12-11-2020, 03:54 PM
(12-11-2020, 12:19 PM)David Horn Wrote:(12-10-2020, 02:07 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: MarkDBlackwell does a good job of correlating aging with the decline of a generations's archetypal endowment. Age 71 would correlate with the last gasp of that archetypal influence.
Tell that to our august legislators in Congress. Both houses are now more geriatric than they have been at any time in history. Worse: longevity in ones seat devolves to high power committee chairs and ranking memberships, with too many already occupied by people in their 80s.
We are seeing the last act of the Silent in public life, and that includes the surprising ascent to the Presidency of Joe Biden. One must recognize that he has only one thing going against him as President, and that is age. He is the same age as Dwight Eisenhower was when he died. Yes, he is past "life expectancy at birth". He seems unusually healthy and fit (including mentally) for someone his age; he is in far better shape than the degenerate that we now have as President.
The "geriatric" part of American politics is what has been around for a long time: Pelosi, McConnell, Grassley, Feinstein... they are living and active in American politics on time not really theirs. But know well: those and Biden are the last acts of the Silent Generation in politics.
Note also that the first wave of the Boom Generation is also in the "geriatric" phase of life. That now includes the three Boomer Presidents, all born in 1946.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.