Geriatric Old Men and Women Who Live In the Last Century Rule the US

The ruling elite that governs the US has become an out-of-touch gerontocracy. The most striking example of this gerontocracy exists in the US Senate, where it becomes more gerontocratic each election.

The new Senate’s median age, on the other hand, is 65.3 years, up from 64.8 in the 117th Congress, 63.6 in the 116th and 62.4 in the 115th. (Five Thirty Eight)

The older the senators are, the more power they have. And the more power these gerontocrats have, the more they refuse to let it go.

Strom Thurmond, the South Carolina Republican, famously hung on until past his 100th birthday. Robert C. Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, died in office at age 92 after 51 years in the Senate. Despite serious medical issues, Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, ran for re-election at 76, with the prospect of leading the powerful Appropriations Committee too good to pass up — though he later resigned before the end of his term, citing his failing health.

Ms. Feinstein, 89, Democrat of California, has announced her retirement but has refused to entertain the idea of resigning before her term ends in 2025, even as she suffers from substantial memory issues and struggles to do the job after suffering serious complications from shingles, including encephalitis.

Ms. Feinstein may appear to be uniquely stubborn, but she is far from alone in being unwilling to let go. (New York Times)

Even worse, the real power in the US is held in the Senate committees. These gerontocrats dominate these committees not only as their leaders but also as their members. Foreign policy, domestic policy, economy, whatever important facet of the society you can imagine, is controlled by such gerontocrats who can easily override the will of the elected administration and the Congress — which itself is not at all young. It’s a gerontocrat parade at the top echelons of power.

People Being Old Is Not Necessarily A Bad Thing In Itself — But In The Gerontocrats’ Case, It Is

Many people were and still are, pioneers who were far-seeing visionaries who were ahead of their own generations. A lot of them spearheaded changes in the society.

But these gerontocrats are not those people.

The majority of them were already out-of-touch even when they were young because they were from what people call “Old Money Aristocrat” backgrounds. They were born into isolated elite families, growing up in mansions and getting educated in exclusive schools that keep the ‘plebs’ out. They finally graduated from law, economics, and other power-oriented departments of elite universities that mainly cater to this crowd, immediately jumping into positions of power that were already waiting for them in the governance of massive corporations, political organizations, or the single political party of the US that has two factions.

Their entire lives have been the life of an isolated elite clique all the way from the start. One of the largest social studies that was done on this matter in the 1960s found that these people constituted a closed clique, and they monopolized the power to themselves and repressed all attempts at democratizing that power.

One good starting point for the study of power in the United States, and the one I have preferred as a sociologist (especially in the 1960s and 1970s, when there was far less readily available information than there is now) is a careful consideration of the small social upper class at the top of the wealth, income, and status ladders. This is because the social upper class is the most visible and accessible aspect of the power equation. It is not necessarily the heart of the matter, but it is nonetheless the best place to get a handle on the overall power structure.

By a “social class” I mean a set of intermarrying and interacting families who see each other as equals, share a common style of life, and have a common viewpoint on the world. This general definition is accepted by most social scientists whatever their views on the distribution of power. By the “social upper class,” hereafter to be called simply “the upper class,” I mean that social class that is commonly agreed by most members of the society to be the “top” or “elite” or “exclusive” class. In various times and places Americans have called such people the “high hats,” the “country club set,” the “snobs,” and the “rich.” In turn, members of this class recognize themselves as distinctive. They call themselves such names as the “old families,” the “established families,” and the “community leaders.”

The upper class probably makes up only a few tenths of one percent of the population. For research purposes, I use the conservative estimate that it includes 0.5% to 1% of the population for determining the over-representation of its members in corporations, nonprofit organizations, and the government. Members of the upper class live in exclusive suburban neighborhoods, expensive downtown co-ops, and large country estates. They often have far-away summer and winter homes as well. They attend a system of private schools that extends from pre-school to the university level; the best known of these schools are the “day” and “boarding” prep schools that take the place of public high schools in the education of most upper-class teenagers. Adult members of the upper class socialize in expensive country clubs, downtown luncheon clubs, hunting clubs, and garden clubs. Young women of the upper class are “introduced” to high society each year through an elaborate series of debutante teas, parties, and balls. Women of the upper class gain experience as “volunteers” through a nationwide organization known as the Junior League, and then go on to serve as directors of cultural organizations, family service associations, and hospitals (see Kendall, 2002, for a good account of women of the upper class by a sociologist who was also a participant in upper-class organizations). (Class Domination Theory of Power, UCSC)

The gerontocracy that rules the US today was born and raised in this environment. However make no mistake — things have not changed: This closed clique still exists, and they keep the practices described above and their hold on to power across the US establishment just like before. It’s an oligarchy that borders on being an actual aristocracy. They still hold power by monopolizing the decision-making organs of political and economic organizations:

(Class Domination Theory of Power, UCSC)

To make things worse, these people still live in the period between the 1950s and 1960s, where they unquestionably and uncontestably ruled the US and the US ruled ~75% of the world through military power and satellite governments. Their word was the law in the US, and the US policy was the law in the world of its satellites.

These old people think that everything is still the same.

Because they were out of touch, isolated elite from the start, they missed all the changes that happened in their own society. They were able to make the laws and protect their power and privilege. This allowed them to live comfortably in their own bubble as the Americans were never able to contest that power, leaving aside dislodging it. They never had to interact with their own people, aside from fake settings that were set up to deceive the average voter during election seasons.

The dumbfounded facial expression of Hillary Clinton when she saw a normal house’s kitchen when she was touring public housing in an election campaign stunt back in 2016 is a visual demonstration of the chasm between the American people and the American elite.

And, Clinton is not the most out-of-touch American elite — she went to university in the ‘60s-70s and was there when the social movements were happening — even if she was a ‘Goldwater Girl’ who stayed away from all those ‘risky’ movements because she was starting her political career by working for a conservative politician. The rest of the American elite are far more out of touch and gerontocratic than Clinton.

They Say That The US Is A Democracy, And It’s True — But Not In The Meaning Of The Word You Know

It’s an Athenian democracy. A political setup in which old, rich people — mostly men — from the ‘right’ sociocultural and ethnic background hold power. And everyone else has to ‘know their place’ — like how it was in Athens.

The word of these old people is the law in the US, as they are the ones who are directly making those laws. They are used to saying something and making that happen, even if it means bending the rules however they want, so the outside reality stopped registering with them a long time ago. If they want something, they will make a law to make that happen, and everyone will have to obey.

Even further, even if something they want to do goes against the existing laws and all the principles and the philosophy that they have been advocating, they can just do it even if it skirts or breaks the laws and contradicts everything they have been saying. The attacks against corporations like Huawei, TikTok, et al that go against all the ‘free market’ ideology that they have been espousing for decades are excellent examples of this: If someone else is outcompeting you, just make up an excuse and kill his business or take it over. Say that you are doing it for ‘security’ reasons. Nobody will be able to prove otherwise, and even if they tried, you control the organizations that could prove or disprove such things anyway. Is there something you don’t control like the WTO, whose rules you have been pushing to everyone? Have you violated those rules? Just ignore it — nobody will be able to hold you accountable in your bubble anyway.

Just like the Athenian democracy. A democracy in which the rich oligarchs kept making and violating their own rules and imposing them onto everyone.

But the World Doesn’t Work Like That

Even if they still hold power in the US, the rest of the world does not belong to the US anymore. The countries that were pushed down to colony status before have industrialized and are organized. A new world that can protect itself with everything ranging from technology to nuclear weapons has been born. And it doesn’t listen to what the US says anymore.

The Global South, comprised of 80% of the world, has organized into overlapping blocs like BRICS and SCO, and they are setting a new world order that is egalitarian and democratic. Not only they aren’t listening to what the US says anymore, but also they are changing the rules of the game democratically by establishing new financial structures, cooperation frameworks, political initiatives, and alliances. From starting to trade in their currencies to rolling out SWIFT alternatives that break the domination of the US on international finance and trade, from creating security frameworks that defend themselves against hostile actors like the US to integration of entire regions through physical, political, and economic infrastructure, the formerly repressed and exploited world became the rule maker. And an actual democratic one at that.

This situation is what exposes the gerontocratic US elite’s disconnect from the world reality as sharply as the photo of Clinton exposes the US elite’s disconnect from their own people:

The US government, run by these gerontocrats in the Senate keeps screaming at the world to make it obey its wishes, talking about a ‘rules-based world order’, where these gerontocrats make the rules. The US and the gerontocrats appear hysterical and delirious in the process because the gerontocrats think that just like how they make the Americans obey their whims, they also can make the world obey them. But the world now coalesced in a globe-spanning political, economic, and increasingly military alliance and it has nuclear weapons.

The world can now protect itself from the whims of these out-of-touch aristocrats. But Americans still can’t. And until they topple this aristocracy, they will have to keep suffering the consequences.