Gerontocracy is real: The median senator is 64, and 20 members of Congress are over 80. One legal scholar called it “old dirt.” It seems the combination of President Donald Trump’s recent 80th birthday, the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham, and the currently unknown health status of Sen. Mitch McConnell has brought collective attention to the aging of our elected officials — and for good reason.
So this week, I spoke with Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina on his 86th birthday. And I wanted to (subtly) ask the question that’s been popping up in my head since the whole fiasco with then-President Joe Biden: Why don’t seniors want to retire?
In a lengthy interview, I asked the House Democratic leader about generational change, changing voters about PAC money and artificial intelligence, and if he thinks there are any lessons to be learned from the 2024 election.
As for age, Clyburn told me, “I know people who are 66 years old with less energy than me, and none of the experience I have.” Clyburn said he will also be open soon proposed legislation requiring members of Congress to take diagnostic testsalthough he dismissed the idea of time limits or age limits.
Here’s what else I learned:
1. They don’t exist‘t give up power because they don’t want to
That’s the whole point. The reason the boomers (and Clyburn’s Silent Generation) won’t secede isn’t that no one asked. It’s that they don’t want to. And for Clyburn, I think the armor doubles as a blind spot. When I asked about the younger generation’s lack of faith that older politicians can deliver, he invoked his grandparents, saying, “Don’t worry about what people call you. It’s what you answer that matters.”
And at that time it is wisdom, honed over decades, I don’t know if it works like leadership philosophy. Stay the course and ignore criticism can also be read as ignoring election opinion. “I don’t respond to those things,” Clyburn said, when asked about the call for a generational change.
2. Clyburn says what the establishment thinks: It’s the voters’ fault
Clyburn defines the basic view of establishment politics as cleanly as anyone: There is nothing to change. He doesn’t believe the party made a big mistake in 2024, and he doesn’t consider the primary results in New York City, Colorado, and elsewhere to be anything other than a flash in the pan. Pushing on what political lesson he took from the administration built to stop Trump that ended with Trump back in office, he went on to say: “When the white vote was 71 percent two years ago, and the Black vote was 59 percent, tell me whose fault that is.” When asked directly if the point was that Black people brought Kamala Harris down, she didn’t hesitate: “In most cases, absolutely.”
At its heart, this is a philosophy that blames the voters and violates the party establishment from reflection.
But this is also why the next playoff round is so important. It’s easy to deliver to New York, Colorado, or The Rise of Graham Platner in Maine as one phase – a local change, not a big trend. But the Michigan and Wisconsin primaries are coming up, and those are the ones that determine whether this will be considered a design. The temperature range has not yet been set.
3. He advocates the organization’s union with the Congressional Black Caucus
The moderate wing of the Democratic Party is held, at the grassroots, by Black voters – especially in the South. Clyburn knows that, and he advocated union and cooperative policies that bind them together.
Clyburn maintains that taking corporate dollars is important to minority candidates who don’t come from family wealth — “I would challenge you to find me one vote that I’ve ever cast that a pharmacy supported and my constituents didn’t.” He turned to his pro-Israel colleague, Representative Gregory Meeks, on Israel questions: “I’m led by Gregory Meeks.” He made no apologies for endorsing Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayoral race this year — the same Cuomo who said he should step down in 2021.
I asked him what the Black community has gotten in exchange for that loyalty. His response was agenda: “What did we get out of supporting Obama? What did we get out of supporting Biden?” And that is the true answer. But I think there is also another under it.
I see Clyburn’s actions through the context of power shifting within the Democratic Party, as well as what is going on outside of it. The Black political class, in particular, is invested in holding its ground against rising party coalitions, especially immigrant communities. That’s part of what’s at the heart of Clyburn’s endorsements of Cuomo and Haley Stevens in Michiganand even recent wars which states should vote on first in the Democratic presidential primary.
Get the entire episode — including a bonus segment where Clyburn defends the party’s approach to Israel — wherever you get your podcasts.
