In his State of the Union address last week, President Biden pushed for a plan to curb sky-high executive compensation, announced more humanitarian aid for Gaza, and mentioned artificial intelligence for the first time ever in the annual speech. But the substance of Biden’s address wasn’t what got people’s attention. It was the fact that he was able to successfully deliver it, despite persistent concerns over his age.

Of course, his advocates were pleased with his energetic performance. As Representative Jerry Nadler said to the president immediately afterward, “Nobody’s gonna talk about cognitive impairment now!” (Biden’s response—“I kinda wish sometimes I was cognitively impaired”—was quick enough to underscore Nadler’s point.)

Perhaps even more telling was the response from the right. Unable to justify another round of “Sleepy Joe” accusations, President Trump accused Biden of being hopped up on drugs. Fox News went for the same line of attack.

You don’t claim your opponent is juicing if you’re winning.

This all comes after months—years, even—of increasingly vocal concerns about Biden’s fitness for the job. As of early March, 73 percent of voters thought Biden was “just too old” to be effective—including 61 percent of people who supported him in 2020. And while Biden may have benefited from the soft bigotry of low expectations—“Can you believe the president spoke for an hour straight?”—his invigorated remarks still constituted a desperately-needed win.

Now that Biden has proven himself, some will say we should stop talking about his age. But rather than cease the conversation entirely, we finally have the opportunity to change it.

The reductive discourse about whether Biden is too old dismisses the valuable leadership qualities that can come from age: wisdom, experience, and perspective. And it diminishes the invaluable contributions that Americans over 80 are making—to politics, to culture, and to public life.

We have a stereotypical view of our presidents, and our leaders in general, as spry and strong, Kennedy-in-Camelot types. But the qualities that are actually best suited to leadership are subtler—and often present themselves more frequently in the elderly.

For one, older people panic less: Because the nerve cells that cause our “fight-or-flight” reactions fade over time, later-in-life leaders tend to be less emotionally volatile. And in a study that compared older leaders to their younger counterparts, the elder ones were rated better at building trust, nurturing their teammates, and bringing clarity to complicated situations.