How Older Americans Hoard the Future
episodePreviously titled “Why Won’t America’s Aging Elite Retire?” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 6, 2026
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Forget fascism. Forget socialism. What if the real threat to American democracy is the tyranny of the elderly? America's leadership class has grown very, very old.
Questions about Senator Mitch McConnell's health are only growing. Senator Lindsey Graham from the state of South Carolina has died.
With images of his bruised hands covered in makeup going viral, President Trump is now defending his health.
And the rising generation seems to feel like their elders are hoarding the American dream.
Boomers ruined the economy for us. College is unaffordable. Healthcare is unaffordable. Gas is unaffordable. Utilities is unaffordable. They inherited the greatest economy for the working class in, quite possibly, the entirety of human history. And they f***ed it up in a few decades.
My guest this week is a Yale Law professor and the author of Gerontocracy in America, a new book that argues that the concentration of wealth and power among older Americans is our least discussed crisis.
Samuel Moyne, welcome to Interesting Times. Are they interesting, though? I mean, we're going to find out. This conversation will determine just how interesting people find the times. But we're going to start with politicians, aging politicians, because right now we are watching Mitch McConnell, formerly the Senate majority leader, still an active senator, essentially seem to die in office with various problems. Conspiracy theories swirling about whether he is in fact already dead. One of the most consequential political decisions of the last decade was Ruth Bader Ginsburg's decision not to retire from the Supreme Court.
What is meant by 'the tyranny of the elderly' in American leadership?
Nobody on the Supreme Court seems to have learned anything from that. And of course, there was the Joe Biden incident. And there are some people who think that our current president may even be not quite young enough for the job. Start with the psychology of this phenomenon. What do you think is behind the refusal of older politicians and justices and powerful people to retire?
I'm surprised you said that Mitch McConnell seemed to die. A lot of us are not sure he is alive. I think there's a deep existential reason to retain power, quite apart from the old saying that power corrupts, and anyone who's powerful wants to keep their power. It's that as we age, we face mortality. The shadow of death hangs over us our entire lives. We're starting in hard. That's good.
We are.
Well, but it's... I think there's no way to explain the retention of power as we age, except... in the face of decline to deny it. But then there are other reasons. I think we get used to a sense of our significance in our vocation or our job, especially when one's in the news so often, when one is instrumental to making policy, and that's a powerful drug. And it's hard to imagine weaning oneself from it if one doesn't have to.
Is there some specific American thing or generational thing, or is this just put any group of human beings in a position of power at 84 years old and they will be likely to hold it?
I think there's something universal, and that's the fear of decline and death, which I think is baked in. I wouldn't want to scapegoat the boomers who were kind of in the right place at the right time. They benefited from something new, which is that we don't just enjoy long lives, almost all of us, but doctors have succeeded in making us high functioning till near the end, they coined it. a phrase for it called compression of morbidity, saving death for the end, rather than having us decline. And then there are American features that have less to do, I think, with the boomers and much more with the incumbency in office our politicians benefit from.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–2:21
2
What is meant by 'the tyranny of the elderly' in American leadership?
2:21–10:14
3
Why are high‑profile politicians like McConnell and Biden staying in office longer?
10:14–14:10
4
What are the psychological and structural reasons older leaders refuse to retire?
14:10–31:00
5
How do other democracies avoid gerontocracy compared with the U.S.?
31:00–54:55
Speakers
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