"Jack Schossshhhhberg is that kind of leader."

A mush-mouthed Nancy Pelosi delivers a barely intelligible endorsement:

I'm watching that because of this in the NYT: "In First Campaign Ad, Schlossberg Leans on a Well-Known Name: Pelosi/Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy, is among a slate of Democrats seeking to replace Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York."

Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy, has built his campaign for a New York City House seat around turning the page on the Democrats’ old guard. Yet when he debuts his first paid advertisement on Wednesday, the 33-year-old candidate has chosen his party’s oldest living leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, to do the talking....

He's turning the page. She's the page. 

"The lack of outside help for [Janet] Mills has left some Democrats in Maine with the impression that Schumer and other powerful Democrats are leaving her to twist in the wind..."

"... as she fails to make up ground in the polls. With Platner ads airing regularly on television, Mills supporters have begun complaining to Democrats close to the governor about the lack of a response, with some wondering why Schumer recruited the governor to run if no help would be provided when she did.... Republicans have needled Democrats on the apparent lack of support for Mills in the ad wars, using it to paint Schumer as out of touch with the Democratic base. 'Chuck Schumer is bailing out his preferred candidates across the map, but Janet Mills’ air support is nowhere to be found,' the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s regional press secretary, Samantha Cantrell, said in a statement. '“As Maine’s Democrat base turns to the radical liar Graham Platner, Schumer’s dream of beating Susan Collins is slipping further out of sight.'" 

From "Is Chuck Schumer leaving his top candidate recruit twisting in the wind? Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, has gone negative against Graham Platner. The attacks have not worked, and Minority Leader Charles Schumer so far has declined to bail her out" (WaPo).

“The same kinds of things they did in the 1870s to deny votes to African Americans is what they’re trying to do today.”

“We have got to start concentrating on what we can do to stop this deterioration taking place in our society, and stop arguing about how old or how young somebody is. It’s just a little bit silly to me.”

Said Representative James E. Clyburn, quoted in “Some Voters Say Congress Is Too Old. These Black Democrats Aren’t Leaving/As older members of Congress head for the exits amid growing pressure for fresh faces in the Democratic Party, some of the most seasoned Black lawmakers are resisting retirement” (NYT).

The gerontocracy crumbles.

Now that Election Day is over, it's time for that sort of thing. More, please.

"This is going to anger a lot of people.... People say they want change in the Democratic Party, but really they want change so long as it doesn’t potentially endanger their position of power."

"That’s not actually wanting change. That’s selfishness.... 'What we are not saying here is, ‘Oh, you’re old, you need to go.' What we’re saying is we need to make room for a new generation to step up and help make sure that we have the people that are most acutely impacted by a lot of the issues that we are legislating on — that are actually going to live to see the consequences of this."

Said David Hogg, who is a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and also the president of Leaders We Deserve, which has a plan to back young challengers to Democratic incumbents in Democratic primaries.

Hogg is quoted in "A Top Democratic Official Plots to Take Down Party Incumbents/David Hogg, a young liberal activist and now a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, is leading an effort to unseat the party’s older lawmakers in primaries" (NYT).

At a private meeting last month, a “neutrality policy” was circulated asking the party’s top officers to refrain from any activity that would “call into question their impartiality and evenhandedness,” according to two people with knowledge of the pledge, which sought to cover officers “both in their D.N.C. capacity and in their personal capacity.” Everyone signed it — except Mr. Hogg.

At the DNC: Bill Clinton stamps his presidential approval on Joe Biden: "And he kept the faith, and he's infected a lot of the rest of us."

"He healed our sick and put the rest of us back to work. And he strengthened our alliances, for peace and security. He stood up for Ukraine. He's trying desperately to get a ceasefire in the Middle East. And then he did something that's really hard for a politician to do. He voluntarily gave up political power. And George Washington knew that. And he did it. And he set the standard for us serving 2 terms before it was mandatory. It helped his legacy. And it will enhance Joe Biden's legacy. And it's a stark contrast to what goes on in the other party. So I want to thank him — for his courage, compassion, his class, his service, his sacrifice. Joe Biden, thank you. And he kept the faith, and he's infected a lot of the rest of us. Now let's cut to the chase. I am too old to gild the lily. Two days ago I turned 78. The oldest man in my family of 4 generations. And the only personal vanity I want to assert is I'm still younger than Donald Trump...."

On the topic of things George Washington knew... or things we think George Washington knew... George Washington knew that he was still wanted. He wasn't abandoned and bullied into leaving. But I presume part of the pressure that Joe Biden experienced was the argument that only if he left quietly could he receive this comparison to George Washington. It's hard to imagine George Washington influenced by the prospect of a laudatory speech comparing him to some other leader. That sounds like an insult to George Washington.

Why not a coordinated double-coup?

What's brewing here?

Scoop: A man walks.

I'm reading "Scoop: Biden changes walking routine to Marine One" (Axios).

With aides walking between Biden and journalists' camera position outside the White House, the visual effect is to draw less attention to the 81-year-old's halting and stiff gait.... Some Biden advisers have told Axios they're concerned that videos of Biden walking and shuffling alone — especially across the grass — have highlighted his age.

Dear Dan Rather: Are you trying to allude to a Beatles title?

I don't really want to read what Dan Rather — or "Dan Rather and Team Steady" — has to say about the Supreme Court. (Sample text: "More Republican-led state houses should take note of a plethora of unintended consequences that have come from the reversal of Roe.")

I just want to talk about the headline — over at Steady — "Dear SCOTUS, Look What You Have Done/The unintended consequences that could affect the election."

Pardon me for fussing over a headline when the country is collapsing into chaos.

"Jill Biden and his other advisers come up with ways to obscure signs of senescence — from shorter news conferences to almost zero print interviews..."

"... to TV interviews mainly with fawning MSNBC anchors.... [T]he Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state... is a genuine issue.... Cosseting and closeting Uncle Joe all the way to the end — eschewing town halls and the Super Bowl interview — are just not going to work. Going on defense, when Trump is on offense, is not going to work. Counting on Trump’s vileness to secure the win, as Hillary did, is not going to work...."

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Mr. President, Ditch the Stealth About Health" (NYT).

So... sift through all that jaunty prose and you'll see Dowd predicting a Trump victory.

"73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve."

"Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump." 

From "Overwhelming majority of Americans think Biden is too old for another term: POLL/A majority also think Trump is too old for a second term" (ABC News).

According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old.

"Mr. Biden’s voice has grown softer and raspier, his hair thinner and whiter. He is tall and trim but moves more tentatively..."

"... than he did as a candidate in 2019 and 2020, often holding his upper body stiff, adding to an impression of frailty.... Mr. Trump, by contrast, does not appear to be suffering the effects of time in such visible ways. Mr. Trump often dyes his hair and appears unnaturally tan. He is heavyset and tall, and he uses his physicality to project strength in front of crowds. When he takes the stage at rallies, he basks in adulation for several minutes, dancing to an opening song, and then holds forth in speeches replete with macho rhetoric and bombast that typically last well over an hour, a display of stamina. 'It is the perception of how you communicate,' said Carol Kinsey Goman, a speaker and coach on leadership presence. 'When Trump makes those kinds of faux pas, he just brushes it off, and people don’t say, "Oh, he’s aging." He makes at least as many mistakes as Joe Biden, but because he does it with this bravado, it doesn’t seem like senility. It seems like passion.'"

From "Why the Age Issue Is Hurting Biden So Much More Than Trump/Both Donald J. Trump and President Biden are elderly men. But voters are much less likely to worry that Mr. Trump is too old to serve" (NYT).

"Workism tells older Americans who might think otherwise that their job is core to who they are."

"Likewise, workism tells younger Americans that their job will define them. It is core to who they’re becoming. Read in this way, it is easy to see why older Americans are reluctant to simply 'step aside.' If they feel able... then the demand to leave is an attack on their essential identity...."

Writes David French in "The Hidden Moral Injury of ‘OK Boomer’" (NYT).

Our awful gerontocracy is unleashing retrograde ageism.

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.

"Ingraham Wants Mitch McConnell to Resign Just So She Can Keep Calling Biden 'Decrepit.'"

 A headline at The Daily Beast.

Gerontocracy update.

Asked to vote on the defense appropriations bill, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) begins giving a speech: “I would like to support a ‘yes’ vote on this. It provides …”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA): “Just say aye.” pic.twitter.com/Gw2eZ9rEMv

— The Recount (@therecount) July 27, 2023

"As a journalist who has been told for decades that my empathy for the female candidates I often cover is probably overemotional and built too strongly on personal identification..."

"... let me just tell you that you should never stand between a white male political journalist over the age of 40 and his feelings about the Kennedys...."

Writes Rebecca Traister, in "RFK Jr.’s Inside Job How a conspiracy-spewing literal Kennedy posing as a populist outsider jolted the Democratic Party" (NY Magazine).

Unlike his uncles and his father, RFK Jr. doesn't have a "brain trust" — doesn't have "protective support from the journalists and politically powerful friends who shined him up, in many cases literally editing his words." He used to, but...

Now his brain trust appears to be the hyperonline, hard-right masculinity influencers who give him the approval he craves and encourage him to do things like post videos of himself shirtless, his chest and arms improbably pumped, doing nine janky push-ups. 

Traister — who just revealed she knows her "empathy for the female candidates" is regarded by others as "probably overemotional and built too strongly on personal identification" — now openly displays her distaste for men who seem afflicted by overemotional attraction to the masculinity of a male candidate. 

"71% of Democratic Voters Think Biden Should Be 2024 Nominee."

Says a new Emerson poll.

I said it 2 weeks ago:

"That's your candidate, Democrats. There's no getting around it. And it seems that America will spend the next 6 years in the arms of the gerontocracy. Snuggle up!"

I'd already factored in my belief that Trump will get the GOP nomination and go on to lose the election. I've decided I'm not getting cranked up about it. I have blogged the presidential campaigns for almost 2 decades, with day-by-day observations and insights throughout 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. What a hell of a thing to become so immersed in. This time will be different. And not because I'm tired of all the immersion. It's different because I can see it's different. We're in a ridiculous fix. But I'm not going to make it worse by struggling. The ancient grandfather will enfold us. 

"President Biden remains 'a healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute duties of the presidency,' his physician wrote..."

"... in a memo released hours after the president underwent a routine annual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Thursday morning."

WaPo reports.

The physician — or the Washington Post — needs instruction in how to avoid triggering jokes about transgenderism. "President Biden remains 'a... male...."

Anyway. Great photo at the link of Biden jogging across the South Lawn as his aide, holding an open umbrella, lags behind. The healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male does not need an umbrella. 

That's your candidate, Democrats. There's no getting around it. And it seems that America will spend the next 6 years in the arms of the gerontocracy. Snuggle up!

"And the pool view of the Congress is antiquated and a little boomer-fied."

I'm reading "Gaetz introduces amendment to bring C-SPAN cameras back to House floor" (Fox News).

"I've received a lot of feedback from constituents about how interesting it was [during the Speaker voting], and that you were able to see in real time how our government is functioning, what alliances are being created, what discussions are being had, what animated moments drive the action," Gaetz told Fox News Digital in an interview. "And the pool view of the Congress is antiquated and a little boomer-fied."