What’s the salient feature of Washington leadership? Is it cynicism? Incompetence? Profligacy with our money? Those characteristics stand out, but none is quite it.
The unprecedented thing is that they are so old.
Democrats who control the federal capital are superannuated as no American government and few others elsewhere have ever been. Joe Biden, the oldest president ever, is 79; Speaker Nancy Pelosi is 82; Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is also 82; Chief Whip James Clyburn is 81. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is relatively sprightly but still 71; his deputy, Sen. Dick Durbin, is 77. Sen. Bernie Sanders, heart and soul of the party, is 80. Most of those who chair prized Capitol Hill committees are up there with them.
Throughout history, a few remarkable figures have brimmed with energy and ideas into great age. But that isn’t the case with whole echelons of politicians such as those above. A question that has always hung over this administration and this Congress is, who is really running the show?
It isn’t comforting to remark that 70 or 80 is the new 60, or to ponder other half-truths of a culture unwilling to accept that mortality isn’t a choice. We live in a gerontocracy.
Age is supposed to bring wisdom. But when voters look at the White House and Capitol Hill, they don’t see seasoned, elderly leaders acting as a moderating force on reckless youth. They see the opposite.
An old guard is clinging to power and rank by embracing the most radical ideas thrown up at them by frustrated younger generations that clamor for a wholesale restructuring of America’s culture, economy, and society. Members of the high command look anxiously over their shoulders at radicals who want to displace them. They’re leading by looking backward.
Biden, in particular, puts on a show of youth, jogging to podiums (when not meandering toward an undiscerned exit). But Democratic leaders en bloc adopt the demeanor of men and women itching for action, eager for “change.” On the contrary, their chief instinct is for self-preservation, stasis. The party is being eroded by an undertow of make-believe.
Schumer has spent two years focused on averting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s threat to his Senate seat in New York, from where she and her ilk launched a putsch against the party establishment in 2018. Refusing to be outflanked by the Left, he embraces whichever radical proposals enthuse her, such as allowing students to slough off $1.7 trillion of college debt onto the rest of us. Now, Biden is on board. They’ve toyed with constitutional vandalism to pack the Supreme Court and make it safe for left-wing overreach. Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, and the rest keep pressing for reckless multitrillion-dollar spending that older, wiser heads should reject.
They refuse to learn that wrapping themselves in radicalism doesn’t appeal to Americans. This presents both Republicans and Democrats with a big opportunity. It makes GOP victories probable in the midterm elections. But it might, just might, also persuade Democrats to choose new congressional leaders — and a younger nominee for the 2024 presidential contest.
