American Gerontocracy Archives

U.S. Life Expectancy Up for First Time Since Pandemic

December 23, 2024 Buck Banks

78.4

U.S. life expectancy rose last year, hitting its highest level since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports NBC News. The report, released Thursday, found that life expectancy at birth was 78.4 years in 2023. That’s a significant rise — nearly a full year — from the life expectancy of 77.5 years in 2022.

Members of Congress born before 1946 only account for about 6% of the entire governing body, which matches their share of the overall US population. But Capitol Hill is no nest of spring chickens: Baby Boomers (those born 1946–1964) make up nearly 49% of Congress compared to 21% of the US population. The average age of a member of Congress is 58 years old.

There’s a new meaning to “the world’s ‘oldest’ democracy,”
Where “who lasts longest” has replaced our time-tested meritocracy.
With Trump, Feinstein, McConnell and Biden,
We’re led by septa-, nona- and octogenarians.
Americans of all ages unite! And welcome to the gerontocracy!

Life in the American Gerontocracy

July 30, 2023 Buck Banks

“Pardon the morbidity, but I really have to say what everybody is (or should be) saying about what happened with Mitch McConnell yesterday. … Imagine if that had happened to Donald Trump. Or Joe Biden. … Our politics would be upended in the blink of an eye. The margin is that thin. … But this is what living in a gerontocracy is like.”

Tag: American Gerontocracy

U.S. Life Expectancy Up for First Time Since Pandemic

78.4

Congress Is Old

58

Old and In the Way

Life in the American Gerontocracy

— Charlie Sykes

Poetic Justice

Verbatim

44%

— Former President Bill Clinton, quoted by Deadline, in his July 4th message.

“I think it’s embarrassing, still, even more so. I mean, sure, like, take care of yourself, get healthy, but who gets to take four months off of work because they’re sad?”

— Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) called Rep. Tom Kean Jr’s (R-NJ) explanation on Tuesday for his prolonged absence from Congress “embarrassing” in an interview with TMZ, Mediaite reports.

Numerati

61% to 35%

81

A Reuters analysis of Trump’s public comments from June 23 through July 6 (13 days) — when a string of left-wing Democratic candidates won their party’s primaries in New York — found he invoked communism 81 times.

$3.81 billion

53%

A new Cato Institute poll found that only 53% of Americans could correctly identify the adoption of the Declaration of Independence as the historical event marked by July 4. And 46% said they did not know what the day commemorated, including 61% of Gen Z respondents.

$26 million

“President Donald Trump said he had earned at least $26 million in income from an array of new real estate ventures abroad, illustrating how his fortune has grown as his family embraces foreign deal-making in his second term,” Bloomberg reports.