TRUMP-BIDEN GERONTOCRACY AND THE WORLD ORDER

THEY say age is just a number.

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Not if you are in politics.

This April, at a conference in Washington, Gordon Brown, the former chancellor and prime minister of the UK now in his early seventies, introduced himself as someone too old for European politics and too young to be an American politician. The point made only half in jest triggered some laughs and the hiss of resigned sighs.

On Thursday, the sighs of dismay were amplified as they resonated across the United States and the world as folks watched an 81-year-old in a face-off with a 78-year-old in the first presidential debate. The Thursday hustle between Joseph Robinette Biden and Donald J Trump was a validation of the worst fears— America's future and that of the world order was now hostage to oneupmanship in the race of geriatrics.

The 90-minute spectacle of rant and ramble was scarcely a debate and hardly presidential. Juvenile jibes chased coarse charges of the unverifiable variety. Try this for flavour. At one point Trump chided Biden, "Let's not act like children"; Biden retorted, "You are a child". As Biden stuttered and stumbled over words and thoughts, Trump paraded personal victimhood with superlative self-certification.