The news that Representative Kay Granger has been residing in an assisted-living facility is a reminder of the moral questions posed by America’s aging political class, @SykesCharlie writes in The Atlantic Daily.
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🚨 Age isn’t just a number in Congress! Granger incident spotlights a bigger issue. We trust 78+ year-olds with nation’s future, but can’t peek at their health records? Time for mandatory check-ups! Voters deserve to know if their reps are fit to serve. #CongressHealthCheck
Yes, but dementia can happen to people far younger. it's not exculusively a geriatric disease. Nancy Pelosi breaking a hip and Mitch McConnell constantly glitching are better examples.
Meaning, it's morally questionable the GOP hides those w/dementia. Younger people can suffer from dementia as well. It's the hiding of fitness in many ways not just physical health for all in the political class. Begs the question is Trump suffering from dementia...
Advisors, family and local party leadership must be willing to step up and say "It's time to step down". But they too, must be wrapped up in the power grid to let someone they know to be not 100% mentally or physically continue to hold a spot in leadership of this country or even state and local.
I was embarrassed for Senator Feinstein when an aide on a nationally televised vote had to tell her that she only had to vote, not make a speech and 2 months later she passed. It isn't fair for the people of the district they represent.
I'm over 70. If someone is an elder and is healthy, they should be allowed to serve. I know a 90 year old that could do the job but if they are not healthy enough to make decisions they should step down.
Until younger voters consistently vote in every single election for younger candidates and younger issues and policies, senior voters will continue to put in their older candidates.
It is scary that Americans voted for a 78 year old who demonstrated cognitive decline during the campaign, refused to disclose his health record, and recently revealed physical signs on his hand similar to people who have conditions taking medications that cause brusing easily.
The issue isn’t the dementia or aging; the issue is staying quiet while pocketing taxpayer money and occupying a seat when you can’t function all because of power! We need term limits for everyone! Two terms everyone then leave! SCOTUS 20 years max!
Granger and Gaetz show the willingness of members of Congress, and likely the Senate, to provide cover for “one of their own,” irregardless of the circumstances. How much shitte is being hidden by those two groups, that their both their constituents and the public, should be made aware of?
FFS. I'm aged & disabled in ways that could lead to needing physical help, but my mind is 110%. Not every elder gets dementia, critical thinking or memory issues. Far from it. This legislator is unknown to me, but quit bashing us elders. We have some wisdom the younger don't & that's valuable.
2 - the current news of Kay Grainger, from her son who helped her move into the independant condo section of the asst. living facility, states that she too, functioned fine, for the most part up until just recently. So yes, I read & keep up also. Little irritable today? You sound like it.
LOL you said "the legislator is unknown to you" and then went on a big diatribe you don't even know who we are talking about? You could have looked it up before you said you don't know who it is. Then again, if you can't trust Charlie Sykes who can you trust?
What are you, twelve? Yes I know OF her, superficially. My objection is to you & others generalization of aging AND the lack of knowledge about the variety of brain functioning AND facility types. Ignorant, you are.
1- I know from 1st hand experience the stages &
complexities of dementia as my own elderly mom lived w/ my daughters & I for her last 7 yrs. From age 88 w/ no dementia to age 94, a year when dementia made a whirlwind progression.
Term limits and age limits are needed at all levels of government. The lack of them has resulted in stagnant out of touch government that can’t get anything substantial done and fix the problems that will destroy the country and hurt ordinary people.
Even those of us who militantly fight ageism daily - it's a lazy and pernicious projection of incompetence in myriad circumstances, occupational and social - know that a gerontocracy isn't representational and invites an abuse of power contrary to the mission of democratic governance.
The gerontocracy continues undeterred. Eisenhower was elected President at 62 and today that would be considered young when compared to perpetual office-holders like Hal Rogers (86) or Chuck Grassley (91).
The disappearance of local media that would have realized the story early on is a warning signal about how a ruling class can even hide physical truth from their constituents.
Like public safety personnel, Congress also needs a mandatory retirement age. It is asinine to think people who will not live under the laws they make are the best to make those laws.
I think of this first as a phenomenon requiring explanation. Consider: Barack Obama was elected President at 47, one of our youngest. Retiring 8 years later, he was succeeded in Democratic Party leadership entirely by people from the generation before his own. That’s never happened before.
Not only Democratic Presidential nominees (Clinton, Biden), but their most prominent challengers (Sanders, Warren); not only Presidential candidates, but leadership in both houses of Congress. Even now, the Democratic leader in the Senate is 75; the whip is 80. Both were just reelected unanimously.
Of the 13 ranking Democrats on House committees in the next Congress, 10 will be at least 70. And of course the Republican Party is completely dominated by a man well past typical retirement age when he first ran for President in 2015, and almost 80 now.
We have seen younger leaders replaced by older individuals, notably when President Kennedy was assassinated and succeeded by Lyndon Johnson, about a decade his senior. And individual legislators, steeped in the rules and precedents of their houses, have done what Pelosi and McConnell have.
But an entire generation occupying — without significant protest — secondary positions for nearly a decade is without precedent in our history. I can explain part of it, but not all of it. The lack of ambition on the part of younger Democrats is as glaring as the stubbornness of their elders.
The corporate media was too busy chasing immigrants "eating the cats, and eating the dogs" and every other shiny object the orange felon threw out there for them.
Wow. You know the amount of people blaming him for everything that's fucked up about our system... and all that cock blocking for a traitor is mind-blowing. Maybe you didn't know but we never had this shit show before so how did we know how inadequate it was? It's not just him.
I’m getting older will turn 56. It is incredible that much of the political elite in both parties are in their 70s and 80s. I’m not saying that an individual can’t be capable at that age, but should be open about their health.
They don't do anything. They show up when they feel like it they don't do anything so how hard is that whether you got Alzheimer's or not? Chuck grassley. Chuck Grassley is going to be president if they screw around and don't have a speaker on January 6th head on fire.
It is NOT the job of the media to suss out if an individual member of Congress is not doing their actual job.
Let's demand that the ACTUAL people who are responsible for this deception fess up: the Republican Party and staff members who allowed this sham to continue.
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complexities of dementia as my own elderly mom lived w/ my daughters & I for her last 7 yrs. From age 88 w/ no dementia to age 94, a year when dementia made a whirlwind progression.
And they bite every time...
Unlocked link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/opinion/democrats-election-future.html?unlocked_article_code=1.j04.PNrC.QgkzwbBMrB3r
can just disappear from public
service for so long without anyone either noticing or mentioning it
is mind boggling.
Let's demand that the ACTUAL people who are responsible for this deception fess up: the Republican Party and staff members who allowed this sham to continue.