Last 12 months Teen Vogue felt the want to explain to its readers what a “gerontocracy” was.
Their article was on the heels of Mitch McConnell, then a youthful 81, being escorted away from a televised press convention after he froze without explanation for 20 seconds. Teen Vogue defined that the phrase meant “a government ruled by the elderly.”
At a press convention two weeks later McConnell froze again, this time for 30 seconds.
Within a month of that article Dianne Feinstein passed away, age 90, whereas nonetheless a sitting U.S. senator. She had missed two months of labor earlier that 12 months, stalling many essential votes for President Joe Biden’s judicial and government nominees, however died hours after her closing vote.
The presidential debate final week shone a laser gentle on Biden’s age. But it ought to pressure a wider dialogue on why the U.S. Congress is certainly one of the oldest in international politics, and what it means for consultant democracy.
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The Pew Research Center, in a research final 12 months, famous that 82 % of Republicans and 76 % of Democrats support putting a maximum age limit in place for elected officers in Washington, D.C. But who will get to determine whether or not time period limits can be acceptable for elected US officers?
Meet (a few of) the gerontocracy: Sen. Charles E. Grassley, of Iowa (R), is 89; Rep. Grace F. Napolitano, of California (D), is 86; Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey (D), 86; Rep. Harold Rogers, of Kentucky (R), 86; Rep. Maxine Waters, of California (D), 85; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Emerita, of California (D), is 84; Rep. James E. Clyburn, of South Carolina (D), is 83; and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) is 82.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
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These are all older than Biden, 81, and Donald Trump, 78.
Pelosi, the long-serving former House speaker, introduced final 12 months that she is going to seek re-election this November—her twentieth time period.
A number of months in the past Jon Stewart was riffing on Democrats’ rising anxiousness over Biden’s age. “I know liberals say, ‘Don’t say Joe Biden is old’—don’t say what people see with their own eyes! You can say it, he can’t hear us.”
It was humorous. But after final week, rather less so.
Close to one in 5 members of the U.S. House are aged 70 or over. In the Senate, that determine is nearer to one in three.
There is a spot for expertise and knowledge in politics. But older persons are not simply overrepresented in US politics; they’re additionally overrepresented relative to age.
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The median age of the U.S. Congress has been climbing for the final 40 years. In 1980 the median age of the Senate was 52. In 2023 it was 65. In 1980 the median age of the House was 48, final 12 months it was 57.
According to the Census Bureau, the median age in America is 38.9 years outdated.
In this case age is not only a quantity, as Biden stated in May of this 12 months. It’s an outlook. It’s a world view. It comes with totally different priorities, totally different preferences and totally different prejudices.
Philip Bump, a Washington Post reporter and writer of final 12 months’s The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, makes the level that the gerontocracy inhabit a special world to many younger Americans.
“Young Americans are more likely to be college-educated, more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ and more likely to be immigrants or have immigrant parents. Younger Americans are more likely to be Asian, Black or Hispanic.
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“They’re extra doubtless to have children in faculties for instance, or be trying to purchase their first dwelling.”
This age profile should come as no surprise. After all, you’re not allowed to run for the House of Representatives until you turn 25, and you have to be 30 to run for the Senate.
But you can own a gun at 18.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The median age of European politicians is significantly younger. As are their leaders. The new Irish taoiseach (prime minister), Simon Harris, is 37. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, is 46. Giorgia Meloni, Italian prime minister, is 47. Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is 46. Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister of Spain, is 52.
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If this is to change anytime soon, money will be a key factor. On average, it costs about $2.8 million to win a congressional campaign. Daniel Stockemer, associate professor in the Department of Political Studies of University of Ottawa, makes the point that to raise that type of money, “You need to have the connections, the networks. It’s rather hard for young people to have that.”
More likely they’re mired in student debt.
When Teen Vogue organized a watch occasion for final week’s presidential debate their readers have been, unsurprisingly, underwhelmed.
“I saw two very old men competing against one another,” stated a type of in attendance. “I think, regardless of who wins the presidency, it’s really going to start to show. I don’t know if either of them would make it to the end of their term.”
Teen Vogue‘s rationalization of a gerontocracy as being a authorities “ruled by the elderly” hardly goes far sufficient. It may need added that it is usually a authorities that dangers shedding sight of the calls for and issues of its folks, and with it rising mistrust and cynicism. Representative democracy: there’s a clue in the title.