Entitlement And Senility: America’s Ruling Geriatric Coalition

Seniority Isn’t Always A Virtue— The Generation That Stayed Too Long

The DNC is conducting an investigation into why Kamala lost to Trump last year, albeit first taking Biden’s and Kamala’s campaigns out of the equation. Look no further; that Democratic establishment mindset is summarizes the party’s role in why she lost. Reid Hoffman and Shane Goldmacher reported that the DNC “will focus more heavily instead on actions taken by allied groups,” while avoiding the questions of whether Biden should have run for re-election in the first place, whether he should have exited the race earlier than he did and whether Kamala was the right choice to replace him.

“Nor,” they wrote, “is the review expected to revisit key decisions by the Harris campaign— like framing the election as a choice between democracy and fascism, and refraining from hitting back after an ad by Trump memorably attacked Harris on transgender rights by suggesting that she was for ‘they/them’ while Trump was ‘for you’— that have roiled Democrats in the months since Trump took back the White House. Party officials described the draft document as focusing on the 2024 election as a whole, but not on the presidential campaign— which is something like eating at a steakhouse and then reviewing the salad.”

Is Ken Martin, “who promised a post-election review from his first day on the job but whose first few months in the role have been plagued by in-fighting and financial strains, the right person to oversee this kind of review?… Top Democrats said they did not intend for the report to address strategic decisions made by leaders of the Biden and Harris campaigns. Indeed, in a sign of the report’s narrow scope, more than half a dozen people who were senior officials on the campaigns say they have not yet been interviewed.”

One glimmer of good news is that Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, “said she expected the report to accelerate the party’s diversion of resources from advertising to organizing. ‘The days of us spending millions and millions of dollars on traditional TV ads are over,’ she said. ‘And I do think that this report will put an exclamation point on that.’”

Even in a wave cycle, the single most important factor to consider in elections— and and down the ballot— is the one professional (careerist) operatives and the political media never want to consider: candidate quality, which, of course, is very difficult and impossibly subjective, to measure. Democrats can’t even agree that senile candidates should avoided… and that goes well beyond Biden and Dianne Feinstein and, for that matter, well beyond the Democrats, Trump and Rep Kay Granger being perfect examples.

Among Members of Congress over 80 and exhibiting signs of dementia— some just slight and others full-blown— are these 16:

• Chuck Grassley (R-IA)- 91

• Hal Rogers (R-KY)- 87

• Eleanor Norton (D-DC)- 87

• Maxine Waters (D-CA)- 86

• Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- 86

• Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)- 85

• Jim Clyburn (D-SC)- 84

• Danny Davis (D-IL)- 83

• John Carter (R-TX)- 83

• Mitch McConnell (R-KY)- 83

• James Risch (R-ID)- 82

• Frederica Wilson (D-FL)- 82

• Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)- 82

• Virginia Foxx (R-NC)- 82

• David Scott (D-GA)- 80

• Doris Matsui (D-CA)- 80

Some of them are voluntarily retiring after their current terms and some seem determined to die in office. Many— particularly Pelosi, Grassley and Hoyer are stuck in the “essential individual mirage” (AKA- the cult of indispensability) This belief— that they alone can do the job, that their experience and gravitas are irreplaceable— isn’t just vanity. It’s a form of institutional capture, reinforced by decades of deference from staffers, donors and the media. Politicians start seeing themselves not as public servants but as totems— literally, symbols of stability in an unstable world. Even when their faculties diminish, if they even recognize that, they believe their mere presence in the room conveys wisdom. This is dangerous as well arrogant. It crowds out rising talent, discouraging generational change and, worst of all, treats leadership as a lifetime achievement award rather than a responsibility requiring full capacity and sharp judgment.

Psychologists call this the “sunk cost fallacy,” and in politics, it’s amplified tenfold. After decades of career-building and backroom climbing, the idea of stepping aside feels like surrender— especially when the stakes are seen as existential. These elder statesmen and women often convince themselves that retirement would equal betrayal of their life's work and even of democracy itself. They fail to see that staying past their prime may actually undermine the causes they care about. They become what they once ran against: gatekeepers of a decaying status quo.

And it’s thoroughly baked into the machinery of American politics. It isn’t just the egos of elderly politicians clinging to relevance— it’s the institutions around them that reinforce their delusions. Congress, in particular, is governed by a seniority system that all but guarantees that the most powerful committee chairs are among the oldest members. Kay Granger was chair of the House Appropriations Committee when she was already drooling on herself and even after she was living in a dementia care facility! Leadership positions aren’t awarded based on vision or competence, but on time served. The result is an entrenched gerontocracy masquerading as stability, where the longer someone hangs on, the more indispensable they’re considered, regardless of whether they can actually do the job.

Donors and lobbyists, too, have a vested interest in this paralysis. Familiarity breeds influence. Why gamble on a 36-year-old upstart who might push for actual reforms when you can keep funding a doddering incumbent who already knows how the game is played— and, more importantly, who owes you favors from 30 years ago? Old politicians are safe investments, and in a system where money is the mother’s milk of politics, that means fewer and fewer incentives for parties to promote fresh blood. Even when it's obvious that an incumbent is a walking liability, party leaders will double down, convinced that a hollowed-out brand name is still a safer bet than an unknown quantity with actual ideas.

The media only makes it worse. They mythologize the gerontocrats as living monuments— “a lion of the Senate,” “a master of the legislative process”— even when these figures are clearly past their sell-by dates. There's a reverence that borders on necrophilia. Coverage focuses on legacy and nostalgia, not cognitive health or capacity to govern. The same pundits who’ll spend days dissecting the tone of a younger candidate’s tweet will casually overlook a senior lawmaker freezing mid-sentence on live television, as if that were just part of the charm. Culturally, this fetish for aging power is uniquely American. In almost every other aspect of society, we shun the old and revere youth. But in politics, we cling to our elders like they’re oracles. Maybe it's a residue of Cold War paternalism or the hangover from the Greatest Generation mythos, but either way, it’s rotting the system from within. The very idea that someone who’s been in Congress since before the Berlin Wall fell is still “essential” in 2025 is a tragicomic indictment of our inability to evolve.

Compare this to the rest of the democratic world. In Finland, the prime minister recently stepped down at 37. In Chile, Gabriel Boric was elected at 35. Canada’s Justin Trudeau is now considered an elder statesman and political veteran at 52. We’re in a league of our own, not just for the age of our  leaders, but for the level of denial and dysfunction surrounding it. This is generational inertia and a kind of slow-motion institutional collapse, where a political system that fears change has defaulted to preserving the past, even if it means dragging democracy down with it.

In San Francisco, the symbolism is striking: 39‑year‑old Saikat Chakrabarti— a former tech entrepreneur turned AOC chief‑of‑staff— is mounting a serious primary challenge against 85‑year‑old Nancy Pelosi. Chakrabarti frames his campaign not as a personal vendetta but as a direct assault on the seniority culture Pelosi helped cement. He argues that decades in power have bred caution and complacency: when Pelosi backed a 74‑year‑old to oversee the House Oversight Committee instead of fresh voices like AOC, he says Democrats “revealed they’re still obsessed with this seniority culture.” His campaign is powered by bold economic proposals and grassroots organizing— but it’s powered, too, by the simple conviction that leadership shouldn’t be reserved for the long in the tooth. Blue America is proud to be supporting him. Please click on the graphic to contribute to his campaign:

click Saikat

Chakrabarti’s insurgency is emblematic of a broader generational reckoning within the Democratic Party. Across the country, younger Democrats like Elijah Manley, Erica Lee, Lukas Ventouras… are taking on incumbents with expiring shelf lives, insisting that energy, clarity and courage aren’t measured in years served but in ideas pursued. In one of America’s safest Democratic districts, a tech‑savvy progressive is forcing the question: is Pelosi still essential, or is she just essentialist— a veteran of another era fighting to define a party that’s already moved on? Chakrabarti’s bid shows how democracy can renew itself by challenging the gerontocrats from within, not waiting politely outside their gated aging regimes.