Generation Bottleneck: Gerontocracy's Last Sit

The boomers are still on top...for now

A few months back I wrote about GOAT college football coach Nick Saban rejecting the gerontoracy. He left the moment he felt slippage, rather than hang on for too long. That’s an uncommonly graceful exit for a powerful man. Alabama quite nearly won the championship last season and it would have been easy to rationalize a continued reign. But no, Saban knew better about his limitations.

In hiring coaches and recruiting players, my age started to become an issue…When people mention the health issue, it was really just the grind of, ‘Can you do this the way you want to do it? Can you do it the way you’ve always done it? And be able to sustain it for an entire season?’

Obviously, this sort of self awareness is lacking in politics. President Joe Biden (age 81) ceded his claim to another term on Sunday, throwing support to his VP Kamala Harris, but that outcome required a long, contentious wrangling. Even though he finally stepped down, he’s still currently president. Biden’s reign, even if now self limiting, has been a massive flex by the gerontocracy. In 2020, Biden (then 78) signaled he’d only seek one term. Instead he decided, after getting elected, that it was time to run it back. His party shrugged and backed the adventure with near unanimity. Even after his debate flameout and visible deterioration put the party in desperation mode, allies had to turn on him carefully, offering obsequious praise prior to pleas. “His status is his decision,” became a common catchphrase among those trying to force him out. Formally, he remained in control, even if we’re unclear about what exactly went on behind closed doors to compel a step down.

I found the Biden situation fascinating because, beyond the political implications, it’s symbolic of our current graying era. It’s not just that declining Biden is quite old at this point; It’s also that most of the other powers in politics are as well. Opposing presidential candidate Donald Trump (age 78) is vigorous, but old. Trump has sparred a lot with perhaps the second most powerful Republican, Mitch McConnell (age 82). Mitch still clings to Republican leadership in the Senate despite suffering from freezing spells.

On the other side of the aisle, there’s influential lefty steward Senator Bernie Sanders (82), who did a New Yorker interview last week on why he’s still supporting Biden for president. Sanders, like Trump, is fairly energetic but old. Longtime Democratic congressional leader Nancy Pelosi (age 84) was reported to have been the major party force that felled Biden. Nancy apparently still has the juice to do that plus be a queen maker who solidifies Kamala Harris as the party’s 2024 candidate. Pelosi is sharper than Biden, but sounds increasingly garbled in interviews these days. That makes sense because she’s old.

Outside of sports, so many of the people who matter are old. Our politicians are old. When the pandemic hit, the public health leader (now 83) was old. Everyone running Hollywood is old. The old man in charge of Disney was asked back because the guy tapped to replace him didn’t work out. Then he had to do battle with an octogenarian to determine the future of entertainment. I could go on and pull more examples, but you get the idea. Back when the boomers were young, they overtook institutions while they were still young. Now the boomers are not young, but remain in control of many institutions, with the young on the outside looking in.

This is an unprecedented predicament we are collectively in, across so many different industries, brought about by advances we mostly like. In the year 1900, the average American life expectancy was 48 years. My grandpa Jess was born in 1917. Though he was a healthy baby, the world around him was not so well. With the Spanish influenza outbreak raging, American life expectancy sunk to 39.4 years that following year. Our modern 2020 pandemic nudged a drop in life expectancy as well…to age 78.8.

So we’re living for longer than we’ve collectively been accustomed to, as a species. A longer life is a great result, but humanity isn’t necessarily calibrated according to the good news. We still move about life as though we’re on the old clock.

I want people, including and especially my parents, to live longer. I also can see how we’ve not adjusted as a society to account for how this has happened, at scale, over a relatively quick span. The natural flow of turnover is disrupted while we still operate under the same impulses fit for a shorter timeline.

The societal rhythms are a bit off, in ways that are sometimes uncomfortable to broach. Much has been written about falling first world birth rates, but less has been said about the modern oddness of 50 year-old “kids” inheriting parental money. I’m not even saying it’s bad that this happens in a vacuum. Every family situation is different. I’m just noting the trend and adding that I’ve seen situations where the kid could have built a family with what’s received from older parents decades too late. The future was never funded because the present just kept happening. Then the chageover occurs and it’s a torch pass to old from older.

People feel a variety of ways about inheritance, with some believing it’s wrong that certain people get an unearned largesse. Fair enough, but an emerging generation has to inherit something. If it’s not money, it’s responsibility, jobs, power, whatever else constitutes the natural torch passing from the fading to the emergent. Or at least it’s been that way but for history’s most powerful generation and its incredible staying power.

By the way I don’t necessarily blame the boomers. It’s easy to fault the “selfishness” of this unprecedented generational bottleneck as they cling to their sinecures. Perhaps they’re a self centered cohort, but I’d say the graying status quo is mostly a consequence of human nature: High functioning people are usually geared to never give up. The problem isn’t that some people have an unyielding urge to keep doing and being. This is just how people are. The issue is that we didn’t account for what happens when so many such people keep going.

Obviously the gerontocracy is a massive problem, and this particular moment shows why with stark clarity. And yet, we non geriatrics are all collectively to blame for it in a way. There’s an irony to being ruled by the nation’s weakest (on average) adults, and also a paradox: If the powerful seniors are freezing, falling and sleeping their way through the nation’s highest pressure jobs, why do they still hold them? Why aren’t the younger generations capable enough to simply wrest power from the olds?

In some industries it just happens naturally. Tech is an obvious example. The movie The Social Network is based on the premise of nerdy Young Turks upending the long established order. This tends to happen in tech, hence that “disruption” buzz word. CEOs are on the younger side, and high energy is needed to forge a path in that business. There’s another age-based irony here too: The “disruption” of social media, brought about by young tech pioneers, has helped the older set stay relevant.

Due to tech innovations, fame is now fractured. The monoculture is dead as “celebrity” has given way to “influencer.” Such figures become known to millions, but in a subcultural way. In a world where everyone can seek out their own niche of entertainment, we’ve lost the ability to create a fame that’s all encompassing. The only people who claim household name status are those who were famous before social media reached critical mass. Taylor Swift is about the youngest such person, which has something to do with why her tour was an uncommonly massive hit, but most celebrities who predate social media are older for obvious reasons.

Bringing it back to politics, while it’s true that the Democrats closed off the 2024 primary, I’ve little guarantee that anyone else would have actually beaten Biden. Even if the media was more honest about his condition, even if the party was more open about his shortcomings. On top of the incumbency advantage, Biden’s just really well known, with a fame that predates social media reaching critical mass. It’s hard to beat that name ID in a party wide race. Ditto for his opponent Donald Trump. Florida governor Ron DeSantis (age 45) tried to challenge Trump in the primary, and got beaten badly. The failure was attributed to a variety of factors, but it’s just one more data point suggesting that the younger generations can’t yet overcome older name/brand advantage.

And yet, that which cannot go on forever must stop. Eventually a guy like Joe Biden simply hits a wall. People are living longer, but not forever. It shouldn’t necessarily be this way, with the handoff occurring only when the mentor becomes starkly incapable, but it’s how power shifts these days. The boomers aren’t merely still with us. They actually still rule over us. It feels permanent, but logically can’t be. The question is what happens the reign ends, little by little, and then all at once.