Vox’s Yglesias: ‘Ridiculous’ it’s unconstitutional for Ocasio-Cortez to run for president

Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias said Wednesday that it’s “ridiculous” that it is unconstitutional for incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to run for president.

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the biggest star in the Democratic Party, and she has been ever since she unseated Rep. Joe Crowley in a surprise primary upset in May,” Yglesias wrote in a column published Wednesday on Vox. 

{mosads}”That her win didn’t, in the final analysis, launch a wave of leftist primary victories only goes to show what a phenomenon she personally is,” he added.

Under the Constitution, presidential candidates must be at least 35 years old. 

“While the law prevents anyone under the age of 35 from becoming president, we currently have a septuagenarian in the White House whose frequent nonsensical diatribes and notoriously scattered Twitter outbursts repeatedly raise the prospect of mental decline,” Yglesias wrote. “Meanwhile, the top two Democrats in national polling — Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden — are 77 and 76, respectively.”

Yglesias argued that Ocasio-Cortez, 29, “isn’t that young.” 

“People younger than that are routinely trusted with life-and-death situations in a huge array of contexts, ranging from parenting to military service,” he wrote.

Yglesias called the constitutional prohibition a “weird lacuna that was handed down to us from the 18th century,” claiming that no one “would seriously propose” such a rule today.

“Realistically, most people that young would simply have a hard time winning an election. But if you can pull it off, you should be allowed,” he wrote. “And I kind of think she should run for president.”

Ocasio-Cortez stunned the political establishment by upsetting 10-term congressman Joseph Crowley in June’s Democratic primary. She went on to win New York’s 14th Congressional District in November and has quickly become a force to watch in Washington.

John F. Kennedy was the youngest president ever elected at age 43.