‘We put that in the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, because people died at 38 or 40 back then…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Filmmaker Michael Moore has never let immutable facts get in the way of a good story while producing his radical leftist pseudo-documentaries.
So it’s no surprise that Moore would trash the U.S. Constitution for thwarting his latest crusade, to install 29-year-old socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., into the White House, according to The Daily Mail.
Moore told MSNBC’s “The Last Word” last week that Democrats in 2020 should forgo running on “issues” and instead focus on the question “Who can crush Donald Trump?”
He then lamented that Article II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution requires a president to be at least 35 years of age.
“We put that in the Constitution, the Founding Fathers, because people died at 38 or 40 back then,” Moore said. “Y’know, we need to lower that.”
Moore’s argument that the age clause established in the Constitution is too high because people back then died earlier would seem to contradict itself on its face. However, it also flies against several other realities.
With the exception of George Washington, who died at 67, and William Henry Harrison, who contracted pneumonia during his inaugural address and died a month later at 68, all of the first 10 presidents lived into their 70s. John Adams, the second president, lived into his 90s.
Only nine of the 45 presidents have been in their 40s when they ascended into the Oval Office, and none have ever been in their 30s.
While the Constitution does not elaborate on the reasons for the age limit, it is commonly understood that it was included to ensure that presidents had attained a reasonable degree of worldly knowledge and experience. At the time, 35 was considered middle-aged.
“Considering the nature of the duties, the extent of the information, and the solid wisdom and experience required in the executive department, no one can reasonably doubt the propriety of some qualification of age,” wrote early Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in an 1833 commentary.
“That, which has been selected, is the middle age of life, by which period the character and talents of individuals are generally known, and fully developed; and opportunities have usually been afforded for public service, and for experience in the public councils.”
Regardless, Moore said Ocasio–Cortez should be eligible to run against President Donald Trump in 2020 because of the impact the freshman congresswoman has already had within the Democratic Party by setting a more radical, Marxist-driven agenda.
“She is the leader. Everybody knows it. Everybody feels it. She is the leader of this mass movement,” he said.
But despite the strawmen Moore consulted with before making his claim, “AOC” as liberals have dubbed her, has not been embraced by all on the Left.
In fact, some Democrats are already calling for a primary challenge against her in the 2020 congressional election.
While many on the Right have ridiculed her perceived lack of intelligence, even sympathetic news outlets have found it necessary to fact-check her statements and to question the feasibility of her policy proposals.
Others have worried that the shift to the extreme Left would have a negative impact on the party by alienating moderates, comparing it with the Tea Party on the Right and even likening Ocasio–Cortez’s populist appeal to that of Trump himself.
Already, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, himself a radical progressive in many regards, has begun staking out a third-party position as a “centrist,” which Democrats fear will spoil their election chances.
After attacking Schultz last week and disputing the billionaire’s assertion that he was ‘self-made,’ Moore dismissed the the notion that Democrats should concern themselves with the political center.
“If you’re being moderate, stop being moderate. Take a position,” Moore told MSNBC. “There’s no middle ground anymore.”
But whether AOC’s political views disqualify her or not, the Founding Fathers certainly would have said that the former bartender should wait it out at least one more election cycle in order to reach her fullest intellectual peak—whatever that may be.
“The faculties of the mind [at age 35], if they have not then attained to their highest maturity, are in full vigour, and hastening towards their ripest state,” Story wrote. “The judgment, acting upon large materials, has, by that time, attained a solid cast; and the principles, which form the character, and the integrity, which gives lustre to the virtues of life, must then, if ever, have acquired public confidence and approbation.”