Enough with America’s gerontocracy
“When hell freezes over, there will be three things left: Chuck Grassley, Mitch McConnell and cockroaches,” the Republican senator John Kennedy recently told NBC News.
While that sounds like a pretty terrible deal for the cockroaches, Kennedy isn’t wrong in his assessment. Grassley, the 89-year-old Republican senator from Iowa and McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the US Senate, are remarkably tenacious. They got jobs in government decades ago and they’ve clung to power ever since.
Still, while the two men may like to think otherwise, they are both mere mortals. The world got a rather dramatic reminder of this on Wednesday when McConnell appeared to suffer a medical incident during a news conference on Capitol Hill. The Kentucky Republican stopped speaking mid-sentence and, for 23 very awkward seconds, stared silently into the distance. Eventually one of his aides led him away.
What happened? Did his decades of underhanded political scheming suddenly flash before his eyes? Did the man who jokes about his opponents comparing him to Darth Vader suddenly realize he’d spent his entire life working to make the US a more miserable, less equitable, place? Or did he have some sort of seizure?
It’s not entirely clear. McConnell’s own explanation of events was to jokingly say he’d been “sandbagged”. This was a reference to Joe Biden tripping and falling over a sandbag at an air force graduation last month. McConnell’s first instinct, having a suffered a moment of vulnerability, was to get a dig at Biden in. Charming, charming man! Still, his deflection hasn’t stopped questions being raised about his physical and mental fitness – particularly as this latest episode comes after reports the lawmaker has fallen multiple times this year.
McConnell wasn’t the only high-profile politician to suffer some mental confusion this week. Ninety-year-old Dianne Feinstein seemed muddled during a vote on a defense appropriations bill on Thursday. Instead of just responding with “aye” or “nay”, as expected, she began to deliver a speech. About 15 seconds in, an aide whispered to her “Just say aye.” Feinstein obliged. This moment of confusion might not have been a big deal had it not been for the fact that there have been a lot of questions asked recently about the senator’s cognitive and physical health. Feinstein was absent from Washington for several months this year because of shingles, holding up important efforts to advance federal judges for confirmation. There have been numerous reports about her forgetfulness and confusion: at one point she even seemed to forget that she’d been absent from the Senate.
McConnell and Feinstein’s back-to-back cognitive incidents should serve as a wake-up call: the advanced age of America’s top politicians isn’t normal and it isn’t healthy. Biden, of course, is already the oldest president ever; if he wins in 2024, he would be 86 by the end of a second term. Biden is prone to weird gaffes (like the time he ended a speech on gun control with the words “God save the Queen, man”) and falls. Will he really be fit to lead at 86? Meanwhile, the median age of the Senate is 65.3, according to FiveThirtyEight’s calculations, the oldest ever. That’s over two decades older than a median age of 38.8 in the US as a whole.
To be clear: it’s not age in itself that’s the issue here. I have no doubt that some of the octogenarians in government (81-year-old Bernie Sanders, for example) have way more energy than I do. The issue here is the sheer number of octogenarians who have been in government for decades. The ridiculous number of career politicians who seem to have no intention of ever leaving office unless they’re carried out in a coffin.
I’m not sure if there should be age limits in government but there should certainly be term limits. A healthy democracy requires a constant stream of fresh blood and fresh ideas. It requires mechanisms that stop people becoming complacent in their ivory towers. What we have now, however, is a cozy club of multimillionaire boomer lawmakers who have been hoarding power and who refuse to make any space for a younger generation. There’s a word for this sort of oligarchical rule by elderly lawmakers, of course: gerontocracy. Funnily enough Google searches for the term shot up this week.
Do AI girlfriend apps create unhealthy expectations for human relationships?
Perhaps we needn’t worry too much about the age of our lawmakers – the way things are going we’ll soon all be ruled over by AI. We don’t have AI politicians yet, but there are AI girlfriend apps. Some see these as a worrying development. “Creating a perfect partner that you control and meets your every need is really frightening,” an expert in domestic violence told the Guardian. “Given what we know already, that the drivers of gender-based violence are those ingrained cultural beliefs that men can control women, that is really problematic.”
Japanese city apologizes after telling pregnant women to give husbands massages
Onomichi city has sparked national outrage after distributing some incredibly misogynistic flyers. “There are differences in the way men and women feel and think,” one flyer reads. “One of the reasons for this is the structural difference in the brains of men and women. It is known that men act based on theories, while women act based on emotions.” Other flyers advised pregnant women to please their husbands by making them lunch, doing the housework, giving them massages and always having “a smile on [your] face”.
Former Oregon prison nurse guilty of sexually abusing nine women in custody
“Tony Klein used his position of authority to prey on women in custody who were in a uniquely vulnerable position,” Oregon’s US attorney, Natalie Wight, said in a statement.
Five American women will appear on new quarters in 2024
The new quarters will feature the Rev Dr Pauli Murray, Patsy Takemoto Mink, Dr Mary Edwards Walker, Celia Cruz and Zitkala-Ša.
RIP Sinead O’Connor
Everyone is eulogizing the brilliant musician now but let’s not forget how much she was demonized for speaking truth to power in her lifetime. Let’s not forget how many of the institutions and celebrities rushing to praise her now stood by as she was vilified for speaking out about sexual abuse in the Catholic church and injustice around the world. “You hadn’t the guts to support her when she was alive and she was looking for you,” Morrissey raged in a searing statement. Morrissey has come out with some very unpleasant far-right views in recent years, but when it comes to his statement on O’Connor he is right on the mark.
The week in porktriarchy
A rescue hog named Pigcasso is bringing home the bacon. The pig, who paints with a brush she clasps with her teeth, has sold over $1m in art, according to her caretaker who has just come out with a book on Pigcasso’s career. Pigcasso’s abstract paintings are actually rather good and she sports celebrities like Rafael Nadal as fans. She’s kind of a pig deal.
• The headline of this article was amended on 1 August 2023 to remove a reference to “boomer” lawmakers, thus reflecting the wider range of ages referred to by the author.
