by Josiah Lippincott
America’s geriatric senators increasingly represent a threat to themselves and to others. Take Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for example. She has filed paperwork to run again in 2024, despite the fact she turns 90 next year and associates say she can’t hold a coherent conversation or remember the names of close colleagues.
This is a woman who has the power to vote to send Americans to war. Just this past spring, she helped pass legislation that sent billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, a country currently at war with a nuclear power. America’s senators have enormous power to harm the country. They have access not just to firearms but to the world’s most powerful military force and even nuclear weapons.
This isn’t simply a partisan issue. Feinstein isn’t the only senile spoon in the senatorial silverware drawer. Plenty of GOP Senators are showing obvious signs they are losing their grip. Consider the 14 Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who are dead set on voting for gun control this summer. Here is the full list, including their ages: John Cornyn of Texas (70), Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (80), Thom Tillis of North Carolina (61), Susan Collins of Maine (69), Lindsey Graham South Carolina (66), Bill Cassidy of Louisiana (64), Roy Blunt of Missouri (72), Richard Burr of North Carolina (66), Mitt Romney of Utah (75), Rob Portman of Ohio (66), Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia (68), Joni Ernst of Iowa (51), Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (65), and Todd Young of Indiana (49).
This auspicious group has an average age of 66 and it shows. No one in his right mind would vote to give a man as unpopular as Joe Biden a legislative victory, on a core issue, in an election year. The fact that these senators are working so hard to impose firearm red flag laws on the American people is itself a red flag for dementia.
The need for a bipartisan solution to the senility crisis in the Senate is obvious. It is high time we came together, reached across the aisle, and passed common sense senile senator control.
The senility crisis in the Senate will only get worse with time. In the 117th Congress, the average age of new incoming senators was already 58 years old. At present there are seven members of the Senate in their 80s and just one, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, in his 30s.
The Senate is currently considering a bill that would encourage states to pass laws that would allow judges to seize firearms from allegedly “dangerous individuals” without a trial. A red flag law for senile senators would work on the same principle.
New York’s red flag law is a useful model. Under that legislation, a family member, school principal, district attorney, or police officer can petition a county judge to seize the firearms of an individual after just one hearing.
A senility control law for senators would work the same way, but with the allowance that any constituent of that senator’s state would be able to file a petition with any county judge of their state to suspend the right of that senator to vote on legislation. Like New York’s red flag law, this proposed legislation wouldn’t require a jury trial—but simply an administrative hearing to put an Extreme Senility Protection Order in place.
American citizens don’t get due process of law under firearm red flag laws. Neither should senators. The risk of a senile senator going rogue is too great and allowing time for a hearing to assess his or her cognitive ability just puts the public in greater danger. The possibility that one of America’s octogenarian rulers might shuffle into a nuclear war is simply too pressing.
If America’s aging rulers won’t go quietly into that good night of their own accord, so we the people should do what we can to speed up their retirements. But, one might argue, such a bill would appear dead on arrival. Why would senators vote to pass a law allowing local judges to strip them of their power?
First, senators placed under Extreme Senility Protection Orders (ESPO) would only lose their ability to vote on legislation. They would still keep their offices. Their right to blather at local VFW meetings for 15 minutes, meet with school kids to give patronizing lectures about democracy, and ride in Independence Day parades in a convertible while waving to the crowd would not be infringed.
To sweeten the deal even further, each senator placed under an ESPO would automatically receive $100 million from the U.S. Treasury. In a government with a budget in the trillions, this is a small price to pay to neuter our gerontocracy, people who are more likely to drool on themselves than to put together coherent thoughts about policy.
Plus, since most senators strive for the office simply to enrich themselves through insider trading, this payout would streamline the process. Americans want efficiency in government. This law would provide it!
The vast majority of America’s senators are at an age where they should be eating tapioca pudding in front of the TV while watching reruns of “Wheel of Fortune” and awaiting the Reaper—not running the country.
Indeed, a red flag law for senile senators is such a good idea, we should consider spreading it across the whole government. Anthony Fauci, no less than Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein, should really be goaded into retirement. The three of them deserve to live out their remaining years together in a nursing home repeating the same stories from their early government careers in the 1970s. Biden can recount the tale of Corn Pop and black kids touching his leg hair to his heart’s content without any risk to the American people.
Peacefully easing our geriatric rulers into retirement would be good for them and us. A real win-win.
– – –
Josiah Lippincott is a Ph.D. student and a former U.S. Marine Corps officer. He’s also permanently banned on Twitter for criticizing the Biden regime. You can find him on Telegram at https://t.me/josiah_lippincott or subscribe to his Substack here.
Photo “Dianne Feinstein” by Senate Democrats. CC BY 2.0.
