I mean, we're the ones voting for these people. Also, this is like one judge in the whole country, and apparently from this article the last time this happened was in 1975. I don't think we need to create new regulations for every little rare problem. Things can be dealt with on a case by case basis sometimes.

Who are "we"? Where's the young citizen who had a say on who should be judge? Where's the young citizen who voted for the Federal Reserve chairman or the ECB president?

> Where's the young citizen who had a say on who should be judge?

Presumably voting in house and senate races in November for the candidates whom they trust to vote for the next Federal Reserve chairman on their behalf (in a way that reflects their concerns and wishes).

> Where's the young citizen who voted for the Federal Reserve chairman

What do you mean? That older people could vote but young voters could not?

> I mean, we're the ones voting for these people

Often we don't have a choice; even if party support wasn't mandatory, there are young, newly elected congressional representatives who are struggling to support their families because congress never once considered that one of them might not be independently wealthy.

Easily confused with a gerundtocracy: ruling by the present participle class.

So is the US a gerontocracy? Our last 2 presidents have been fucking ancient, and the ones prior to them haven’t been much younger save for Obama.

In the 80s, the Soviet Union was criticized for being a gerontocracy. Brezhnev came to power in his 50s, and died in charge at 75. He was replaced by Andropov, 67. Then came Chernenko, 72. They had worse medicine than we have today, but they would all be spring chickens compared to our recent presidential candidates. The median US senator is 65. Chuck Grassley is 89, and has held his seat since 1981. Diane Feinstein is also 89.

And the picture in the Supreme Court isn't much better, even though there are big advantages in nominating young judges, which can hold on to their seats for many decades.

So is the US a gerontocracy? It's not much of question.

If I recall correctly the follow-on to that interesting episode in Soviet history was Gorbachev. Who more or less brought about the end of the Soviet Union.

In case you didn't click through, the wikipedia article has a whole section about the US.

Trump, Bush, and Clinton were all born in 1946 (ie pure baby boomers). But Clinton was a much younger president than Bush, who was a much younger president than Trump.

I think Clinton was younger than Obama when he took office.

The Senate is 79% Boomers or older, too.

So like, the whole housing market in some areas