Opinion: Face It, the Way Biden and Trump Look Matters to Voters

Jill Filipovic is the author of The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness.

Thursday’s presidential debate will pit the two oldest-ever candidates for president against each other. Despite being nearly the same age, Donald Trump has tried to paint Joe Biden as elderly and doddering, and voters also seem to worry more about Biden’s age than Trump’s. And though Trump’s “angry grandpa” persona makes for entertaining television, it doesn’t necessarily instill confidence.

Ever since FDR hid his wheelchair from the public, presidents and presidential candidates have understood that TV is a visual medium, and aesthetics matter. But perhaps no two presidential candidates have gone to such lengths to broadcast youth and vitality to the American public, even as they enter their ninth decades.

Read more at The Daily Beast.