A Geriatric Oligarchy

 

by Pa Rock

Old Timer

Dianne Feinstein, California's senior U.S. Senator, turned eighty-nine yesterday.  Feinstein, the oldest current member of the United States Senate, has been under increasing scrutiny lately as news reports have circulated which question her abilities to effectively serve the people of California in  the Senate.  Some of the stories indicate that at times she is barely functional, not able to follow discussions, and has to rely on almost constant help and guidance from aides in order keep track of what is going on around her.  Feinstein, for her part, denies any impairment.

But current abilities aside, Dianne Feinstein was born June 22, 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt had been in the presidency less than four months.  She has been eligible to draw full social security benefits for the past twenty-four years!   By any measure, Dianne Feinstein should be retired.  The fact that she is still wandering aimlessly around the Senate and drawing a paycheck says as much about the shortcomings of our of government as it does Feinstein's lust for power and feelings of entitlement.

There is a Democratic politician in the state of South Carolina who is speaking out about the presence of a "geriatric oligarchy" in American politics, a fairly large group of individuals from both parties who feel the need to keep providing the country with their wit and wisdom despite their advancing age.  The young politician who is making that rude noise is Joe Cunningham, a (just barely) forty-year-old who is proposing that politicians in South Carolina face a mandatory retirement age of seventy-two-years.

(It's been seventeen years since Dianne Feinstein turned seventy-two.)

Joe Cunningham is the Democratic nominee for Governor of South Carolina.  His proposal for a maximum age for the state's politicians is an overt dig at his Republican opponent, incumbent Governor Henry McMaster, who is seventy-five.  And though Cunningham's proposal is obviously self-serving and a bit of a campaign ploy, it is also a damned good idea.

And seventy-two is a good number.  It recognizes medical advances that have extended life over the past few decades, while at the same time acknowledging the truth that time marches on and each of us age every day, slowly gaining speed on that steady slide into incompetence and senility.   And those of us who decline to step aside voluntarily need to be elbowed out of the way.

American politicians are not always able to recognize their own limitations, and age is definitely a limiting factor in a person's ability to function.   There should be a national upper age limit on a person's ability to serve as an elected official - and seventy-two sounds about right to this seventy-four-year-old.

It's time to hang it up, Dianne.  Go find your happy place in retirement and let the next couple of generations have their turn at running America.