“I’ll give up power when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.”
This is the operative principle for today’s politicians.
The examples are so obvious:
- Nancy Pelosi, born in 1940, continues to represent California’s 11th District despite having lost the Speakership for the second time, despite having spent nearly four decades in the House of Representatives.
- Senator Chuck Schumer, a decade younger than Mrs. Pelosi (and thus not yet an octogenarian), is still serving his fifth term as a senator from New York State.
- Senator Dianne Feinstein demonstrated extreme mental fragility before dying in office at age 90 — after serving more than three decades.
There are Republican examples, too, but age, as The Wall Street Journal puts it, “is a bigger headache for Democrats than Republicans for one central reason: Democrats have a lot more old members.” While the median ages are nearly identical between the two parties, “of the 20 oldest House members elected in 2024, 16 were Democrats. In the Senate, where tensions over age are more subdued, nearly all of the oldest senators — 11 of the 14 who were older than 75 at the start of this Congress — were Democrats.”
This may strike a sense of dissonance, I know. The old cliché is that Republicans are tired old men and Democrats are wild young (and female) firebrands. But the true nature of the establishment doesn’t quite fit the old saws and preconceptions.
The Journal notes that 70 percent of Americans support an age limit on holding office.
Sure, as the next best thing to term limits! We know the crux of the problem is not age, it is the advantages of incumbency, and the length of time in power.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with Midjourney and Firefly
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