Five hundred years ago, in the political dissertation The Prince, the philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli said, "Men judge generally more by the eye... Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are." Although the observation is about being an expert in political deception, the saying also places into perspective a recent survey conducted by NBC News that found that 70 percent of Americans do not want to see Joe Biden as a presidential candidate in 2024. Experts say that for the president, who has already announced his candidacy, it is a dilemma because half of those who said he should not run noted age as a "main" reason. In other words, images of the president's physical appearance which voters see daily may have given rise to the political reality that he may be too old for the job.

The advent of pictures and video technology has made images of aging presidents ubiquitous. Comparisons of what a president looked like when he began his presidency to the end of his presidency abound. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be photographed multiple times during his four years in office. One-hundred and thirty photos enable comparisons of the impact managing the Civil War had on his appearance.

Today, it is easier to document a president's life via visual media and immediately share the images on social media platforms and traditional media outlets such as television news. Reactions to these images vary. Some believe that signs of aging are natural. Others are convinced that presidents age faster due to the stress of the office. Regardless of what is said, it is clear that images the public see have an impact.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be photographed multiple times during his four years in office. One-hundred and thirty photos enable comparisons of the impact managing the Civil War had on his appearance.

Firsthand experiences may also impact perspectives. Studies indicate that 44 percent of Hispanics 70 years of age or older receive family care in the home, a percentage that is almost double in comparison to whites. The experience of caring for the elderly provides many hours of seeing the physical and cognitive challenges faced by seniors. Americans have great empathy for seniors. Still, there is no doubt that individual experiences are powerful and form views about an elderly person's capacity to be president.

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Young adults are now the largest plurality of the voting-age population in the United States and their impact in future elections will be significant. According to a Pew Research Center study prior to the 2020 presidential election, Millennials and Generation Z constituted 37 percent of the electorate. This fact is also true and more pronounced in the Hispanic community.

Electoral data in Harris County, Texas, the third largest county in the nation, shows that about 55 percent of the registered voters with a Spanish-surname are Millennials and Gen Zs. According to the Pew study, the importance of this data is that the younger generations are much more racially and ethnically diverse and are more likely to be Democrats. It is highly probable that young adults whose feelings about the president seesaw are also reflected in the NBC News survey.

Electoral data shows that about 55 percent of the registered voters with a Spanish-sur.name are Millennials and Gen Zs.

In the time millennials came into being, from 1981 to 1996, Americans elected a president four time, Republicans and Democrats each won twice. The average age of the winning Republicans was sixty-eight years of age and the average age of the winning Democrat was forty-eight. In the US, the median age at the start of a president's first term is fifty-five for a Democrat and fifty-six for a Republican.

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The average age of presidents who served before cameras were common and were not affiliated with either modern-day major political party is fifty-eight. Historically, only three presidents, Reagan, Trump, and Biden, have been 70 years old while in office. Given age data, the angst expressed in the NBC News survey is understandable.

In all, Machiavelli's maxim that one's political reality is formed by what one sees persists. But, in modern times, voters see thousands of images daily that literally change their political reality second by second. And that may be fortuitous for the president.