It's pretty depressing to look at the US political scene and consider the ages of the principal players. Donald Trump is 71. Hillary Clinton is 70. Joe Biden? 75. Bernie Sanders is 76 and Nancy Pelosi clocks in at 78.
I'm younger than all of these people and I still have most of the marbles I started out with, but I wouldn't dream of running for high political office. My ability to tolerate fools was never one of my strong points, and now I'm worse than ever. I might not have as short a fuse as Trump, but I wouldn't have the staying power to do the job properly -- which is, come to think of it, one of the few things that Trump and I have in common.
If you look across to Europe, things are only slightly better. Angela Merkel is 63, while Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are 61 and 68 respectively. There are a few younger leaders -- Macron in France, Paradkar in Ireland -- but they're still the exception.
I think this matters. Older people tend to be needy and greedy. Many years ago a whole generation of older New Zealanders were dubbed "the grey greedies" because, when a financial crisis hit the country, the refused to sacrifice any of their extensive social benefits. Younger political leaders, and younger people in general, have to live with the consequences of their decisions, for good or ill, in ways that the current bevy of oldsters simply won't.
That doesn't mean we should want all our leaders to be contemporaries of Kim Jong-Un. But it does mean that when the big summit meeting happens, Kim is looking at a much longer time horizon than Trump. That means he has more to gain if he plays his cards right, and much more to lose if he messes up.
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