Old age, time to go

It’s time to remove the old timers from Congress.  Sounds like I’m advocating for age discrimination doesn’t it?  And, yes, regarding the individuals running this country, age discrimination should take front and center stage since many of our representatives are no longer relevant.

Today, almost 25% of our esteem members of the U.S. Congress are over the age of 70.  This contrasts with the fact that 50% of the country is 38 years old or younger.  Interestedly, from the 1950’s to 1980 about 10% of Congress was under the age of 40. It rose to about 17% in the 1980’s, but today is about 4%.  This occurred at the same time that the median age of U.S. residents continued to decrease.

Additionally, in the 1960’s, and for the next 30 years,  the median age (50% above, 50% Below) of Congress hovered around  54 while that  figure jumped seven years in the 1990’s to a high of 61 years by 2022.

At this point you make rightfully ask, “So what’s the big deal about all this?”  The big deal is that you can’t stop the realities of Farther Time and how it effects one’s cognitive functioning.

As one ages, their brain begins to shrink, resulting in more difficulty in processing information, multitasking, reduced attention span, and remembering things.  Fluid intelligence, our ability to reason, declines dramatically in most people because we get slow.  And let’s not confuse someone’s IQ score with their cognitive abilities. An individual’s IQ does not change with age.  In other words, if you compared someone’s IQ taken ten years ago with their current IQ score, there would be similar scores because IQ is always measured relative to other people your age.  So when old folks brag about their high IQ, it’s kind of irrelevant.  It just mean it’s high compared to others their age, but they may still suffer from reductions in cognitive abilities due to the aging process.

In reality don’t you agree that individuals charged with making decisions about running our country and its interaction with other countries throughout  the world should be able to operate at their peak both physically, and more importantly, cognitively?  Additionally. these same individuals should be in tune with those they represent.

And this same discussion applies to our country’s leaders.  Joe Biden will be 82 years old and Donald Trump will be 78 in 2024. They along with the old timers in Congress need to ride off into the sunset instead of drawing a salary on the public’s dime to perform in a job governing people that they can no longer relate to, and lack the physical and  mental ability to perform at peak capacity.

Term limits is one way to stop these old folks in Congress from continuing.   Some in their 80’s have served for 40 years or more.  However, since that would take a vote of the U.S. Congress to even give voters a chance to decide if they favor term limits, I doubt that any of our congressional leaders would vote for legislation that would put them out of a job.

Sadly, with the present system in place, our U.S. Congressional leaders are going to become still older, and more and more disenfranchised from those they purport to represent.  And that will have continued dire consequences for our society.  However, the good news is, in 2024 we can stop the process at the presidential level.  Please give the old folks the heave ho.  In full disclosure I am 78 years old and have no business being a member of the U.S. Congress or President of the U.S.