For better or worse, older politicians are here to stay

Viewed from a certain angle at dusk, the Statue of Liberty’s noble face — streaked by age, oxidation and pigeon guano — appears as though it’s creased with wrinkles. It’s a fitting metaphor for a nation that, like its leaders, has never been older. 

By practically every metric, America is aging in profound and unprecedented ways. By 2034, Americans 65 and older will outnumber those 17 and younger for the first time in our history. Between now and 2040, the senior population is projected to swell by 44 percent, while the 18-to-64 population will grow by just 6 percent. 

We’re fast becoming “the United States of Graymerica,” as I argue in my new book, “The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging.” And because nowhere is this seismic demographic shift more evident than in the halls of power in Washington, we’re at risk of becoming a full-blown gerontocracy.

Congress is the oldest it’s ever been, with one in four members over 70. And President Joe Biden, who turns 81 in November, is the oldest person to ever occupy the Oval Office. It hasn’t always been this way: Over our 247-year history, we’ve had 46 presidents. Their median age? 55. 

Little wonder we’re suddenly engaged in some angsty nationwide handwringing, much of it prompted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s glaringly public on-camera freezes and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s painfully evident frailty and faltering, before her death this week at 90 as the oldest sitting senator. We claim to have a representative democracy, yet half the nation is under the age of 40, and only 5 percent of Congress is. 

If that bothers you, it’s understandable — but you’d best buckle up for more of the same. 

Millennials and Gen Z have vented their frustrations with those once-viral “OK boomer” memes. But Biden, Feinstein, McConnell and others aren’t boomers — they’re members of the preceding Silent Generation, Americans born between 1925 and 1945. To be sure, boomers figure among our oldest leaders; the eldest of them are now 77. The youngest, however, are 59, with plenty of energy and public service left in them. And they’re numerous: Census data shows they’re 71.6 million strong.

A meaningful shift in the age of our leadership realistically won’t happen until the boomers relinquish their perch atop the influence pyramid around two decades from now, leaving Generation X and millennials — now the largest generation at over 72 million — to take over. 

For many, particularly younger Americans, the nation can’t afford to wait that long. 

There is renewed talk of congressional term limits, logical but problematic because the Supreme Court found them unconstitutional in a landmark 1995 decision. The Constitution sets only minimum ages, no maximums, for key federal offices: 35 for president, 30 for the Senate, and 25 for the House. Clearly, the framers valued experience over youth.

And there is debate about whether older politicians should be subject to mandatory mental competency tests — something that Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has been campaigning on. 

Age has been weaponized in American politics since the Reagan era, but mandatory cognitive tests are the nuclear option. The U.S. banned age discrimination in the workplace in 1967. Where will we draw the line? Should we assess voters’ mental competency before we give them ballots? (Some might say yes, given the state of modern electoral politics.) 

Biden often figures into this discussion because of his occasional gaffes and bumbling way of speaking. What many forget, or ignore, is that there is no evidence the president — or McConnell, for that matter — suffers from any cognitive impairment. Everyone ages differently. We’ve all met 90-year-olds who are sharp and energetic and present like 60-year-olds, and vice versa. Debating the age of our leaders is appropriate, but we must consider them individually. 

It is an important discussion, though. An exhaustive study of seven European countries — Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — finds that gerontocracies trail nations with younger, more nimble leadership when it comes to economic growth. 

And there’s more than economics at stake. Some question older lawmakers’ commitment to issues that are important to younger Americans: things like easing the crushing burden of student loan debt, wrestling the soaring cost of housing to the ground, and slowing or reversing the effects of climate change — our most existential crisis, and one that ought to be preoccupying us all. 

Do we need more youthful voices at the federal level? Unquestionably, yes. We also need more women and people of color. Somehow, we need to encourage their participation without barring older citizens from holding office. 

Dianne Feinstein’s obituaries noted that she stayed on the job far beyond “normal retirement age.” But what’s that? As we age collectively as a nation, we’re all going to be working longer. Those of us engaged in running the country are no exception. 

William J. Kole is a veteran journalist and the author of “The Big 100: The New World of Super-Aging.”