Democratic Gerontocrats Plan to Keep their Death Grip on Power

By Jacob Weindling | May 15, 2025 | 11:07am

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Democratic Gerontocrats Plan to Keep their Death Grip on Power

It’s very difficult to read quotes from the oldest Democratic members in Congress and come to the conclusion that they value democracy more than their own ego. Rep. James Clyburn, an 84-year-old man who helped Joe Biden become the oldest president ever, indignantly whined to the Wall Street Journal when they asked if he thought about stepping down, saying “what do you want—me to give up my life?” After Chuck Schumer surrendered to Trump on the budget deal earlier this year, an uproar arose from his own party to find a new leader who won’t advance Trump’s priorities and he effectively told everyone to go pound sand by saying “look, I’m not stepping down.”

Axios is now reporting that of the 30 House Democrats aged 75 or older, over half told them they plan to run again in 2026. 80-year-old Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver said he is undecided, but he provided a compelling quote explaining why so many aging Democrats are clinging on to their spot: “If it appears that we’re going to win the majority back, some people … thinking about [retirement] might stay just for that one more session.”

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For a bunch of people who are clearly obsessed with their legacy, they have a very narrow view of it. They see an opportunity to be in the majority one more time to buttress their thin list of accomplishments, while the army of people not collecting Social Security underneath them are fuming at being shut out of power by a bunch of people who have proven themselves incapable of stemming the tide of Trump’s fascism. David Hogg, far from a Bernie-style lefty, pledged to primary gerontocrats who stand in the way of progress, and the DNC voided his election as their Vice Chair. As always, if you want the gerontocratic Democratic Party to actually fight and reveal what it believes in, challenging their eternal jobs program for Beltway mediocrities is the best way to do it.

The gerontocracy’s death grip on power has real consequences for governance. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigned to be Chair of the House Oversight Committee, perhaps the most high-profile position that could challenge Trump’s lawlessness, and the gerontocracy elected 74-year-old Gerry Connolly who was just diagnosed with throat cancer. After the gerontocrats assured us that he was “a young 74, cancer notwithstanding,” Connolly’s health declined, and he announced he would have to step down from the position the Democrats deemed him a better fit for than one of the party’s biggest stars.

Ocasio-Cortez said she will not be seeking an appointment to Connolly’s seat because “it’s actually clear to me that the underlying dynamics in the caucus have not shifted with respect to seniority as much as I think would be necessary, and so I believe I’ll be staying put at Energy and Commerce.” What ever could she be talking about with the underlying dynamics with respect to seniority?

71 year old congresswoman Debbie Dingell caught sleeping in hearing room this morning.

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— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 9:15 AM

Remember that time @RepRaskin fell asleep on the job—during a hearing?

Neither do I.
Jerry Nadler👇🏾

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— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com) December 3, 2024 at 6:32 AM

This is the Democratic Party. They care more about seniority than effective politics. An entire generation of new Democrats are itching to drag the party out of the doldrums created by the old guard, and a bunch of people falling asleep during hearings are sidelining them while telling their constituents that they are the best person for the job because of wisdom or some other lie to cover for the fact that their ego exceeds their patriotism and sense of duty. Not to mention that their Trump-like exhortations that they alone can fix it are simply not true, as Run for Something’s Amanda Litman notes that of Democrats who told Axios they will run again, “There are elected Run for Something alum — great local millennial or gen Z leaders with governing experience & deep ties to community — in all but two of these districts.”

This is setting up for a lot of nasty primary campaigns over the next year. The gerontocrats are used to steamrolling a weak opposition within their party by leveraging their elite connections and friends in the media to paint every dissenter as a dreaded Bernie Bro, but they have clearly overplayed their hand and lack any kind of majority support for their job program for Beltway mediocrities. The Democratic Party has never been less popular, and it’s due to Democratic voters thinking that their politicians in power have ruined it. A new poll finds that 66 percent of Democrats have a very or somewhat pessimistic view of the future of the Democratic Party with only seven percent having a very or somewhat optimistic view of it. A majority, 55 percent, of Democrats have a very or somewhat pessimistic view of “the way our leaders are chosen under our political system.” I wonder if the appointment of “a young 74, cancer notwithstanding” over AOC has anything to do with these poll results!

Democrats rarely leave office willingly these days, and the gerontocrats’ literal death grip on power has had the effect of destroying the legacies they have built for themselves. Ruth Bader Ginsburg could have retired early and let a Democrat take her seat, but paving the way for Donald Trump’s Supreme Court is the capstone to her illustrious career. Dianne Feinstein could have been remembered as one of the Democratic Party’s more effective legislators, but all most young people will remember about her is how she was totally out of it in her final years as her aides hid that vital information from the public. Donald Trump is president right now mainly because Joe Biden put his own ego above that of the country and ensured that his brain falling out of his head on CNN’s debate stage will be the enduring image of his legacy for generations to come.

These gerontocrats do not love America like they say they do. They love themselves far more, and they are fully aligned with Trump-style thinking in believing that they are the only ones who can do a job designed to be done by any citizen of the United States. Everywhere you look these days in politics, aging politicians’ gargantuan egos are destroying America, and if the gerontocrats get their way, they will stave off a change in leadership for at least another election cycle in the hopes that one more term will change the negative perceptions the vast majority of the country has of the party they created. Donald Trump couldn’t ask for a better opposition party than this group of feckless gerontocrats.