Why older leaders seem resistant to passing the torch

Transcript

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Is Joe Biden too old to be president? It's one of the questions that's hung over the Democratic nominee for months, but since the June 27 debate, it seems to be the only question. The thing is, though, Joe Biden is old, but he is not alone. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer - he is 73. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is actually older than Biden at 82. Then there's Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is 76. Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi turned 84 back in March.

Political leadership in this country is older than ever, but why is that? And why are so many who are in positions of power resistant to passing the torch to younger leadership? Let's bring in writer and journalist Rebecca Traister to discuss. Rebecca, welcome.

REBECCA TRAISTER: Hi. Thanks for having me.

SUMMERS: Thanks for being here. So, Rebecca, the whole reason we're having this conversation is because of the attention that has been on President Joe Biden. So I just want to start by asking you for your thoughts on the press conference that he held last night.

TRAISTER: Well, I actually have some thoughts not about exactly his presentation, but the content of what he said, given the context of this conversation we're having about a gerontocracy and a sort of unwillingness of an older generation to step aside in both parties, but I'm - obviously, he's talking about the Democratic Party. He was asked last night, I think, a great question, reminding him that when he'd run in 2020, he had promised to be a bridge...

SUMMERS: Right.

TRAISTER: ...To the next generation of Democrats. And I was so glad that he was asked about this last night.

SUMMERS: And I'll just jump in to note that that question actually came from NPR's Asma Khalid, one of our White House correspondents.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Candidacy in 2020 - you referred to yourself as being a bridge candidate for a younger, fresher generation of Democratic leaders, and I wanted to know what changed.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited.

TRAISTER: And I was so struck by his response - as somebody who's been doing a lot of thinking and, at times, writing about this generational sort of blockade that's formed at the top of both parties, but I've written especially about the Democratic Party - because what he said was, well, when I said that, I didn't realize how important all this was going to be. And I thought that was such a telling answer, and he returned to it at the end of the press conference, saying, I want to finish this job. There's so much we can do around civil rights and women's rights, and I want to finish this job.

And I have to say, my view of that answer on the content - right? - and I'm not talking about his presentation or his verbal flubs or how strong he sounded on certain topics or how it reflected on his age. I'm genuinely thinking about the content of what he said and that thinking about what it means that you cannot hand power and authority to the next generation.

And I think that is indicative of the attitude of so many of these politicians that we see sitting at the top of this party and I think really creating a paralysis where not just one generation of young people hasn't been able to rise to the top, but several generations at this point. You have leaders who are in their 60s, their 50s, and then you get to the people in their 40s and their 30s. The ceiling has been blocked by Biden's generation.

SUMMERS: You know, there are people out there who will hear us having this conversation about the gerontocracy and about the President's age, and they might argue that it is unfair for us to be having this conversation or perhaps even that it is discriminatory to do so. Why do you think it is so important that this is a discussion that we have?

TRAISTER: Well, I think it's crucial because we're actually talking about the future - the future of the democracy, the future of the planet. And so we are talking about problems that are forward-looking. We have to be looking at people who are going to be with us in the next part of this century and beyond. Biden is pre baby boomer. He's actually a member of the Silent Generation. So is Nancy Pelosi.

There is a generation of people who were adults through some major social and political revolutions in this country in the second half of the 20th century. And they have been very unwilling to relinquish their power perhaps - and I think Biden was saying this during his NATO press conference - because of this desire to defend and cement some of the victories. But ironically, they have wound up presiding over the erosion and rollback of many of those victories. I mean, Joe Biden came into the Senate the same month that Roe v. Wade was decided, and he was the president under whom it was rolled back by a Supreme Court that had been stacked by Donald Trump.

SUMMERS: Rebecca, one thing that strikes me is that when we look across the government landscape, people in all branches of government are disproportionately older, at least at the more senior levels, but that hasn't always been the case across our history. So how is it that we got here?

TRAISTER: Well, there may be something really particular to this generation that did create so much change in the United States. There - I think it's hard to underestimate the feeling of - especially for those on a progressive side of a political spectrum -that they had fixed things. And I think that was - that feeling that something was fixed - I heard Biden use that language during the NATO press conference. I've got to stay around to fix things.

I think it's a false sense of permanence. I think there's a lack of perspective of how long history goes, how far back it stretches and how far forward these fights stretch. And perhaps the seismic nature of many of the social and political revolutions of the 20th century led those who participated in them to think that their victories were permanent, and I think it was a real error.

And I want to be warm and sympathetic toward it because they really did change so much about this country, to my mind, very much for the good. But I think that it may have created a self-regard that leaves them to believe that they're the only ones who can continue to be in charge and have things fixed. But of course, they're patently not permanent changes. So many of them, we have seen rolled back just in recent years.

But it may be something particular to this generation. We know baby boomers and those who came just before had a sort of unprecedented grip on our culture and on our politics through the second half of the 20th century and now into the 21st. And there may be just a level of, frankly, narcissism and self-regard that doesn't permit them to loosen that grip on power because they are aware of the changes that they wrought. And perhaps they cannot imagine that anybody but themselves are capable of making other kinds of changes or protecting and fighting back for further victories deep into a future that's going to extend well beyond their lifetimes.

SUMMERS: That was Rebecca Traister. She's a writer for New York Magazine and The Cut and the author most recently of the book "Good And Mad." Rebecca, thank you.

TRAISTER: Thank you so much, Juana. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.