Teens baffled why people from the 1900s are still in charge of the country

VICKSBURG, Miss. – A recent poll from the Pew Research Center has learned that a whopping 89% of American teens are genuinely baffled by the fact people keep electing “old people” born in the 1900s to run the country.

The poll was conducted as part of a research grant to understand the mindset of the country’s youngest voting demographic ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

“This year’s first-time voters were only born in 2006 and according to the U.S. Constitution, a presidential candidate must be at least 35 years old. That means the youngest a potential candidate could be in this election would’ve been born in 1989, or the late 1900s as the youngsters like to say,” said David Poindexter, head pollster at Pew. “So, the fact these young voters are confused as to why someone born pre-2000 is running for president is mildly concerning.”

Participants of the survey argued, however, that the poll was misleading and that they’re just confused why the two leading candidates in this year’s election are two geriatric white guys who’ve basically already got one foot in the grave.

“We’re not as dumb and naive as these boomers think we are,” said Ethan O’Reilly, 18. “But I think the worst part of this is that the two leading candidates act like they care about the future of this country when they’re both basically on borrowed time.”

President Joe Biden, 81, and former President Donald Trump, 77, insist they’re both in top mental and physical shape and completely capable of surviving the next four-year presidential term. However, these young voters were quick to point out the fact that both men are already more than 76 years old, the average life span of an American male.

“It’s not just the age of the presidential candidates that worry me,” said Latitia Brown, 19. “There are at least 10 members of congress who were born before World War II. These people are so out of touch with what it means to be middle or lower class in this country and, like all good boomers, they’re too damn stubborn to get out of the way for a younger generation to step up and make decisions that will make a meaningful impact on the future and the people who are going to live long enough to experience their consequences.”

To further drill down this point, many younger voters were quick to blame the Baby Boomer generation (people born between 1946 and 1964) for many of the problems they see in regard to generational representation in government. The median age of American presidents when they enter office is 55 years old, with the youngest being in their early-mid-forties. This means that if this trend were to continue, the 2024 presidential candidates would be from Generation X (1965-1980) or the Millennial generation (1981-1996).

Except they’re not.

With four to eight years between presidential inaugurations, it should seem pretty obvious that the incoming president would be younger than his predecessor. This is a trend that was true, with some exceptions for much of American history until Ronald Reagan was elected. Reagan was not only older than Jimmy Carter, his predecessor, he was older than JFK who was elected 20 years earlier. When Reagan left office, he was the oldest president in history up to that point.

George H. W. Bush was the next president elected and, while he was younger than Reagan at his inauguration, he was still older than Jimmy Carter, who was elected president 12 years earlier. Bill Clinton was our next president and our first Baby Boomer to hold office.

Although Clinton was one of the youngest presidents ever elected at the age of 46, his election marked the beginning of the Boomer’s reign in Washington. The next two presidents were George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both Boomers, born in 1946 and 1961, respectively.

Then we got Donald Trump, born in 1946. Every president between 1992 and 2016 were from the Boomer generation and three of them were from 1946, the first year of that generation. The 2020 election saw the first president in 22 years to not be from the Boomer generation. Good, right? Nope.

Joe Biden was born in 1942, two years before American troops stormed the beaches of Normandy to kick Nazi ass all the way back to Germany. He predates the Boomer generation by four years. He was walking and talking before the first Baby Boomer popped out of his mother’s undercarriage. He’s not only older than his predecessor, he’s older than the last four. He’s older than Bill Clinton and we elected him president more than 30 years ago.

“Joe Biden was born before my grandparents were even born,” said O’Reilly. “We regularly get calls from my grandfather’s nursing home that he’s escaped and is running through the neighborhood in nothing but his underwear. And the Democrats and Republicans expect us to be okay with voting for someone even older than him?”

Mental acuity has been a hotly debated subject about both Biden and Trump. Both camps have leaned heavily into the accusations that the other is in serious mental decline, and both have brought receipts that, for many young voters, seems like credible evidence that neither candidate should probably be on the ballet this year.

“All I hear is how one guy is senile or the other has dementia,” said Brown. “Let’s just put them both in a home where they can compete over a game of checkers and leave running the country to someone born this side of the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

“No one asked for a rematch of the 2020 election,” said O’Reilly. “I think an unnecessary root canal would be more entertaining than watching those two geriatric cucks mumble nonsense on a debate stage.”

There’s been a small grassroots movement among young voters to seriously consider a third-party candidate in this year’s election. While this movement has gained some steam, many more seasoned voters have cautioned these teenagers from straying too far away from the two-party system.

“I’m so tired of old people telling me that I’m wasting my vote when I cast it for a third-party candidate,” said Tim Hynes, 18. “They all assume that if I vote for the Green Party or a Libertarian that I’m essentially voting for ‘the other guy’. The problem with that is that you’re assuming I would’ve voted for your guy if I chose one of the two main parties. But guess what? I wouldn’t vote for either of those Crypt Keepers, so shut the fuck up and go be brainwashed somewhere else.”

As of right now, even though we’re still deep in the primary stages of the 2024 election, it looks like Trump and Biden will represent their respective parties this November and many young voters are already looking forward to 2028 when both candidates will most likely either be ineligible for another term or too dead to hold office.

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