The old man's government has a bad reputation. Let us think today of the Catholic Church, the USSR, China and the USA. A historical view.
For a long time, the Catholic Church and the communist parties of China and the Soviet Union were seen as models of governing the elderly. Those days are over, now everyone is talking about the old age of the American president in the next elections, his opponent and a whole group of members of Congress. Therefore, it is hypocritical to give credit to Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., born in 1942, and blame his Methuselah age. A large number of politicians in the US show little interest in retreating to the geriatric paradise of Florida and having fun on the golf course. Since 1789, the average age in the American Senate has not been as high as it is today (65.3 years), and in the House of Representatives it is also 19 years older than the American population.
Decades ago, in 1964, Bob Dylan sang in his song “The Times They Are A-Changin'”: “Senators, congressmen/Please answer the call/Don't stand at the door/Don't block the hallway.” There is no sign of that today. In fact, age seems to increase the appetite for power. Donald Trump was the oldest president elected in his first election at age 70, and was followed by Joe Biden at age 77. “The pattern that forces Americans to choose between men born during or just after World War II was established with the election of Barack Obama apparently broken. But it came back with full force. The torch was passed to a new generation, but the old one grabbed it again,” writes columnist Fintan O'Toole in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books.