Mitch McConnell, 83, Is Retiring From Senate
Mothball mafia don steps aside. Will the gerontocracy follow suit?
Senator Mitch McConnell announced last week that he will not be seeking re-election after 40 years in Congress. It is a rare blow to the gerontocracy, which through age, incumbency and inertia stands in the way of a new politics for America, one that needs to drive the country into the post-Biden and Trump era.
I’ve been harping on the gerontocracy for years now, and the issue is finally being recognized as a genuine problem worthy of mainstream attention. The normally straight-laced Roll Call, which covers Congress, accompanied its article on McConnell’s announcement with a mocking photo of him in a wheelchair high-fiving 73 year old Senator Jim Justice, himself in a mobility scooter.
Washington is finally tiring of Congress being treated like a hospice care facility, but the war is far from over. 20 members of Congress are 80 years old or older. While the average American is 39 years old, the average senator is 65. Joe Biden then the oldest president in U.S. history, was succeeded by Donald Trump, the new oldest president at 78. Senator Chuck Grassley, third in the presidential line of succession, is 91.
McConnell’s announcement should have come a lot sooner. The Kentucky senator suffered two falls in one day on Capitol Hill earlier this month, another fall last December, as well as one in 2023 so severe he sustained a concussion and fractured rib. Then there were two bizarre freezing episodes. Last February, McConnell announced that he would be stepping down as the leader of Senate Republicans, though he would remain in office.
“He’s not equipped mentally,” President Donald Trump said of his nemesis McConnell this month, remarking that he had “wanted to stay leader” of the Senate but was forced out. This might seem like Trump’s usual people-are-saying style of innuendo, but in a recent interview that went largely overlooked, McConnell indeed did not appear to be all there. Though the interview was meant to promote his memoir, when asked about an incident described in the book in which he calls Trump a “sleazeball,” McConnell didn’t seem to recall having written about it.
60 MINUTES: You've said [Trump's] a sleazeball.
MCCONNELL: Well those were private comments —
60 MINUTES: But they're in your biography.
MCCONNELL: Yeah.
At another point in the interview, when asked to recount what he told staff on January 6, McConnell blanks before the interview abruptly transitions to another segment.
60 MINUTES: Your staff, after the crisis was over, you went and spoke with them. It was a highly emotional situation. You remember?
MCCONNELL: Oh, I remember it well.
60 MINUTES: Do you remember what you told them?
MCCONNELL: That, um...Yeah, I remember what I told them.
Throughout the interview, 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl gently nudges McConnell along, sounding like a nurse at a retirement home trying to remind him where he is. It’s a little surreal to see him so diminished after the extraordinary power he wielded as the Senate’s top Republican infamous for his ruthless legislative tactics.
I’m reminded of Junior Soprano, the bespectacled 70 year old mob boss in The Sopranos. Junior clings to power well past his sell by date, while his nephew, Tony, runs things behind the scenes. Junior resents the respect Tony commands so much that he tries to have him killed. The plot fails, and Junior’s comeuppance seems inevitable until one of the great anticlimaxes of television when Tony confronts a Junior in mental decline.
“We used to run North Jersey. Who the hell are we now?,” Junior says to Tony in a nursing home with a blank stare, only dimly aware of who he even is.
Who the hell are we now? It’s a good question. America, the birthplace of democracy that once elected 43 year old John F. Kennedy president, has decayed into a bumbling gerontocracy dominated by people older than the average American life expectancy (77). Technically we have a system of democratic representation, but in practice, the mothball mafia dons that quietly run things smother youth participation in its crib.
“I feel sorry for Mitch,” Trump uncharacteristically said of McConnell, evincing the pity Tony would eventually feel for Junior, when it became clear he was no longer an adversary or really much of anything.
Mitch isn’t alone. His octogenarian bunkmates like Reps. Nancy Pelosi (age 84), Steny Hoyer (85), and Jim Clyburn (84) have retired from their leadership positions but insist on remaining in office — a move that used to be extremely rare. All of them need to retire; but they instead seem committed to dying in office, like Senator Dianne Feinstein did at age 90.
Who the hell are we now?
— Edited by William M. Arkin
As an official old person who will turn 82 in a couple weeks, I couldn’t agree more with this column, Ken. I don’t know what the answer is, although term limits might be a start, but I can’t help returning to the Founders. They described a stint in Congress as a sacrifice, whereby a man (back then) would leave a profitable business for a few years to serve his country for presumably less money. Unless I missed it, they never contemplated career politicians. But what incentive is there for them to retire? They don’t have to do any work, they get benefits we can only dream of, and they can continue to get even richer. The country is in desperate need of new faces, but running against these congressional institutions would be an uphill battle.
McConnell is the guy I blame for today's sh*tshow more than anybody else. He claims to care about the Senate and upholding America's institutions, but he could have finished Trump off for good if he had supported the impeachment proceedings for the Jan. 6th riots. But he was gutless. The man's entire career has been a disgrace, a paean to political opportunism and massively unprincipled politics. He had the chance to change the narrative with that vote, but very much remained in character to the end. Good riddance