But it’s not just about mental acuity
I’ve been on a rolling rant lately about the age of Democrats in top leadership. I’m not the only one concerned about the gerontocracy. Charlie Sykes comments on the disappearance of Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), 81, who seems to have vanished from Congress in July.
“Since early September, my health challenges have progressed making frequent travel to Washington both difficult and unpredictable,” Granger said in a statement to Axios this week. She’s now in an assisted living facility. Her son told reporters she’s having “dementia issues.”
Sykes writes:
Once again, the moral questions of America’s political gerontocracy reveal themselves. This is an especially sensitive subject, because so many of us have loved ones—parents, grandparents, siblings—who are in cognitive decline. They deserve our consideration, compassion, and honesty. That’s also true for members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and presidents. But the stakes there are much higher, and in those cases, sometimes compassion means being truthful about when it’s time to move on.
Sykes mentions Joe Biden’s decline. And Senator Dianne Feinstein and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who both died in office.
“For much of this year, our politics has been dominated by octogenarians, including Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Grassley (who, at the age of 91, is actually a nonagenarian),” Sykes muses. “But Joe Biden’s decision to run for reelection at the age of 80 was the strongest case against the gerontocracy.”
I was still living in South Carolina in the mid-1980s when mental decline anecdotes went around about Sen. Strom Thurmond, then deep into his 80s. Thurmond was in meet-and-greet mode at an event, an attendee related at the time, when Thurmond’s young son walked up to his dad and the aging senator thrust out his hand and introduced himself.
After a closed Senate Judiciary hearing for organizing the Clinton impeachment trial over a decade later, a reporter related (on NPR, IIRC) that Thurmond, 96(?), had exited the meeting room and, mistaking him for an aide and needing an escort, took the reporter’s arm and shuffled down the hall to visit the men’s room.
But mental acuity is not the only reason for those in power to know (or to be told) when it’s time to hang it up and call it a career.
There is no substitute for long experience. But for a political party to remain vital, vibrant, and competitive, it has to have regular infusions of young blood, fresh ideas, and modern skills. Democrats are at a structural disadvantage and faced with a media environment dominated by outlets run by right-wing billionaire-ideologues. That is not the world as we’d like it, but it is the world as we find it.
Democrats’ top leaders cut their political teeth in the pre-internet era of network news. It is clear that, despite their deep political experience, they don’t understand how to interact with the media via any medium much more relatable than a press conference. Younger rising stars know how to draw attention and reach citizens more effectively in the age of social media and hostile media conglomerates. But so long as their elders hang on to their sinecures indefnitely, Democrats will struggle with 20th-century skills to meet the communication challenges of the 21st.
Moerover, with older pols hanging on beyond their expiration dates, attracting young talent to political work becomes that much harder when college graduates do not see paths for themselves into political leadership posts or jobs. (See AOC v. Connolly.) Why is turnout among young voters so low?
Wisconsin state chair Ben Wikler, 43, and David Hogg, 24, of Leaders We Deserve would like to win top DNC jobs in February. I’m not optimistic.
Happy Hollandaise!