That's the new New Yorker cover, by Barry Blitt, discussed at "Barry Blitt’s 'The Race for Office'/The artist discusses hernias, walkers, and the joys of old age." Or... no... he never discusses the use of aging stereotypes in this cartoon — only his own aging.
It's a well-drawn cartoon. I don't want to focus on Barry Blitt's use of walkers to express oldness. I want to raise the general topic: Our justified desire to criticize those who are clinging to power and subjecting us to a gerontocracy should not release us from the ethical responsibility to refrain from expressing contempt and disgust toward the old.
By the way, only something like 15% of those who war 80+ years old use a walker, and some of them might be safer without it. I don't think it's good to think of aging as necessarily involving the use of a mobility device. And obviously, none of the oldsters on that New Yorker cover actually use a walker... not when we're able to see them, at least. We're all getting older, and it's better not to lean toward pessimism. There are lots of things you can do every day to enhance your capacity to walk unassisted when you are 80, 90, or 100.
I'm annoyed at the gerontocracy for existing in the first place, but also for bringing negativity into the way we think about getting old.
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So on Election Day, when 77 year old Trump demolishes 81 year old Biden, it will be due to "ageism".
A walker has wheels in the front. You don't pick it up and heft it, although it's hilarious that Trump is a chomping beast about to crush Biden with his.
Trump doesn't belong on the cover with the other geriatrics. He's in good shape. Golfs. Can throw a football and baseball. Still funny and witty. And he has the fortitude and stamina to take on all the bullshit they are throwing at him. A lifetime of sobriety might just do that.
He's also not corrupt like Biden, Pelosi, and McConnell. Finally, he's not a lifetime politician like the other three. The "geriatric" problem isn't just about mental and physical fitness for high office. It about being there for your whole life and becoming mega-rich by selling influence and benefiting from insider trading.
Younger generation of talent must be trashed and smashed so those 4 a-holes can keep the modern D-team alive and kicking.
Where's DiFi?
I'm not going to surrender the walker as an object metaphor mocking our elected officials and the people who continue to support them. In a world where propaganda is often accepted as journalism rules this one gets an easy pass...
That cartoon is old school. Rollators are far better for getting around if you’re balanced challenged. There are lots of cool options like special paint jobs, cup holders, and even inflatable tires for “off road” excursions. Nice hand brakes for going down hills. Comfortable seats too. There are even high tech models made with carbon fiber frames to keep the weight down.
"There are lots of things you can do every day to enhance your capacity to walk unassisted when you are 80, 90, or 100."
And sometimes there's nothing you can do. No matter how healthy and active you were, you end up needing a walker. It's a DNA lottery. The longer the lottery losers go on without retiring, the more ageism we'll see. Reason won't make McConnell leave his seat. Shaming and ridicule may be the only tools we have left.
"I'm annoyed at the gerontocracy for existing in the first place, but also for bringing negativity into the way we think about getting old."
That was baked into the Baby Boomer cake: don't trust anyone over 30, remember?
If one has the belief/ego/delusion to believe they can/should/deserve hold life-or-death power and lead, then anything is fair game.
If some in power are plainly incapable of doing the job (especially Biden and McConnell), hurt feelings about oldness and public humiliation is the lesser of the evils. Indeed, humiliation is likely a "moral positive" or "moral imperative."
Ronald Reagan was harshly attacked from the left for being too old / senile (he literally was), while today's left hypocritically turns an blind eye toward Biden's similar or worse decline.
Criticism of a topic directly related to the exercise of power, such as age-related declines, refreshingly opens the door to all fair and equitable criticisms elsewhere. This includes the failings and weaknesses of black and brown and female and transgendered and every sort of sacred political cow. Criticize all but stay relevant to their jobs/wannabe jobs, and don't be a self-blinded hypocrite.
And obviously, none of the oldsters on that New Yorker cover actually use a walker...
how far DO they WALK? From their bed to their wheel chair? Then from their wheelchair to the podium?
Play this game with me. Which one does not belong on that New Yorker cover?:
Joe Biden, Democrat, 80 y/o, physically and markedly cognitively impaired.
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat, 83 years old and famously forgetful and probably in early stage dementia.
Mitch McConnell, Republican, 81 years old, normal mental function but has had two episodes of probable TIA.
Donald Trump, Republican, 77 years old, mentally quick, energetic, and with amazing stamina.
OK, now lets try this game:
Dianne Feinstein, Democrat, 90 freakin' years old, wheelchair-bound, severely cognitively impaired for years.
Which one, who isn't there, belongs on that cover in the place of the one who does not belong on that cover?
Knowing the answers to those two riddles is as easy as knowing the reasons for them, isn't it.
And WHERE is Diane Feinstein in that pic? couldn't she keep up with the crowd?
I always knew it wouldn’t turnout well for those who’s motto was “Don’t trust anyone over 30”
It's not contempt for the old to believe that 80 y.o.s should not be running my country. Sorry, not sorry. People get old. It's the circle of life. But *your insecurity* about aging doesn't mean that I need to play act that these are competent adults with functioning brains. McConnell is literally glitching out like he's on West World. If Biden was my father, we would be taking his car keys away. Not out of "agism." Out of common sense and basic concern for the public.
Agreed. The only nice thing about Mitt Romney's senate career is that he chose to retire. Probably because he has a family who loves him. I wonder what that says about everyone else....
So on Election Day, when 77 year old Trump demolishes 81 year old Biden, it will be due to "ageism".
You have to be pretty naive to think Biden will really be the candidate. It's a rope a dope you dopes. The Dems will wait until the GOP is locked in with Trump and airlift in a milquetoast candidate at the last minute who will wipe Trump off the map. And, yes, when Trump loses to a much younger candidate, I fully expect the Trumpers to cry about how Trump lost because of unfair agism because Trumpers are a bunch of crybabies.
Each of them is a figurehead of a political machine, except for Trump, which is why they hate Trump most of all, and Trump had no machine to protect him, either, but as the head of a political machine, if they leave office, that machine loses the connection that makes the money that makes the machine go. So unless they can credibly run a son or a wife, the machine cannot let them retire.
Dave Begley said..
.
Where's DiFi?
Running in the opposite direction. If we're shooting for realism here.
BTW, Glitch McConnell has lost a ton of weight, and is *looking* pretty good anyway.
It's not just politics. An acquaintance who is Gen X and a former lawyer noted the way that the Boomers got into the top positions in law firms, and then entrenched themselves. Mandatory retirement ages were pushed back or eliminated. Meanwhile, Gen X lawyers who'd spent years on the partnership track, often with all the personal and professional sacrifices that entailed, found themselves at a dead end.
It's noteworthy that Botox Nancy is the least aged in the drawing, even though she's the oldest in reality.
I expect that McConnell holds onto his seat in part due to the incompetence and infighting of the KY GOP. From what I've been told, the party has multiple factions who hate one another. Once McConnell is gone, it's likely to be a fight that leaves an opening for a Dem candidate. Especially if Bashear decides to fight it out over the Senate appointment law.
And don't get me started on Lurch Fetterman. I mean, I'm sorry that they guy had a stroke, and I know we don't want to hurt Lurch's. The worst thing that can happen is we hurt a Senator's feelings. Heaven forbid we "punch down" at a vegetable that spends trillions of dollars that we earn. So, I guess we have no other choices but to have a vegetable in the Senate. Madness.
How long before we have the federal Department of Hurt Feelings to make sure that Senators don't get too down on themselves for being unable to form sentences and put on a pair of pants. We don't want to hurt anyone feelings while we are sending cluster bombs to Ukraine. Self-esteem is so important for a Senator.
Covid increased contempt for the old, which was one of the few predictions I ever got right. Gradually, gradually, and then suddenly it became okay to say out loud that they are often expendable. A million of us died, which is inconvenient for those who want to talk about how terrible all the restrictions were, so it kept getting stressed more and more how many of them were old or sick already. Such things were discouraged in polite company, especially among the Professionally Kind, but I turned around and those barriers were down.
You are increasingly allowed to consider them useless, and active dislike will creep in more and more. Ice floes and all that.
Given the ethical/religious "burden" of a baby and the Planned Parenthood solution, and the orientation of social progress, the clear and progressive risk of Planned Parent/hood is a probable cause of concern for the gerontocracy. A baby is a "burden" for mother, and a granny is a "burden" for society.
It's not the age, it's the cognitive abilities.
"A walker has wheels in the front."
Some do, some don't.
In the drawing, Pelosi has a walker with wheels.
On the issue of aging, I reserve my contempt for people like Biden and, increasingly, for McConnell for serving in office after it is very, very clear they aren't mentally competent to do so. I would gain a small measure of respect for Biden if he resigned from the Presidency, but he isn't going to do that unless he is forced by his party to resign due to his criminality. I even think Trump too old to be President, but he clearly isn't anywhere near as demented as Biden is, but he easily could be by 2028.
I would have term limits for office had I my preferences- 6 terms as a Representative, 2 terms as a Senator to go with the 2 term Presidency. I would also make federal judges run for office, or be appointed by state legislatures, since they are all politicians anyway, and I would term limit them, too, to 12 years. This would fix the gerontocracy problem for all practical purposes.
I don't think Trump, Biden, or Pelosi use mobility devices of any kind- I have seen all three walk long distances on video in the last year unassisted. The only one I haven't seen do this is McConnell- I only ever see him statueing......er......standing at a podium. My mother, at age 75 can still walk unassisted, but only for short distances of less than 100-200 feet. Anything longer, and I have to get the wheelchair out of the car, but she more mentally competent than all 4 of them.
What is race without diversity?
I think Mitch has the wheels. And who is that in red, out front and only partially in the frame?
Politics is just so complicated.
It seems odd that these folks persist to such a deep age. I'm guessing that a large swath of special interests have invested heavily in these politicians over time. For those with long tenure, the vested interests want to keep them there as long as possible, and the strands of patronage they hold in their hands are hard to let go. I'm sure they stay for other reasons, but perhaps this is a part of the motivation.
That was baked into the Baby Boomer cake: don't trust anyone over 30, remember?
Burn. Well done, Crack...
I have a theory that the older statespeople remain in place because they fear they will be outed when they have no power. I think all these people (and more) have intel on a number of people, and vice versa, so they remain in power to keep a lid on their skeletons. They’d rather leave Congress in a box than face the derision from public knowledge of their true legacies. Mutual Assured Destruction, in a sense.
Mr Wibble said...
It's not just politics. An acquaintance who is Gen X and a former lawyer noted the way that the Boomers got into the top positions in law firms, and then entrenched themselves. Mandatory retirement ages were pushed back or eliminated. Meanwhile, Gen X lawyers who'd spent years on the partnership track, often with all the personal and professional sacrifices that entailed, found themselves at a dead end.
This x1000 in Academia. Boomers (and, to be fair, the worst of the Silents) swooped into the openings made for them by their predecessors all retiring at 65 and then clung to their positions like barnacles, sucking up resources like, well, like Boomers.
Worse, for reasons best known to themselves, they constantly hamstrung the potential leaders in the next generation so as to suck up to their beloved Millennials. There weren't that many GenX academics to begin with, and in my experience 100% of those who moved into lower leadership got sandbagged by Boomer admins, almost always over a conflict with Millennials who whined constantly about being at the bottom of any hierarchy and never did any of the grunt work that the previous generations had been required to do (BY THE BOOMERS, I might add). Pretty much the entire GenX leadership class in academia effectively said: "F this leadership crap," and withdrew in disgust.*
A lot of the organizational failures you are seeing now (and there's MUCH more to come!) are arising because management responsibility has been passed from a 70+ Boomer to a 40-year-old Millennial who has been praised and patted on the head for his/her entire career but was never given much responsibility and never learned from failure (because failures were always cleaned up for them--sometime pre-emptively--by their Boomer patrons). These people don't know how to lead, so they are addicted to giving one-dimensional orders ("DEI is the number-one priority of this hospital!" --gee, I thought it was healing the sick, but what do I know?). They suffer from acute groupthink reinforced by social media, and they living under the illusion that "crafting" [a word that now makes me vomit in any circumstances that don't involve hot glue guns] policy and gathering data will solve every problem.
Last week I overheard an administrator admit that the stupid educational software the college just paid a fortune to is inferior to a professor's own website, but "we want some homogeneity in the student experience." Upon further questioning it became clear that what was really wanted was another data point so that someone could write in a report "fully [big number] percent of faculty are using [crappy software]."
*Withdrawal in disgust >< as apathy.
"And obviously, none of the oldsters on that New Yorker cover actually use a walker... "
The poster child, who is in a wheelchair, is Feinstein, and curiously she is not depicted.
Hmm...
Boomers invented ageism just in time to get old and never let go of any power at all.
The next President was featured on 60 hard-to-watch Minutes last night - pretending to be 'tough and serious'. Probably still watching reruns and fist-pumping this morning.
The funny part isn't their ages. The funny part is that people, people on this very blog are going to vote for Biden, again.
@AVI - "You are increasingly allowed to consider them useless, and active dislike will creep in more and more. Ice floes and all that."
Well.... I'm not sure that's a fair comment - I didn't see anybody here say that these politicians were useless because they're old, just that it's abundantly clear they are too old to be effective in their positions as public servants. I am seeing a common thread, that these powerful people are holding onto their power long past the point where they are still adding value to the political environment in the country. They are holding on to power, for power's sake, not to serve honorably, and the political machinery they helped to create is serving that master - not the voter. That's the objection. Nobody here is suggesting ice floes or MAID - just voicing a complaint on the quality of our elected leadership. Do you think Diane Feinstein, who has clearly had a stroke and is now taking instructions from her staff, is on her game? How about Mr. Fetterman? The tone of the complaints is pretty similar for both.
I have a theory that the older statespeople remain in place because they fear they will be outed when they have no power
+1
Spot on Ice Nine
I'm a Boomer academic, but never got far (late start) and got out of the way at 62.
It's called "early" retirement. I started working and paying taxes as a young teen, so it didn't feel early to me, and it enabled me to assist my younger brother with mother-care, which took three years to resolve.
And I'll suck the public teat as long as it, or I, last.
Strange... Feinstein, Pelosi, McConnell, and Biden pretty much are on walkers...
But Trump definitional is not.
Yes Trump has faults but I will vote for him if he is the nominee.
Trump is the only reason anyone will vote for Biden, same as last time.
I agree with your point in this post.
However, I would like to point out that using a mobility device does not mean you have aged poorly, nor does being free from one mean your aging is going well.
The loved one in my life with Alzheimers can still do a headstand. My father uses a walker as his dementia worsens, but he was unable to recognize me on occasion while he was still able to go on very long walks, unassisted.
I assume Blatt uses walkers because it's very hard to visually represent cognitive problems.
Breezy said...
I have a theory that the older statespeople remain in place because they fear they will be outed when they have no power. I think all these people (and more) have intel on a number of people, and vice versa, so they remain in power to keep a lid on their skeletons. They’d rather leave Congress in a box than face the derision from public knowledge of their true legacies. Mutual Assured Destruction, in a sense.
I agree with this. Further, I think a lot of youngs are happy to keep the olds in position because they can manipulate them. Since Biden was chosen to win the Democratic primary, he's not been in charge of his own campaign/presidency. It's hard to find young politicians who are so malleable. Obama was, because he just wanted to make speeches and have dinners.
At the VA right now for a Dr's appointment. Lots of folks wth walkers.
They are really fancy, some of them. Some have seats that look really comfy. More than the chairs in the waiting area.
John Henry
And Trump, who is shown with walker he is moving rather than relying on, is the only Boomer in that cartoon. The others are pre-Boomers, born in the late 1930s and early 40s, many of that generation were 'red diaper' babies.
On the other hand, Thomas Sowell, who just turned 93, is making the rounds to promote his latest book. He shows little of the decline we see in Pelosi, Biden, McConnell, likely due to not having a lifetime of sin coming home to roost.
https://youtu.be/pn2gda_phAA
I've always thought that we have a gerontocracy on the left to hide the actual far-left group running the much of the country. These older people create a facade of normalcy: "Good Morning, America, it's still 1945 in San Francisco where Nancy Pelosi, etc". It's also useful to the left to be the staff for a group that tires easily so that office-holders become self-excluded from meetings run by the hard leftist staff when the meetings occur late in the evening. Or even early.
On the right, the leadership is much younger except for Sen. Mitch McConnell. (I exclude Trump from these group analyses because I consider him unique in his abilities and an undeserved piece of good fortune for the USA.) I know people hate Sen. McConnell but he is the one who kept Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court and got the conservatives Trump nominated on to the Court. And a new Senate Republican leader might be inexperienced in Senate ploys and then the left would get even more stuff in. We have to be careful.
Basically, it's quite a mistake to think of "older people" as a disconnected lump of geezers and geezettes. Most are someone's parents - and grandparents as well. Attacks on them alienate thirty other people downstream from them. But that doesn't mean people in their eighties should holding positions that require long days of reading briefings, constant meetings, continual travel (unless they are in the remarkable spectrum as is Trump.) Staff should not be running the show because the President or Senator is just too old to keep up. Staff are always basically irresponsible and that's been known since the German General Staff started World War I. More recently, we've seen staff irresponsibility at work in public health during Covid, in Twitter, in news reporting, at Disney, in Catholic Chanceries, and we all know it's going on in the Biden White House. Right now the "noises off" are the show and are making a godawful mess of it all thanks to the gerontocracy.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
A lot of people won't accept the fact that they aren't qualified to keep working past a certain age.
Mental and physical impairment is different for everyone. But when you're a public figure, you also risk damaging your legacy by hanging on too long.
"Covid increased contempt for the old, which was one of the few predictions I ever got right. Gradually, gradually, and then suddenly it became okay to say out loud that they are often expendable. A million of us died, which is inconvenient for those who want to talk about how terrible all the restrictions were, so it kept getting stressed more and more how many of them were old or sick already. Such things were discouraged in polite company, especially among the Professionally Kind, but I turned around and those barriers were down.
You are increasingly allowed to consider them useless, and active dislike will creep in more and more. Ice floes and all that."
Wow, what a load of horseshit that comment was. We had all the restrictions you and others wanted and a million still died. Exactly what is it you think we should have done that we didn't do? The elderly all took the vaccines in 2021, and guess what- they were still dying of/with COVID the following two years, and we can't even blame the youngsters who didn't take the vaccines since the ones who did were still getting COVID like they were unvaccinated.
I don't remember any commenters here or really anywhere else thinking the lives of the elderly weren't worth trying to protect, only that what we were doing with the idiotic polices wasn't going to protect them, which turned out to be correct. How many comments did you write in 2020 criticizing New York's policy of returning people with COVID to the nursing homes? Feel free to post links.
Now, I will admit that if Joe Biden tripped on the stairs and broke his neck, I would laugh and laugh and laugh.
"Our justified desire to criticize those who are clinging to power and subjecting us to a gerontocracy should not release us from the ethical responsibility to refrain from expressing contempt and disgust toward the old."
You don't think that using the word "gerontocracy" expresses either contempt or disgust toward the old? I suppose you regard "patriarchy" as a neutral term?
The walkers are nothing more than icons saying "old person approaching or at feebleness".
That all of them had them is just saying "all these farts are old".
Both cases of which are true.
Don't really care for the elderly. They remind me of SJWs, always wanting the world sculpted for their comfort.
At 85 years age, in the US, 22% have dementia.
Autopsies demonstrate that over 50% of all males over 60 have prostate cancer.
If it isn't one thing, it's another.
Rage against the dying of the light, I say, which is why I give flashlights to my elderly relatives and friends for Xmas presents.
This post pairs well with the one above that is about Hillary Clinton, 75. BTW, the individual in red disappearing yo the right of the picture, is that meant to be Hillary or is that meant to be Feinstein?
We are in the week of 'age belief journaling'
Back in the mid 90's when I was living la vida loca, I was early at the 55 Bar in West Village. Reason for being early was that I was still out from the night before. What drew me down the stairs was the sound of a band playing. There were only two costumers, one sitting at the bar and one at a table. I ordered a beer sat at the bar and when the band started playing a tune anybody could dance to, I went sat at the table, leaned in and asked the woman to dance. Mind you there is no dancing in that cramped little place. But I was undeterred, I stood up and grabbed her left hand with my right, that's when out of the conner of my eyes I see band members chuckling. I had completely missed the walker right next to the woman. The laughter should have deterred me from persisting, but it did not. I moved closer to her and helped her up and holding her I swung her, right, then left in place again and again. By the time the tune was about to end I bent my body as though I was helping her lean back to end the dance. Mind you no dance steps took place. I helped her sit back down, I sat back down at the table, and we chatted. Her first question was, "Who are you"?
Notice beefy Biden leg muscles... but who is lieeding hte pack in red?
Old politicians are not a problem in themselves. Age brings wisdom.
The problem with Biden is he obviously has dementia, is incredibly corrupt, and is an idiot when it comes to all government policies.
The problem with Pelosi is she is incredibly corrupt, not to mention completely out of touch with the people she supposedly champions.
The problem with McConnell, despite the recent medical episodes, is he seems to dislike the very people he represents.
The problem with Trump is, well, we do not have time to go over all of his flaws. However, unlike the people above he is full of energy, genuinely cares about the country or at least fakes it effectively, and is not an idiot.
Not everyone on that cover is over 80. My mom was in the 15%. Sad to watch, although sharp as a tack until the end.
I have a walker, but not for walking. If you get a tall one, you can easily lift your body so that your feet hang free, which will reset a back sprain so that it doesn't bother again for a year (when you sprain it again) instead of bothering you for the next week.
Mandatory retirement for Generals and Flag officers is 64 and there is a very good reason for that. Why do we allow the guy with the football to be beyond cognition?
"By the way, only something like 15% of those who war 80+ years old use a walker, and some of them might be safer without it. "
Yup. Had my knee replaced a few years back (old gymnastics injury). That afternoon, the hospital gave me a walker. I gave it a try and immediately realized it was dangerous as hell. Told the nurses I would rather use crutches. they tried to talk me out of it. I told them I had been using crutches off and on for forty years and that they really were no different than being on the parallel bars. They relented. Thankfully. Twenty-four hours later and I'm zipping all over the hospital on them. Walkers suck ass.
Rich thinks we're all morons.
You got Biden elected. He was damaged goods when you voted for him. You can't whine about it now.
"Biden if he resigned from the Presidency, but he isn't going to do that"
There is no way in hell Jill Biden is giving up the First Ladyship willingly. It's how we got Joe in the first place.
Trump is the only reason anyone will vote for Biden, same as last time.
Which says far more about Biden 'voters' than it does Trump.
Somehow that cover makes Pelosi look much younger than she does in real life.
Term limits.
Upon further review: If you look closely, the walker with wheels belongs to Senior Senator from Kentucky. Pelosi's walker is conveniently hidden from view by President Biden.
Once again, art imitates life.
. . . .
It's only an Okay-drawn cartoon. And, expressing contempt and disgust is fair enough if it's for something that you're a part of.
Imagine the immediate rejection if the artist had put Trump in front of Biden...
Our justified desire to criticize those who are clinging to power and subjecting us to a gerontocracy should not release us from the ethical responsibility to refrain from expressing contempt and disgust toward the old.
@Althouse, please be careful not to overthink the issue. You and I are retired, (1) so — probably! — you are making substantially less money and therefore putting less into the system in taxes, and (2) taking money out of the system as you collect benefits. Are you collecting Social Security? A state pension? Are you taking advantage of state or local senior discounts? My point being that if you are no longer putting in more via taxes than you are taking benefits out, your fellow lefties believe that they have better uses in mind for that money, so why don’t you just die already?
In support of my thesis I offer two data points. The first is the callous way governors like Whitmer and Cuomo put COVID-positive patients into nursing homes. It was financially beneficial to do so, plus it helped run up the death toll and thus helped damage President Trump. But IMHO its biggest benefit from the governors’ perspectives was the lower expenditures after the pandemic was over because fewer people were alive to claim those benefits. Prove me wrong.
The second data point concerns my move from the incandescently blue suburbs of Washington, DC, to a more rural county in Virginia. Surrounded by normal, middle class and working class neighbors I find myself better respected than formerly, and even assisted in chores like clearing my driveway. It was a revelation to me.
Biden '24: Come for the Age. Stay for the Corruption.
Care for the aged is as pro-life as care for the yet to be born child. It's all the same, care for human beings at all stages of life, especially the most vulnerable.
BTW, what is it with lefty cartoonists — lefties in general — that they feel compelled to portray Donald Trump as seriously overweight. He’s 6’ 3” and 215 (wink, wink). Okay, he looks closer to 240, but that’s still not all that heavy for a man 6’ 3”. Now Nadler the Waddler, he’s fat.
BTW, what is it with lefty cartoonists — lefties in general — that they feel compelled to portray Donald Trump as seriously overweight. He’s 6’ 3” and 215 (wink, wink). Okay, he looks closer to 240, but that’s still not all that heavy for a man 6’ 3”. Now Nadler the Waddler, he’s fat.
I'm not young, and I generally think pretty negatively about getting older. Although the alternative isn't great, either.
Only 15 percent of people over 80 use walkers? And the percentage for the rest of he population is what--.05%?
I think "ageism" is telling it like it is. We ain't what we used to be, and we ain't going to improve. Deal with it. Keep going, and laugh when you can.
I think that aside from the walkers he makes the 80-somethings look a hell of a lot better than they actually do (Except Trump, of course).
I notice the standard epithet used by Biden supporters like Carville for Democrats who express doubts about Brandon's fitness to head the '24 ticket is "bedwetters." Talk about projection. Like the walkers, another negative slur against oldsters. Although, I can understand the frustration New Yorkers might feel getting behind someone with one of those walkers on a crowded street or subway platform.
It's not the gerontocracy that's destroying this country as much as the kakistocracy. Nearly every major elected official, regardless of age, now seems to be corrupt, incompetent, or a nutcase. Or all the above. Think Fetterman, AOC, the squad, etc. We'd be doing better by randomly selecting our leaders from the phone book.
Power is too important for parties to let go.
I've never seen "bedwetter" used as a political epithet as particularly age-specific. More a comment on generalized fearfulness, since most of the time the target isn't particularly old.
For lack of space, they couldn't show that Pelosi was dragging Feinstein.
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