Are we finally seeing the end of the US Political old guard ?

[jojoju1998]

They're either dying, or retiring in droves.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

There will always be an old guard leading the way. We keep getting older and they stay the same age (alright, alright, alright)

All you have to do is observe the biggest names in power.
Joe Biden: 79
Nancy Pelosi: 82
Chuck Schumer: 71
Steny Hoyer: 82
Bernie Sanders: 80
Elizabeth Warren: 72

Donald Trump: 75
Mitt Romney: 75
Mitch McConnell: 80

There are only few modest exceptions like AOC who has shown how much control and influence she really has in Congress during this session.

And by the time they are all gone, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Thune and whatever young guns thrust into the Democrat Party's leadership and public eye will also be in their late 60s in the blink of an eye.

[Blue3]

There will always be an old guard leading the way. We keep getting older and they stay the same age (alright, alright, alright)

All you have to do is observe the biggest names in power.
Joe Biden: 79
Nancy Pelosi: 82
Chuck Schumer: 71
Steny Hoyer: 82
Bernie Sanders: 80
Elizabeth Warren: 72

Donald Trump: 75
Mitt Romney: 75
Mitch McConnell: 80

There are only few modest exceptions like AOC who has shown how much control and influence she really has in Congress during this session.

And by the time they are all gone, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Thune and whatever young guns thrust into the Democrat Party's leadership and public eye will also be in their late 60s in the blink of an eye.

Thune and Pelosi are retiring. Hoyer should soon follow.

Romney as Senator is more like a post-retirement job for him.

Trump is not in office.

Warren is older, but still just a decade in politics.

Sanders has been around for a while, but I don't think it's right to characterize him as "old guard" since he's always been against the status quo, and isn't "guarding" anything.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

The point stands that the Democratic young bench is widely viewed as a joke and/or uninfluential radicals who can't compromise and that the Republican bench is literally just Trump, whether or not, he is the "political" old guard. Point taken on Thune.

Barack Obama's ascendance was an aberration and not exactly one with an obvious repeat on the horizon.

[Frodo]

I am assuming you are primarily referring to generational turnover, with Silents and Baby Boomers exiting stage right, and Gen-Xers and (older) Millennials entering stage left.  

[emailking]

Can't you say this every cycle? There are always old people retiring.

[Morning in Atlas]

In the physical sense, yes. In the ideological sense, no. The new guard is the same as the old guard.

[Del Tachi]

An older electorate is electing older politicians.

Also, gerontocracy is not only affecting our politics.  Nearly 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is now over age 55; up almost double from 13% in the year 2000.  

We've gotten much better at keeping people healthy deep into their 70s, meaning that many people at this age (i.e., the huge Baby Boomer generation) are choosing to stay working.  That few White-collar professionals have defined-benefit pensions also exacerbates retirement creep.              

This is also a major reason why Millennials are less financially secure than previous generations - their Boomer parents aren't retiring/dying soon enough to open up upper-management positions or pass down significant generational wealth.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I was never a Pelosi fan we should of had new leadership in 2010 when we lost the House but Rahm Emanuel and Bill Daley were close friends with Biden, Obama and Pelosi and told D's to keep Pelosi

I supported Tim Ryan to be Leader of the D's and didn't support House for Majority Leader I supported Jack Martha because Pelosi never dies anything in Cali for the HOMELESS PEOPLE that's why we have snatch and grab it's a huge Entitlement state because it's very expensive to live in

[Badger]

There will always be an old guard leading the way. We keep getting older and they stay the same age (alright, alright, alright)

All you have to do is observe the biggest names in power.
Joe Biden: 79
Nancy Pelosi: 82
Chuck Schumer: 71
Steny Hoyer: 82
Bernie Sanders: 80
Elizabeth Warren: 72

Donald Trump: 75
Mitt Romney: 75
Mitch McConnell: 80

There are only few modest exceptions like AOC who has shown how much control and influence she really has in Congress during this session.

And by the time they are all gone, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Thune and whatever young guns thrust into the Democrat Party's leadership and public eye will also be in their late 60s in the blink of an eye.

 Not to mention of solid majority of the Supreme Court.

[Del Tachi]

Here's a tidbit of trivia to show old U.S. leadership is in relative terms:  Joe Biden is older than all six living British prime ministers; the most recent British PM to have been born before Biden is Margaret Thatcher, lol

[Suburbia]

The point stands that the Democratic young bench is widely viewed as a joke and/or uninfluential radicals who can't compromise and that the Republican bench is literally just Trump, whether or not, he is the "political" old guard. Point taken on Thune.

Barack Obama's ascendance was an aberration and not exactly one with an obvious repeat on the horizon.

[Suburbia]

An older electorate is electing older politicians.

Also, gerontocracy is not only affecting our politics.  Nearly 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is now over age 55; up almost double from 13% in the year 2000.  

We've gotten much better at keeping people healthy deep into their 70s, meaning that many people at this age (i.e., the huge Baby Boomer generation) are choosing to stay working.  That few White-collar professionals have defined-benefit pensions also exacerbates retirement creep.              

This is also a major reason why Millennials are less financially secure than previous generations - their Boomer parents aren't retiring/dying soon enough to open up upper-management positions or pass down significant generational wealth.

This.

Obama, Ocasio-Cortez and Kaepernick is a shock to the white power structure. Especially Barack Hussein Obama, elected 7 years after 9/11 and the Iraq War.

[Mr.Phips]

We can only hope.

[Ferguson97]

Here's a tidbit of trivia to show old U.S. leadership is in relative terms:  Joe Biden is older than all six living British prime ministers; the most recent British PM to have been born before Biden is Margaret Thatcher, lol

Biden was born closer to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln than his own.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Here's a tidbit of trivia to show old U.S. leadership is in relative terms:  Joe Biden is older than all six living British prime ministers; the most recent British PM to have been born before Biden is Margaret Thatcher, lol

Biden was born closer to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln than his own.

To quote *Dodgeball*: I just...threw up in my mouth a little bit.

[Former President tack50]

An older electorate is electing older politicians.

Also, gerontocracy is not only affecting our politics.  Nearly 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is now over age 55; up almost double from 13% in the year 2000.  

I mean, I don't think "older electorate elects older politicians" is a firm rule at all; plenty of countries around the world (most notably in Europe) have old electorates but very young politicians; the US always strike me as a country where for some reason politicians are incredibly old.

I wonder if the age minimum for president/Senator/representative has something to do with it, as people can't get involved in (federal) politics until their 30s, which delays their career by around a decade?

[Del Tachi]

An older electorate is electing older politicians.

Also, gerontocracy is not only affecting our politics.  Nearly 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is now over age 55; up almost double from 13% in the year 2000. 

I mean, I don't think "older electorate elects older politicians" is a firm rule at all; plenty of countries around the world (most notably in Europe) have old electorates but very young politicians; the US always strike me as a country where for some reason politicians are incredibly old.

Two things.

While most European nations are nominally older than the U.S., the U.S. is still probably an outlier in terms of how disengaged younger voters usually are.  The American electorate is probably older than Europe's once controlling for the population-wide age distribution.

Secondly, the democratic deficit imposed by very corporate, hierarchical political parties and parliamentary systems (i.e., European-style government) creates a "promote or perish" situation where MPs who don't quickly climb the ranks lose viability as potential leaders.   The diffused American system is more apt to produce entrenched politicians who owe their careers to local appeal or some idiosyncratic voter/issue base, rather than the blessing of party bosses. 

[Hermit For Peace]

Someday the younger ones on this board with be the old guard. It's all cyclic. And inevitable. Seems to me it's just part of our evolution.

[Joe Republic]

Also, gerontocracy is not only affecting our politics.  Nearly 25 percent of the U.S. workforce is now over age 55; up almost double from 13% in the year 2000. 

We've gotten much better at keeping people healthy deep into their 70s, meaning that many people at this age (i.e., the huge Baby Boomer generation) are choosing to stay working.  That few White-collar professionals have defined-benefit pensions also exacerbates retirement creep.               

That's a rosy way to spin it.  An increasing number of older Americans just can't afford to retire.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/dec/13/americans-retire-work-social-security

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/16/46-percent-of-americans-expect-to-retire-in-debt.html