It is possible, in politics as in life, for several things to be true at once.

It is true that Donald Trump and his plans for a second presidential administration represent an existential threat to American democracy.

It is true that a media imperative for “balance” in political reporting is further degenerating into a “both sides”, false balance framework that is distorting our sense of what is at stake in this presidential campaign.

It is true that hether we think it fair or not, Biden’s age is going to frame coverage of the election. Just this week, for example, the New York Times ran a story with the headline “Which Is Worse: Biden’s Age or Trump Handing NATO to Putin?”.

As others have pointed out, this kind of narrative approach is calcifying. It does not seem to matter, for example, that in his incendiary comments about Biden’s age, special counsel Robert Hur took grossly inappropriate liberties in editorialising. It would not matter if Biden did not make another slip for the entire campaign (which, given what we know about the president, seems unlikely), and it does not matter that these slips may not have anything to do with advancing age.

It is also true that Biden is too old. At 81, he is already too old now, and if he does see out a second term, he will be 86. In the end, that may not affect the outcome of the election – in 2020 and 2022, American voters demonstrated that they saw Trump’s politics as a far greater threat to American democracy, stability and prosperity than Biden’s age.

But that does not change the fact that he is too old. As Fintan O’Toole recently argued,

Biden, fairly or otherwise, is the lightning rod for deep generational discontents and widespread unhappiness at the persistence of an American gerontocracy.

So why, given all these truths, is Biden still – barring any significant changes in the status quo – all but guaranteed the........

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