There’s a simple explanation for this: Voters are older than ever before. The Baby Boom cohort, combined with the much greater tendency of older people to vote, has pushed the median voting age up to about 53. In the primaries, where most races get decided, the median is an even higher 62. As New York City Mayor Eric Adams, age 63, pointed out on primary election night 2021, “Social media does not pick a candidate. People on Social Security pick a candidate” (I’m grateful, as ever, to Phil Keisling, a former secretary of state in Oregon and board chairman of the nonprofit National Vote at Home Institute, for updating these numbers.)
Older leaders can be an invaluable resource. President Joe Biden, at 80, has managed the economy superbly. Nancy Pelosi, who stepped down in January at 83, was the greatest House speaker since Sam Rayburn. Senator Mitch McConnell, 81, was performing very competently (if infuriatingly) as Republican leader until recently. But now he isn’t, and despite Senator Rand Paul, a medical doctor, pointing out that cameras have twice captured troubling neurological mishaps, McConnell is refusing to step down. His Republican Senate colleagues don’t appear willing to force the issue. Similarly, Senator Dianne Feinstein, at 90, has stayed in office too long, and her fellow Democrats are stuck with her because Senate Republicans won’t allow her to be replaced on the Judiciary Committee, where a Democratic majority is needed to confirm Biden’s judicial nominations. In both instances, Democratic and Republican leaders are just … stuck.
The Founders’ vision of governmental checks and balances has degenerated into a deadlock machine. You’ve heard this before. Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution labelled the phenomenon Demosclerosis in a book of that title published three decades ago. Rauch favored the metaphor of arteriosclerosis. I think a more precise metaphor (if less Brookings-friendly) is constipation, because it better conveys inaction.