thinking about running for president. In order to actually take the office, you have to be a natural born citizen of the US, You must have lived in the US for at least the last fourteen years, and you have to be no less than thirty five years old, all of which appear likely to remain the law of the land for the
foreseeable future, but it has been brought into question. A Serie is the author of the book Too Young to Run a proposal for an age amendment to the US Constitution. He argues that the age requirement is a remnant from the country's early days, in which American patriots were still just a little wary about finding themselves under the rule of a king or other dictatorship. That's why we have
term limits and elections every four years. But the age requirement was one way to safeguard what John Adams called our natural aristocracy, or one in which leaders rise on merit, not by right. Siri explained, monarchs often succeed to the throne at an early age, so if you make it old enough, the age minimum is one hedge against monarchs. In other words, modernly, we might be a bit obsessed with the British and Targarian royal families, but we're still
not keen to have one of our own. Still, it remains unclear where the Constitution's drafters pulled thirty five as the appropriate age to become the country's chief executive. You might ask, wasn't that a bit old for the era? Didn't people back then come of age earlier than they do now and die earlier too. It's true that the average life expectancy in late seventeen hundreds America was only thirty eight years of age, but remember that that's the average.
It's skewed young because so many infants and children died before they reached adulthood, affected by diseases that we have vaccines and antibiotics and other modern medicine to fix. Now, if you lived past even the age of five, your average life expectancy jumped to over fifty, and people regularly lived into their seventies and beyond. Founding father Benjamin Franklin turned seventy the same year that he signed the Declaration
of Independence. According to Siri, the founders who set the age requirement probably looked to the Roman Republic, which has served as a model for government for centuries. Roman councilors were required to be at least thirty five years old. So yes, the American presidential age minimum stems from a centuries old concern about kings and queens ruling from an iron throne and draws inspiration from millennia old bureaucrats who
governed Rome. Maybe that's why some people say the rules should be changed and have even tried to officially petition the government. The arguments against the age limit are pretty straightforward. You can drive a car, be sent off to war, and vote an election by the time you reach eighteen. You can be a state representative at twenty five and a senator at thirty. So at any of these points, why shouldn't you be able to sit at the grown
up table and help make the big decisions. On the other hand, there's the wisdom that comes with experience and the knowledge that comes with learning over time. Biologically speaking, that pop science concept that our prefrontal corteses finished developing in our mid twenties isn't really true. But our brains develop at different paces, and research has shown that structural
growth can continue into our thirties at least. But that's possibly even more evidence that the possessor of a slightly older brain might be a better choice for high office. Of course, there's always a stigma that you in our generations are dumb and can't be trusted. After all, the country's youngest president, Theodore Roosevelt was already forty two years old when he rose to the office after the assassination
of William McKinley. But when you look back in history, think of someone like Alexander the Great, who conquered much of the known world and managed an empire all before dying at the age of thirty two. Maybe you were missing out on some upstart government whiz who could heal everything ailing Old Uncle Sam, the lebron James of politics could be sitting out there just waiting for their chance to wipe out the country's debt and hunger and install
teleporters nationwide. Instead, that person is probably coming up with a cool new app somewhere in Silicon Valley. Siri thinks that maybe we have the whole age thing upside down. He said, if you're going to have age restrictions, they should probably be against old dodding people, which is a strong statement, although it is worth noting that throughout American history about three quarters of our presidence have been between the ages of fifty and sixty five, and our candidates
are getting old. In nineteen eighty one, Reagan was the oldest president to ever come to office, at age sixty nine. Until Trump and Biden recently followed at ages seventy and seventy eight, respectively. It would take an amendment to the Constitution to change the age limit in either direction, which itself would require by partisan action, the likes of which
are rare in today's political environment. But as of twenty twenty three, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that a whopping eighty percent of Americans think there should be an upper age limit on federal elected officials. So, however strong series statement is, it seems that a lot of us agree with him. Today's episode is based on the article should the US let people younger than thirty five? Run? For president? On how stuffworks dot Com, written by Chrisoffer.
Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Playing four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.