Joe Biden's final act is a message for boomers

It's time to accelerate generational and institutional reform and give power to young people

Friends - Hi from northern California. I am here on vacation. I was going to write something personal and evocative about my favorite summer place, but politics intervened. Let me know what you think in the comments. - Jeff

This weekend Joe Biden did something remarkable in American politics: He admitted he’s too old for his job. It just may be his greatest act.

For a long time, my friends and I have whined about American gerontocracy. We’ve tracked statistics about the rising average ages of university presidents, corporate CEOs, and Supreme Court justices. We’ve rolled our eyes at boomers clinging to power — how it is all the more annoying coming from the generation that said “never trust anyone over 30” when they were young. We’ve passed around articles diagnosing America’s gerontocracy, like the source of the chart below showing that America has the oldest legislators of any developed country. (ht

Richard Hanania

)

American politicians are the oldest in the developed world (Economist)

With a nod to Joe Biden, now is the time to turn our weak whining into a powerful rallying cry: Give power to young people. It is time to accelerate generational and institutional reform.

It feels weird writing about this, since I’m on vacation in northern California and just started wearing reading glasses. Alas, I’m late-Gen X and not getting any younger. Am I cutting myself out of my own power inheritance? Honestly, I don’t care.

My political instincts are telling me that now is the time to push hard on these issues. If America is going to meet the challenges of the coming global order, generational and institutional overhaul is absolutely critical to undertake over the next half decade. Giving power to younger leaders is essential to American vitality. It is a starting point for continued American competitiveness and institutional reform and thus, I would argue, a national security imperative.

Three forces are creating an opening to accelerate generational and institutional reform. The first is demographics. Within a year, more Zoomers will be in the workforce than boomers. Over the next decade, the majority of boomers will retire and/or die. I am not stating this with glee. If anything, I feel sad since I love the boomers in my life. It’s just a fact that their generation is riding off into the sunset over the coming decade. And yet, our political leadership remains old as hell. Like Joe Biden’s cognitive issues, the reality of our geriatric leadership is all too obvious to deny.

Source: Axios

The second force is what might be called the Biden Effect — both the visceral nausea many of us felt following the debate and his willingness to admit that he’s too old. The message internalized by many boomers I know hit hard after the debate: Don’t be the guy refusing to give up power when it’s obvious you need to go.

At first Biden’s example was cautionary but now, with his letter, we have a positive example of an old guy recognizing he is too old for his position. We need others — like, say, Nancy Pelosi (84) and Donald Trump (78) — to follow Joe Biden’s lead and say the words: “I am too old for this job.” The space for a cultural mandate is here.

The third force is institutional. Americans’ trust in institutions is at an all-time low. America can no longer skate by on 20th century legacy institutions powered by dated technologies and slow, bureaucratic management systems. We saw this most acutely with Covid, and we are also seeing it with other institutions: universities, the military, government services agencies, healthcare. Geopolitics will force the issue if we are not proactive. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by suggesting that institutional reform is intimately connected with generational reform and the overall health of our democracy.

To point to a positive example, I was thrilled Stanford chose an alum not much older than me to serve as the university’s next president. We need new, younger leaders like Jonathan Levin across the American power structure.

Stanford President Jonathan Levin

Boomers can still play a critical role. I’ve seen the transformational power of “good boomers” who embrace their role as elders and know how to lead from behind. Right now we need these good boomers to legitimize generational and institutional overhaul by sharing in our rallying cry: Give power to young people. They can encourage others to follow the example of Joe Biden. Transitioning generational power can be part of their legacy.

To put it in crude generational terms: Boomers need to pass the baton, Millennials need to seize the baton, and Gen X needs to act as power brokers behind the overall transition. Zoomers need to enable institutional reform while growing their capacity to lead us into the future.

Collectively, we need to seize this opportunity to drive generational and institutional change. My friends and I need stop whining about gerontocracy. Instead, we need to work with boomers and everyone else to pursue a whole-of-society transition into the future.

So thanks, Joe Biden, for doing the right thing. Now it is time for other to follow suit, regardless of what George Clooney has to say about it.