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For a nation that devotes so much of its political energy to the millennial generation, it seems a little odd that the future of political leadership has largely been passed down from one generation to the next.
But Alia Wong had the idea to put that theory to the test after the young immigrant representative from Illinois successfully led Democrats to the midterm election victory with a clever play on a grand millennial tradition: the first place of birth.
The question was, “Who is the country’s oldest-living political leader?” She created a Twitter poll and after a few days, 121,010 people had weighed in. And not surprisingly, President Theodore Roosevelt–whom President Trump liked to cite as his political role model–had the number one spot.
The @nytimes asked me if I’d “listen” to @realDonaldTrump and open a debate on President Obama’s birth certificate. Well, I received 120,000+ votes in 2 hours! I hope other young people are looking for #donalddb pic.twitter.com/nc9h6G3GJM — alia wong (@aliahwong) July 3, 2015
With a record vote total, Mr. Trump emerged as the likely to become the oldest major-party nominee in American history. The next candidate closest was Ronald Reagan, who was born 120 years ago in 1911.
The next step is a vetting process, but Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said on Monday, “The next age champ is Donald Trump.”