Time - USA (2021-11-08)

18 TIME November 8/November 15, 2021

THEY SAY WISDOM COMES WITH AGE. YET

so few of the nation’s leaders seem to have the
wisdom to know when it’s time to call it a day.
“At some point, and statistically it’s in the
80s, you begin a more rapid decline,” Repub-
lican Senator Bill Cassidy told Axios on HBO
in an interview airing on Oct. 17. “So anybody
in a position of responsibility who may po-
tentially be on that slope, that is of concern,
and I’m saying this as a doctor.”
At 78, President Joe Biden has faced at-
tacks on his mental fi tness, as did his sep-
tuagenarian predecessor, Donald Trump.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is still ne-
gotiating reconciliation packages at 81, while
the Senate’s top Republican Mitch McCon-
nell is still trying to block them at 79. (And
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, 88, is plan-
ning to run for re-election next year; if he
wins, he could be nearly a century old by the
time he fi nishes that term.)
Cassidy, who is 64, made clear that he
wasn’t singling out anyone in particular.
“Would it be reasonable to have—for Su-
preme Court Justices, members of Congress
and leadership positions in the Executive
Branch—an annual sort of evaluation in
which they would have to establish, ‘Yes, I’m
doing O.K.’?” Cassidy continued, noting he
had heard of “senile” Senators. “I think that’s
actually a reasonable plan.”

NATU R E

Animal instincts

On Oct. 15, a federal judge ruled that the

descendants of hippos smuggled into

Colombia by drug kingpin Pablo Escobar

have the legal rights of people—the fi rst

ruling of its kind in the U.S. Here, more

creatures in court. —Madeleine Carlisle

ORANGUTANS

In 2015, an Argentine judge

granted “legal personhood”

to Sandra, a hybrid Bornean

and Sumatran orangutan

who had lived in the Buenos

Aires Zoo for two decades. At

the judge’s direction, Sandra

was moved to a sanctuary in

the U.S. in 2019.

ORCAS

The animal-rights group PETA

sued SeaWorld in 2011, arguing

that fi ve captured orcas—

including Tilikum, the killer whale

featured in the documentary

Blackfish—deserved protection

under the 13th Amendment’s ban

on slavery. But in 2013, a judge

ruled that the law did not apply.

ARCTIC FOXES

On Oct. 25, Icelandic police

raided the home of a man

allegedly raising an Arctic

fox he had named Gusti Jr.

While the country’s laws ban

people from owning “wild

animals” as pets, Gusti’s

owner argues his fox should

not be classifi ed in that way.

Some 30 states have age-based driver’s-

license-renewal requirements, including

many that require seniors over 70 to take extra

tests or re-apply in person. That standard

would apply to nearly 30% of the Senate—ex-

cept you don’t have to prove mental acuity to

continue driving the country.

Cassidy is “not wrong,” says Amanda Lit-

man, who usually disagrees with him on pol-

icy. Litman co-founded Run for Something,

which recruits and trains young Democrats as

state and local candidates. The advanced age

of elected offi cials “is a huge problem,” she

adds. “It’s an open secret, and it directly af-

fects the way the government functions.”

One bad slip on a too-polished fl oor could

break not only a hip but a majority, crumple

a President’s agenda or upset the balance of

power. When then 80-year-old Senator Pat-

rick Leahy of Vermont was briefl y hospital-

ized in January, it sent tremors through the

Democratic caucus, which could not aff ord

to lose a single member in a 50-50 Senate.

A reigning gerontocracy also means that the

priorities of younger people—who had record

turnout in the last two elections—can get ig-

nored. Already, tuition-free college has been

nixed from the Democrats’ spending bill, and

climate -change provisions are in jeopardy.

“The problems of young Americans are

just a lot diff erent now than when a lot of the

folks in Congress were our age,” says Maxwell

Alejandro Frost, a 24-year-old former March

for Our Lives organizer who is running for

Congress in Florida. “I do think there’s an

age at which people just become out of touch

with things.” —CHARLOTTE ALTER

GOOD QUESTION

Are America’s

leaders growing

too old to serve?

NEWS

TICKER

approve

the Pfizer-BioNTech

COVID-19 vaccine for

children

citing the

national-security law

imposed on the city by

Beijing in 2020,

killing

of David Amess,

69, a Conservative

parliamentarian

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