Adorable tot James Tufts found his political calling in 2013 at age three, becoming the youngest mayor of any American city. His brand of ice cream might not be for everyone, but his election was unanimous.
And yet, somehow in the America of 2018, a completely ridiculous constitutional provision makes James — now age 8 — ineligible to run for president.
Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution prevents anyone under the age of 35 from becoming president. We currently have a septuagenarian in the White House whose Twitter meltdowns and food choices repeatedly raise the prospect of mental decline, and Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden — 77 and 76, respectively — wouldn’t be any better.
But James? Seriously, age 8 just isn’t that young anymore, especially when your brother was mayor and groomed you for office. People younger than that routinely handle critical government policies like stealing money from their mom’s wallet or hacking the school principal’s email account.
The prohibition on people under the age of 35 serving as president is just one of these hollow rules consigned to us from the grave of dead old white men from the 18th century. Supposedly, the “character and talent” of someone over 35 is “fully developed” through “experience” and “public service.”
I know we can’t expect an 8-year-old to understand the Constitution — or even the First Amendment, as Democrats demonstrate daily — but anyone who can get enough votes should be president regardless of age.
James has everything a Good Progressive wants in a president — charisma, the vigor of youth, independence from ossified Democratic Party leadership, and a keen back-to-basics understanding that the fundamental role of the nanny state is to give people whatever they want unless what they want is actually in the Constitution they’ve never read and wouldn’t understand if they did.
Sure, the process of amending the Constitution is cumbersome, requiring both supermajorities in Congress and ratification by a staggering 75 percent of the states. But there’s no time like the present to start working to abolish arbitrary amendments like the First or the Second, and eliminating restrictions like the Electoral College and the age requirement for the most powerful political position on planet Earth.
