The late Christopher Hitchens improved on Gore Vidal’s phrasing, citing the ‘bright autumn of my senescence’ in a 1994 book review, when he was not yet 50.
Though irony intended, the amusing and memorable phrase is particularly apt when applied to what seems like the entire US Democratic party.
Recently, Senator Dianne Feinstein returned to the capital after a 3-month absence due to illness. Feinstein, days away from turning 90, was pictured in a wheelchair flanked by escorts, looked painfully small and frail.
It doesn’t boost anyone’s confidence when Feinstein appeared not to even realise her quarter-year absence from Washington DC, telling a Los Angeles Times reporter who asked her about her recuperation that, ‘I’ve been here. I’ve been voting.’ It also transpired that Senator Feinstein was sicker than was let on, having been hospitalised with severe neurological complications from shingles.
A poll found that nearly two-thirds of Californians surveyed think that she should resign. Most people probably pity the nonagenarian, who has been observed to be deteriorating rapidly before everyone’s eyes since last year.
The US President, Joe Biden, though 9 years younger than Feinstein, is nevertheless an octogenarian and the oldest President in US history. His mental fitness appears to be decaying before our eyes. Amidst the incessant slurring speeches, forgetting of names, shaking hands with the air, and reading out loud instructions on the teleprompter, a recent poll found that 62 per cent of Americans are concerned about his ability to be President. This is despite a clear effort to shield him from the public – Biden has had the fewest media press conferences and interviews for a US president in 40 years. The media has also been chaperoning him throughout his presidency, even seemingly providing him cheat sheets with journalists’ questions prior to press conferences.
Overall, the US Senate has aged. The median age of the Senate is now 65.3, with 18 Democrats being above 70 years of age (and 14 Republicans in the same bracket, albeit they have elected six new members under 50, while a new Democratic senator, Peter Welch, is in his 70s). In the House, 10 Democratic and 2 Republican representatives are above 80.
While it is true that wisdom often accompany age, there is a limit. Senescence, no matter how bright, represents the inevitable decay of both physical and mental capacities. To put it in context, the life expectancy in the US is only 77.28, three years younger than the President and more than a decade younger than Senator Feinstein, and dozens of other lawmakers in the House and Senate are beyond this mark. A whole lot more lawmakers are much older than the full retirement age, which is 67.
For further context, the average age of the signees of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 was 44, with more than a dozen younger than 35. For example, Jefferson was 33, Benjamin Rush was 30, and Alexander Hamilton was only 21. Washington, who wasn’t a signee, was 44.
The current US political system, where geriatric politicians are literally wheeled out to grasp onto power, is an affront to democracy. The media is doing exactly the opposite of what they are meant to do, protecting their side from criticism while attacking their oppositions, using age both as a shield and a sword, in complete hypocrisy. The Democratic Party is particularly guilty of this, using machinations and technicalities to deny entry into prominence by the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, despite her natural popularity and comparative youth, because she cannot be controlled to do what the party wants.
Gabbard, who ran for the presidency as a Democrat, felt she had to leave the party. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, in her 40s, also became an independent in 2022. In March of 2023, Maud Moran, a Democratic Congress candidate, left too, saying that her own party ‘cancelled’ her due to her stance on transgender issues in sports. Let’s hope the Biden Presidency truly represents the bright autumn of the party’s senescence, and that younger souls, filled with a bit more of the Founding Spirit, can rejuvenate the dying party.
