“Age is the modality in which class is lived in America today.” — Samuel Moyn
Yesterday we had 91-year-old Mordecai Kurz on the show. Tomorrow, it will be 84-year-old Sally Quinn. But today’s guest, the Yale legal historian Samuel Moyn, has a bit of a problem with old people. His new book, Gerontocracy in America, argues that the old folks are hoarding power and wealth in America. For Moyn, Dylan’s Sixties anthem of “Forever Young” has soured into today’s reality of “Forever Old.”
In some ways, it’s hard to argue with Moyn’s thesis. Donald Trump is the oldest elected US president in history. Congress has been ageing for decades — and several Democratic members died in the run-up to the One Big Beautiful Bill vote, thereby facilitating its passage. The progressive heroine Ruth Bader Ginsburg stayed on the Supreme Court through a pancreatic cancer diagnosis and died in office, handing the right a supermajority and the end of abortion rights. Clarence Thomas, the RBG of nutcase conservatism, is on track to become the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in US history. And then there’s that alte kaker Joe Biden, former dodder-in-chief, the only pol who gives Trump a youthful glow. Even Bob Dylan — who I saw in all his morbid brilliance in Berkeley last week (“but me, I’m still on the road”) — just celebrated his 85th birthday. Forever old, America. Happy 250th.
Five Takeaways
• What Is Gerontocracy? Not a Problem With Old People: Moyn is careful to distinguish gerontocracy from old people. He is in his mid-fifties and can’t attack old people generally. His target is the system: the structural overrepresentation of old people in power, and the structural disadvantaging of the young that results. Old people can be great. Some are, some aren’t — just like everyone else. The problem is that when we defer to old people automatically — as a system rather than as a judgement about individuals — we replicate their mistakes alongside their wisdom. And cognitive decline is real, as Biden proved. “Age is the modality in which class is lived in America today,” Moyn writes, riffing on Stuart Hall’s formulation about race.
• The Congress, the Courts, and the Deaths That Passed the Bill: Trump is the oldest elected US president in history — and if JD Vance were to succeed him, Vance would be the youngest president since Teddy Roosevelt. But Moyn’s focus goes beyond the presidency. Congress has aged dramatically: the average senator and representative are significantly older than at any point in US history, and there is now only one member of Congress in their thirties. Several Democratic members of the House died in the months before the One Big Beautiful Bill vote, facilitating its passage. The gerontocracy is quite literally voting itself into power through death.
• The RBG Problem: Selfishness and the Supreme Court: Moyn’s account of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is unsparing. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer — one of the deadliest — and allegedly survived it. She had become a progressive icon, “Notorious RBG.” But she chose to stay on the court rather than retire under Obama, and she died in office in 2020, allowing Trump to appoint Amy Coney Barrett and hand the right a supermajority that ended abortion rights. Moyn’s verdict: she was selfish. He is also careful to note that the system should not depend on individual virtue — there will always be selfish people. The system must be reformed so that selfish choices are no longer possible.
• The Framers Designed Gerontocracy Into the Constitution: One of Moyn’s most striking historical arguments: the framers deliberately empowered old people. The age minimums for federal office (35 for the presidency, 30 for the Senate) excluded 70% of the population at the time. The Senate was named after the Roman senatus — literally “old men” — and the concept went back to the Spartan council of elders. Alexander Hamilton argued in the Federalist Papers that federal judges should serve until they were “dodering” because the alternative was too much popular power. The gerontocracy is not an accident. It was designed.
• The Solutions: Vote at Six, Retire at Sixty, Tax the Family Home: Moyn’s solutions are deliberately radical. On voting: lower the age, as David Runciman advocates to six, and reduce the number of elections because evidence shows the more elections, the greater the elder dominance. On political office: age limits, youth cohorts. On the courts: mandatory retirement — this requires creative interpretation of the constitution rather than amendment. On the economy: higher taxes on inherited wealth and housing assets — an incremental tax for staying in a large house you no longer need. On the title of the paperback: Andrew suggests “Forever Old.” Moyn will credit him if it’s chosen.
About the Guest
Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University. He is the author of Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 16, 2026), Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World, and The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History. He is co-host of the Digging a Hole podcast and a frequent contributor to The Nation, The New Republic, and The New York Times. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
References:
• Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It by Samuel Moyn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 16, 2026).
• Samuel Moyn, “The Old Guard: Confronting America’s Gerontocratic Crisis,” Harper’s Magazine, May 2026 — the excerpt from the book referenced at the opening.
• David Runciman — referenced for his advocacy of lowering the voting age to six.
• Stuart Hall — referenced for the formulation that class is lived through race, which Moyn repurposes for age.
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 3,000 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.
Website
Substack
YouTube
