Some very old swamp creatures have inhabited the nation’s capital for a long time, and people have noticed.
According to Mediaite, a left-wing news source, former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, regards Washington, D.C.’s aging politicians as an obstacle to President Joe Biden’s re-election in 2024.
“It unquestionably hurts,” Psaki said Thursday on Kara Swisher’s podcast, “On With Kara Swisher.”
Psaki added that when Americans look to Washington, D.C., they feel “like these people are so old. They’re so old and white and they’re disconnected from what we’re experiencing and what we’re living.”
Proving once again that liberals have a pathological obsession with skin color, Psaki could not help mixing “white” into her age and disconnectedness statement.
Trending:
Her core observation, however, has merit, though not necessarily for the reason she gave.
Psaki’s “old and white” comment came in response to a question from the podcast’s host.
“You see Dianne Feinstein, Mitch McConnell having his moments. Does that affect it, that everyone’s thinking – old Congress and there’s the head of it?” Swisher asked.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, 90, and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, 81, have shown signs of deteriorating health that highlight their advanced age.
Will Biden live through a second term?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 100% (18 Votes)
The ill health, of course, poses a far bigger problem than age. Though only 54 years old, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania nonetheless appears severely incapacitated from a 2022 stroke.
Age, therefore, has relevance, but is not the controlling factor in Psaki’s disconnectedness narrative.
Consider, for instance, one of Congress’ greatest luminaries.
From 1830 until his death in 1848, former President John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts served in the House of Representatives. For much of that time, Adams fought slaveholders and their allies who, from 1836 to 1844, imposed a “gag rule” designed to prevent House members from even discussing anti-slavery petitions.
In the course of that fight, Adams earned the nickname “Old Man Eloquent.” He died in 1848 at age 80 after suffering a stroke on the House floor.
Age clearly did not prevent Adams from connecting with his anti-slavery constituents.
The real problem with modern swamp creatures is not age, but longevity in government. Another 19th-century example will illustrate.
In a February 1882 eulogy on the late President James Garfield, slain by an assassin the previous summer, former Secretary of State and future Republican presidential nominee James G. Blaine made a passing observation that today should astonish us.
Blaine noted that history would remember Garfield not for his tragically abbreviated presidency, but for his time in Congress.
“That service was exceptionally long,” Blaine wrote. “He was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an honor enjoyed by not more than six other Representatives of the more than five thousand who have been elected from the organization of the Government to this hour.”
Imagine! In the republic’s first century, only six men had served in the House of Representatives for 18 years or longer.
Adams was one of the six.
For comparison’s sake, the current 118th Congress includes 65 members who have held seats in the House of Representatives at least since 2005.
Meanwhile, congressional job approval poll numbers have languished around 20 percent or below for nearly two decades.
Thus, careerism and not age alone — and certainly not “whiteness” — accounts for politicians’ disconnect from constituents.
In related news, Biden held a Senate seat for 36 years.
