Older people have had enough of being treated as problems to be managed, obstacles to generational change, or easy targets for political campaigns. We see it in national politics, in local and statewide campaigns, and throughout the business community. A person’s age is repeatedly used as shorthand for incompetence, technological confusion, resistance to change, or declining capacity.
The recent coverage of U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s so-called “iPad moment” is a revealing example. A single awkward answer about technology was rapidly turned into campaign content and offered as evidence that an 80-year-old could not understand or govern the future. Yet the same reporting acknowledged that Markey remained engaged through three debates, responded effectively to his opponent, and was leading in the polls. Gerontologist Tracey Gendron stated the essential point: age alone is not a measure of competence or health, and there is no “typical 80-year-old.”
That principle should apply beyond one election or candidate.
Voters have every right to question a public official’s attendance, judgment, record, responsiveness, health when demonstrably relevant, or willingness to relinquish power. Employees should also be evaluated on their performance, conduct, and ability to meet the responsibilities of their positions. But a birthdate is not evidence of incapacity.
The congressional campaign between Richard Neal and Jeromie Whalen demonstrates the distinction. Questions about Neal’s attendance, corporate contributions, policy record, and 37 years in office are legitimate matters for voters. Those are questions about accountability and political power. But describing the choice simply as “seniority or change” risks turning age itself into the problem. A younger candidate does not automatically represent innovation, just as an older candidate does not automatically represent stagnation.
The same assumptions operate inside campaigns. Older staff members and volunteers are too often treated as if they cannot understand digital outreach, social media, artificial intelligence, or contemporary organizing. Their ideas may be ignored until repeated by someone younger. Experience is welcomed when campaigns need institutional knowledge, trusted relationships, fundraising contacts, or historical context — but dismissed when leadership positions and strategic decisions are distributed.
This is also happening in business. Older employees are passed over for promotions, pushed toward retirement, excluded from training, or treated as technologically deficient before anyone evaluates their actual abilities. “Culture fit,” “fresh energy,” and “digital native” can become polite substitutes for age discrimination.
These practices are not merely unfair. The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act prohibits discrimination against workers age 40 and older in hiring, firing, pay, promotion, training, job assignments, benefits, and other conditions of employment. Meanwhile, businesses continue to rely on the judgment, reliability, professional relationships, and accumulated knowledge of the same workers they marginalize.
We have had enough.
Opposing ageism does not mean that older leaders should remain in office or employment forever. It does not mean avoiding succession planning, refusing to discuss health, or protecting powerful people from accountability. It means applying the same relevant standards to everyone. Can this person perform the work? Do they exercise sound judgment? Are they responsive? Do they represent the community? What have they accomplished, and what do they propose to do next?
Our earlier work on longevity and public discourse identified a related distortion: aging is too often collapsed into disease, disability, dependence, and decline. Once that distortion becomes culturally acceptable, an ordinary verbal stumble can be interpreted as proof of cognitive deterioration, unfamiliarity with one device can become evidence of irrelevance, and every older person can be viewed as a younger person’s obstacle.
The World Health Organization defines ageism as stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination based on age. It warns that ageism is pervasive, harms health and human rights, and can become embedded in institutions as well as interpersonal behavior. That is why dismissive language and generational stereotypes cannot be brushed aside as harmless political humor.
Campaigns should adopt explicit protections against age discrimination for staff and volunteers, challenge age-based messaging, and ensure that leadership includes people from different generations. Businesses should examine hiring, training, promotion, and termination decisions for age bias. News organizations should ask whether they would frame the same mistake as evidence of generational incapacity if a younger person had made it.
Generational change can be valuable. So can experience. They are not enemies. Our communities need both.
Older people are not asking to be exempted from scrutiny. We are demanding scrutiny based on evidence rather than stereotypes. Evaluate our records, our ideas, our conduct, and our abilities, but stop treating our age as the verdict.
James A. Lomastro lives in Conway.