bruises and birthdays

American gerentocracy under a spotlight

One of our loyal subscribers to Actions has friends who live in the adjacent unit to mine in Annapolis so he got marvelous video of the Parade of Lights last night. Pretty much every human in Anne Arundel County was there or tried to get there, even if it meant quite a walk, as we tried getting parking near the Maryland State House in town but parking and traffic across our wee town were simply insane. I hope you enjoy one of James’s clips. I thank him!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0CWyDi7XseXuGCt2YvmM3nHSCFjQe5Qs5HRTYYNYN6j7u2FH3pJSgcJNgGJAnC8NCl&id=148097

I want to observe it’s been a tough week for politicians in the United States, literally a hard one full of tumbles. Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi fell in Amsterdam, requiring a hip replacement for her efforts. At 84, I would not consider that an easy surgery, particularly in a foreign land. Pelosi’s slip down stairs occurred within only days of current Senate Majority Leader Mitt McConnell’s bruising and scabbing of his legs when he fell earlier in the week. McConnell will not be in Congress within five weeks as he is retiring at the end of this term but Pelosi won reelection last month. She is certainly not the oldest person in the federal legislature as Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa is in his nineties at this point. We have several folks over 80 in both houses from both parties so this is far from a partisan scree on my part.

Why are we doing this to ourselves? Do we honestly believe, for a range of reasons, it makes sense to elect people well into their ninth decade? It’s not merely that people lose their footing as they age but are more prone to strokes, cancer, heart attacks, dementia, or more illness altogether Life in politics or in Washington, D.C. are both quite a challenge for anyone at any age with the vast number of obligations one must pursue to be effective at governing, much less successful at accumulating more campaign donations to run yet again. You recall the old phase: aging isn’t for sissies?

When California’s Dianne Feinstein succumbed at 90 fifteen months ago, it was at the end of a painful downward spiral for a powerful public persona. Her diminished physical condition could only lead one to wonder how effectively she represented Californians in the upper chamber over her last terms. Evidence included Democrats were angry at Feinstein’s odd (and seemingly misplaced) praise for Republican Lindsey Graham’s handling of the Senate Judiciary Committee (partisanship lives, no matter which party or at what age the members served) several years back.

Tragically, Feinstein was not unique in overstaying a welcome because colleagues within her own party were unwilling or unable to convince her to put interests above her own determination to win reelection. My husband tells a tale of seeing the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond literally wheeled in and out of meetings with military personnel in the 1990s as if he were a manequin rather than a U.S. Senator. Before his 2003 passing, Thurmond had represented his home state for literally forty-eight years in the Senate alone, much less his prior time as Governor and a presidential candidate in 1948. Was that the best thing for his constituents or for a body highly deferential to individuals with the greatest seniority?

The quest to stay on in political office is not restricted to the legislative branch, of course. President Biden’s poor showing in a late June debate this year ultimately led to his withdrawal from the presidential race, with many in his own party blaming his stubbornness on running into a second term in his 80s for their party’s recent defeat at the polls.

Yet we are being remarkably daft if we believe a 78 year old President-elect (Trump will be 78 years and 220 days old on 20 January 2025 while Biden was 78 years and 61 days when he took the Oath of Office nearly five years back) is not similarly a tired man for the job. Being president is demanding: period. It requires balancing so many objectives, responsibilities, concerns, and competing priorities in a highly public manner. Just as many questioned Biden’s fitness to run again or even while he was president, similarly worried voices opine that Trump is too old, too distracted, or too consumed by the challenges of age to be effective. Time will tell but I am certain this debate will rage throughout his term, much less if he were to attempt to overturn the 22nd Amendment.

I am uncomfortable with anyone at that age facing the pressures of the job. Resiliency is not limited to the young but it seems more likely resident in those of a younger vintage.

Politicians continue running for office and all-too-often actually winning their races to serve for their constituencies more often than we realize. Reasons doggedly continue in office may include personal need for the ego boost of election or genuinely believing one has better policy positions or fear of retiring or who knows what. But running for office past retirement age, and I will define retirement as that point at which one must collect Social Security at age 70, just strikes me as questionable (at best) or harmful (at worst) for the individual and for the nation.

Maybe advancing age is not a factor in decision-making yet life these days can be wearying for any of us. The U.S. system does not have age limits on many positions, especially in politics where we rely on voters to make all choices, but is that good governance? Is it bad policy? I welcome your thoughts.

We in the west used to be so cynical when the Maoists or the Soviets put their geriatric politicians on public display for various national occasions. Mao, apparently, was incomprehensible by the time he met Nixon in February 1972, well on the trjectory that led to his 1976 death. He had, of course, led a hard life as a revolutionary but then in government lived well (despite what he denied others with his governing policies) which allowed him to make it into his mid-80s. But that doesn’t mean his capacities for decision-making were as sharp or his endurance as robust as a forty-five year old. Soviet Politburo members were every bit as ludicrous as they barely clapped their hands in unison for state events. In retrospect, the Soviet Communist Party saw its power sunset in the 1980s along with those decrepit revolutionary men fading from the scene.

But the real problem in a representative system is not these pathetic figures (some of which may well be competent but that would appear a small percentage) themselves but, in truth, it’s those of us who vote these people into office. Non-voting polling consistency shows our disdain for those in elected office yet we have this amazing facility for deciding not to apply that disdain to our individual representatives—at any level, it appears—in the majority of cases. We went through some major upsets with Speaker Tom Foley’s and Senator Tom Daschle’s (both Democrats) defeats within the past thirty years but 98% of incumbents, regardless of age, were reelected in November 2024, according to Briana Ryan of Ballotpedia.com.

Seriously? These people, at all and any age, are offering the most effective policy proposals or are we too lazy to consider alternatives? Are these candidates, having served for some period, so good at constituent service that they deserve our votes? Perhaps but I am dubious we the voters are really doing our due diligence.

But that is our right in a participatory system, even if it gives results that are painful to watch.

Does any of this make a whit of difference to you as a citizen or a voter? Do you care about the aggregate ages of those we pay to represent us and decide so many aspects of our lives?

I welcome your thoughts on this question and any others we discuss in Actions Create Consequences. Perhaps I am just a lone voice but I am curious about how others feel. Please recall I don’t pretend to have all the answers but want a dialogue.

Thank you for taking time this Sunday afternoon to read this column. I appreciate each and every time you consider any of these topics. Thank you to the subscribers who offer financial resources to support this work. Again, I will send a thank you to all annual subscribers in the form of a 2025 calendar curated from my photography if you need an incentive to subscribe. I am happy you are here, regardless of your status, however.

As we slide into the last days of 2024, I know all are busy. Be well and be safe. FIN

Karoun Demirjian, “Pelosi Has Hip Replacement Surgery After Fall”, NewYorkTimes.com, 14 December 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/us/pelosi-hip-replacement-surgery.html

Briana Ryan, “95% of incumbents won re-election”, Ballotpedia.com, 25 November 2024, retrieved at https://news.ballotpedia.org/2024/11/25/95-of-incumbents-won-re-election/