The Democrats Are a Social Club for Gerontocrats Who Love Losing
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The Democratic Party is unquestionably the party of old, rich white people at this point. Kamala Harris became the first Democrat in ages to lose voters who make less than $100,000 per year, and the only demographics who shifted left in this last election were voters over the age of 65 and white voters with a college degree. One would think that in a historic realignment election which served as a wholesale rebuke to the Democratic Party writ large that the Democratic Party would want to make some serious changes.
But the Democratic Party is not a political party first and foremost. It’s a social club for gerontocrats and braindead consultants who specialize in losing winnable elections. It’s difficult to find a better example of what the Democratic Party actually values than losing a two out of three series to Donald Trump then giving a bunch of lip service to fundamental change, all while the same people stay in place.
Today, Senate Democrats unanimously voted to keep Chuck Schumer as their leader and Dick Durbin as his number two, because when you can keep the same leadership who has guided you from one Trump administration to the next, I guess you gotta do it. There has long been consternation around Durbin especially, as he has been in this position for 20 years and has blocked countless younger challengers, but apparently not enough Democrats are truly upset about it to mount any real opposition to try to force change. The Dems continue to be a clueless status quo party in a world that has been clamoring for change since 1992.
Even if you include Booker & Klobuchar, the average age of Senate Dems leadership is ~70.
— Amanda Litman (@amandalitman.bsky.social) December 3, 2024 at 10:09 AM
Democratic Senators apparently don’t think that keeping the same people in place has anything to do with seeing the same disappointing results over and over again during their tenure, as Elizabeth Warren said “There’s a lot of work for Democrats to do, but it doesn’t center around changing leadership. The same leader doesn’t mean there’s no change.” That’s a nice sentiment, but the onus is on the party to back up Warren’s naïve belief that has been proven wrong over the last eight years where Schumer helped author their “fuck everyone outside the suburbs” strategy that has led them into the political wilderness.
The party has marketed itself as a TV show to its base, and this has created a toxic feedback loop where people manifestly unqualified to lead the Democrats in this age of Trump are protected by folks who don’t want to see their favorite TV characters killed off. Remember Dems freaking out at Kirsten Gillibrand over calling for Al Franken’s resignation after a photo of him groping a sleeping woman surfaced? That’s who the party is in a nutshell, they will drop all their professed values in a heartbeat to protect one of their favorite characters who first made his debut on TV in 1975. This has led to a world where the same Democrats who have been in leadership forever can do nothing to lose their spot, as they have insulated themselves both through manipulating their rank-and-file voters and walling off new challengers in the party to their power. Nancy Pelosi voluntarily stepping down from her position to make way for a new, younger House leader in Hakeem Jeffries is more proof that she is literally the only powerful Democrat from this era with an iota of sense and self-awareness.
Dick Durbin is 80 years old, two years younger than Joe Biden and six years older than Chuck Schumer who is a spring chicken compared to his elite party allies. From Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Dianne Feinstein to Joe Biden, the Democrats have proven that they are a party driven by and dedicated to gerontocrats who are willing to betray their own legacies in order to stay in power just a little bit longer even as their body tells them to leave. The party elites very clearly do not care about making things better for the rest of us if it requires sacrificing their own personal power in Washington.
While it might be a nice deal for all of them, we’re the ones who have to pay for it. The lone younger person the Senate Dems elevated in leadership today was 64-year-old Amy Klobuchar, as she rose from the number four Democrat in the Senate to number three. Schumer, a man perpetually unable to read the room, asked after his election victory if the Democrats should flash a thumbs up for the photographers, and Klobuchar proved that she far better understands the moment than her clueless gerontocratic allies and said “No, we should not.” A real party would at least elevate her to Durbin’s spot, but that would go against what Democrats have proven to truly value in this world.