I have a recent thread on our Monday At The Bar series about a bill that would raise judicial retirement ages. I'm against that. I'm pretty convinced, by this point in time, that such thoughts are a byproduct of two or three things operating in American society, one being the weird American belief that everyone is going to grow old with their body's and minds fully intact. Americans want to believe that everyone is 20 years old, right up to the moment they die at age 120.
The other is the Baby Boom generation's refusal to let go. The same generation that didn't want to trust anyone over 30, when they weren't 30, now doesn't want to trust anyone under 60.
Which brings me to this.
During the last election, there was a Republican undercurrent that Joe Biden was either senile or approaching senility, a highly ironic position given that there were many who suspected that nearly as old Donald Trump wasn't right mentally himself. Indeed, both men have been highly studied, although on the back burner, by their opposing camps and both of those camps have the ability to argue that the opposing figure just isn't who he used to be.
Whether or not that's correct we are at a point where the evidence is now really in. The nation really has to turn the leadership of. . . everything over to younger people.
Joe Biden's Presidency so far has been a complete mess. Starting off with real hope in some quarters, things are now off the rails in all sorts of ways. Trump and Biden combined, and it was both of them, operated to make the withdrawal from Afghanistan a complete route, wasting decades of American effort in a retreat that will forever be remembered for how badly it was done. Trump's meandering in the early part of the Coronavirus Pandemic, which was somewhat understandable at first but which turned into a bizarre "look at me not wearing a mask" series of photo ops has left Biden with a gigantic public health mess which he now needs to address, but the messaging has been very bad on it. Biden needs to win the inevitable court challenges on his new OSHA mask policy, and get it enforced, or he will look hopelessly weak and that will fuel the left/right divide that's wrecking the country.
Trump took a lot of criticism for his very aggressive border policy but Biden's reaction, started when he was still a candidate, was a muddled open the border policy, no matter what he might claim about that now, which is swamping the border and leading to a giant humanitarian crisis. If Biden didn't want to be as rigid and aggressive as Trump, he didn't have to be, but his counter policy was going to create a disaster, and it did.
Legislatively, the Administration has taken a strong economy, which was damaged by the pandemic, and inserted inflation into it but will not yield in a way that will address that, leaving trying to get some order into things in the hands of a single Senator Much of this is in order to attempt to bring in a set of policy goals which are his right to back, as he's the President, but it's all happened too slow to really effectuate them.
So the point?
Well, this. This administration is really close to dissolving into complete ineffectiveness. Biden may turn out to be a gift to Republicans the way that Jimmy Carter was. But only if the GOP gets over their own old man.
Which brings us to the second point. We're now on year five of administration by really old men, one a populist who had no prior government experience and who was scary from time to time, and one a neo left-winger who is ineffectual.
Theodore Roosevelt was 42 years old when he became President. Franklin Roosevelt was 51. Ronald Reagan, who seemed ancient at the time, was 69. Most Presidents have been in their 50s when they took office.
There's a reason for that.
It's only in the last decade, as baby boomers reached their 70s, that a cult of antiquity took over the nation's politics at the highest level. Since then, it's extended into everything, and the legislature is about to ask the people of Wyoming to amend the constitution to extend it to the bench.
The opposite should be occurring.
Funny thing is, Americans are now acclimated to this. I mentioned this to a colleague the other day, and specifically referenced Sanna Marin, the 35-year-old Prime Minister of Finland. The colleague was shocked, demeaned Finland as an irrelevant country, and then went on to say that a President needed "some experience".
Experience relevant to the times, yes.
To another time. . . well not so much.
And to be mentally agile and capable as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment