The population of the United States is much younger than that of most European countries, but its political establishment is much older. The 2020 presidential election was fought between 74-year-old Donald Trump and 77-year-old Joe Biden – compare that to 53-year-old Marine Le Pen and 44-year-old Emmanuel Macron in last month’s French presidential election. The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, is 71, while minority leader Mitch McConnell is 80. In the generally younger House of Representatives, the majority leader, Nancy Pelosi, is 82, making minority leader Kevin McCarthy look like a spring chicken at a mere 57. This is not just a problem for the functioning of the democratic system; it endangers the survival of it.
While the majority of political leaders in the US are over 65, only a small minority of the population – 16.9% – is. This is a serious problem for the representativeness of the political system. Not only are previous generations much less diverse in terms of ethnicity and race, they have very different ideological and partisan profiles. Obviously, there is nothing new to this “rule by the elderly”, but it is increasingly threatening not just satisfaction with the democratic system but the system itself.
