Gerontocracy Gives Us One Last Cringe Before 2025

VIDEO: 74 year old congressman could barely speak in painful TV appearance today

Rep. Gerry Connolly, the cancer-stricken 74 year old recently elevated to a congressional leadership position, gave an interview on CNN today sounding so unwell it’s painful to even watch. The brief segment reveals the logic of the gerontocrats and why they cling to power more clearly than anything I’ve ever seen.

Connolly, the congressman from Virginia, publicly disclosed that he had esophageal cancer just two days after winning reelection in November. Since then, he’s declined to provide any specifics about his prognosis (as I’ve reported before, this type of cancer is extremely aggressive).

He begins the interview with a voice so raspy and hoarse I was honestly shocked he hadn’t canceled the media hit. Watch the first part of the segment below with the volume turned up.

When the interviewer asks about Connolly’s victory over 35-year old congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to serve as ranking member on the powerful Oversight Committee, I was expecting some carefully crafted talking points, given the simmering resentment surrounding the issue. But to my astonishment, Connolly just comes out and says it, providing the most candid expression of why congresspeople in their 70s, 80s (and in some cases even 90s) exercise such a death grip on power: “I’ve never had my chance,” he says.

Here’s Connolly’s remark in context:

“The decision about leadership ought to always be based on a proven record, skillset, competence, capability and your plan for moving forward. I’ve never had my chance to be ranking member or chairman of a full committee. This is it. And I’ve got the bona fides and the credentials over 16 years that my colleagues looked at, examined, validated and decided that’s what we need. We need the best general we can put on the battleground with four more years, prospectively, of Donald Trump. And that’s what the Democratic caucus overwhelmingly decided to do.”

Several themes stand out in this rare glimpse into the mind of a gerontocrat. First there’s the sense of entitlement. “I’ve never had my chance,” implying leadership is not a privilege but a possession. Then there’s the obsession with the necessity of “credentials” and “bona fides,” especially laughable after reality show star Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency.

Lastly, there is the flat denial on Connolly’s part that there might have been a better candidate not just in Ocasio-Cortez, but anyone. I think he really in his heart of hearts believes this. Hearing his voice crack while referring to himself as “the best general we can put on the battlefield” seemed about the funniest conclusion to 2024’s gerontocracy storyline imaginable.

Congress is not the Make A Wish Foundation for elderly politicians. Well, maybe it is. But it shouldn’t be.