Ep. 167: The Attractive Anti-Politics of 'Gerontocracy' Discourse

<div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="4so4a" data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-0"><span data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-0">"Why Are We Still Governed by Baby Boomers and the Remarkably Old?," inquires</span> <span data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-1">The New York Times</span><span data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-2">. "Why Do Such Elderly People Run America?,"</span> <span data-offset-key= "5fqvl-0-3">The Atlantic</span> <span data-offset-key= "5fqvl-0-4">wonders. "Gerontocracy Is Hurting Democracy," insists</span> <span data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-5">New York Magazine</span><span data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-6">’s Intelligencer. "Too old to run again? Biden faces questions about his age as crises mount,"</span> <span data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-7">The Guardian</span> <span data-offset-key= "5fqvl-0-8">reports.</span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="5fqvl-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="4so4a" data-offset-key="4ss0a-0-0"> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="4ss0a-0-0"><span data-offset-key= "4ss0a-0-0">Though these headlines are framed as exploratory questions, news media seem to have their minds made up: the problem with Washington is that it’s chock full of geezers. In recent years, we’ve often heard that U.S. policymaking, helmed at the federal level by seventy- and eighty-somethings like Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi, and at the state level by the similarly aged Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley and Pat Leahy, is simply growing too old and out of touch with the electorate.</span></div> <div class= "public-DraftStyleDefault-block public-DraftStyleDefault-ltr" data-offset-key="4ss0a-0-0"> </div> </div> <div class="DraftEditor-paragraphElement" data-block="true" data-editor="4so4a" data-offset-key="47i7o-0-0"> <div class= "public-