US Politics

Gold bars, guns, cash stuffed into a coat and favors for a foreign government – the new indictment of Bob Menendez, the Democratic US senator from New Jersey, reads like the plot of a cheap pulp novel satirizing political graft. But the allegations against the longtime lawmaker are all too real – and the purported scheme all too predictable – in a country whose judiciary has been effectively telling politicians that corruption is perfectly legal.Evoking memories of Abscam and the Keating Five scandals, the details of the Menendez indictment are certainly anomalous for their cartoonish color. Indeed, this affair goes way beyond the donation-for-legislation culture that has been normalized in Washington. Federal prosecutors allege an elaborate plot in which Menendez and his wife accepted “hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menendez’s power and influence as a senator to seek to protect and enrich” a trio of businessmen “and to benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt”.In particular, Menendez and his wife stand accused of accepting “cash, gold, payments toward a home mortgage, compensation for a low-or-no-show job, a luxury vehicle, and other things of value”. The indictment alleges that in exchange, Menendez passed non-public US government information to Egyptian officials; used his position as chair of the Senate foreign relations committee to facilitate and “sign off on” weapons sales to that country; plotted to disrupt a criminal investigation into one of the businessmen; and persuaded the Biden administration to install a new prosecutor whom he believed he could influence on behalf of another businessman.Menendez has denied the charges against him, depicting himself as a victim of a “smear campaign” by those who “simply cannot accept that a first-generation Latino American from humble beginnings could rise to be a US senator and serve with honor and distinction”.But if the alleged facts in the indictment prove true, the big question is: why would any politician think he could get away with something so brazen?Perhaps it’s because Menendez knows that to secure a conviction, prosecutors will have to prove that it was illegal for him to accept the gifts in exchange for a “performance of an official act”. And like every US politician, Menendez almost certainly knows that while that may seem straightforward, the corruption-plagued supreme court has deliberately made it anything but.Less than a decade ago, justices reviewed a case that echoed today’s Menedez scandal. This one involved Bob McDonnell, a former Virginia governor and Republican, whom a federal jury found guilty on 11 counts of conspiracy for accepting lavish gifts from a businessman in exchange for gubernatorial favors. However, supreme court justices unanimously overturned McDonnell’s conviction in 2016 on the grounds that those favors were permissible.“Our concern is not with tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns,” wrote chief justice John Roberts at the time. “It is instead with the broader legal implications of the government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute … Setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify as an ‘official act’.”The landmark decision tightened the legal definition of public corruption, increasing the difficulty for prosecutors to establish a bribery case against a political official.Menendez has already once tried to use that precedent to halt a previous corruption indictment in a similarly grotesque case that he successfully fought to a mistrial. Recent developments may make it even easier for the New Jersey lawmaker to once again avoid jail.In 2020, disgraced New York politicians convinced courts to use the McDonnell precedent to overturn parts of their high-profile corruption convictions.Two years later, the supreme court struck again, overturning two additional Albany corruption convictions. In one of the latter cases, the court declared that bribery charges cannot apply to government officials who – during brief hiatuses from their jobs – accept payments to elicit favors from their public-sector cronies just before they return to government employment.Then came all the news of supreme court justices and their family members secretly accepting luxury gifts from billionaires and payments from law firms and conservative groups with business before the court. Taken together, those revelations suggested a self-protection motive in the court’s ongoing crusade to complicate, reduce and ultimately halt the prosecution of corruption in every level of government.In this era of Super Pacs buying elections, lawmakers legislating for their biggest donors and judges ruling for their benefactors, the Menendez case could be a moment for the government to finally re-establish some basic, minimum commitment to the “law and order” notions that politicians love to tout. No doubt, that’s what federal prosecutors are trying to do here.The problem is that supreme court justices have for years been legalizing – and personally engaging in – similar kinds of corruption. At the same time, top Democrats are constantly assuring justices that no matter how repugnant their behavior, there will be no serious challenge to their power.Considering that, the high court may feel emboldened to use the Menendez case not to counter Americans’ perception that the government is hopelessly rotted through with corruption, but to instead make the rot even worse.Justices could use the case to further whittle down the definitions of terms such as “bribery” and “official act” to almost nothing – thereby making corruption not a crime, but the legal, court-approved ethos of American governance.
David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin, and the founder of The Lever. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter More

Far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn ridicule for using an image of a Hanukah menorah in an attempt to commemorate the unrelated Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.The derision the Georgia representative brought upon herself comes after she was previously criticized for perpetuating antisemitic conspiracy theories.Green on Sunday posted a message on X – previously known as Twitter – on Sunday wishing observers a meaningful fast for Monday’s observation of Yom Kippur. She tried to add a traditional Yom Kippur greeting but misspelled it: “Gamar Chasima Tova!”The backlash soon ensued.Critics noted that Greene’s use of a menorah in her message recognized a completely unrelated Jewish holiday observed in December. Past comments of hers which alluded to antisemitic tropes also undermined her message to Jewish observers.Florida congressman Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, corrected his Republican counterpart by noting that the solemn Yom Kippur and celebratory Hanukah were completely different occasions.Mentioning that Yom Kippur focused on the atonement of sins, Moskowitz added: “Lord knows you will be very busy.”Greene subsequently deleted the original post without an apology and reposted the original text without the menorah image.MeidasTouch, a liberal political action committee, criticized Greene for the “wildly offensive” gaffe.The group also called her “Ms Jewish Space Lasers” – a reference to her false conspiracy claim that California’s devastating wildfires in 2018 were started for profit by a space laser funded by corporate interests, including the Rothschild banking firm.State investigations concluded that the 2018 wildfires were “caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity”, the state’s largest utility.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a separate tweet, MeidasTouch’s co-founder Brett Meiselas added: “Frankly, Jews don’t need an antisemitic maniac who gives speeches at Nazi events sending out holiday messages in the first place.”Greene had previously downplayed speaking at the America First Political Action Conference, which was founded by the white nationalist Nick Fuentes in 2020.Even as she deleted the menorah image, Bill Prady – the co-creator of the TV series The Big Bang Theory – knocked Greene for preserving the “bad Hebrew” in the post.MeidasTouch pointed out on its website that the accepted Yom Kippur greeting is “g’mar chatima tovah”, which translates to “a good final sealing”.The greeting refers to the belief that one’s fate is written on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and then sealed on Yom Kippur. More

In Anthony D’Esposito’s New York congressional district, Democrats are licking their lips.The Republican won an unexpected election to the House of Representatives in 2022, styling himself as a moderate in a historically Democratic district that Joe Biden had easily won by 14 points two years earlier.But last week D’Esposito, along with other self-styled moderates, gave his tacit approval to the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, an inquiry championed by the far-right members of the Republican party.The inquiry, into Hunter Biden’s business affairs and unsubstantiated accusations of corruption by the president, has become a symbol of the vengeful, extremist politics of far-right Republican figures like Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Sensing a chance, Democrats in D’Esposito’s Long Island district, just east of New York City, are now planning to tie him to his more rabid colleagues and win back the seat.“We’re certainly going to make it an issue and it’s a liability for him here,” said Jay Jacobs, the chair of the local Democratic party in Nassau county, which makes up much of the fourth congressional district, which D’Esposito represents.“Most informed, thinking people don’t believe that Joe Biden is some kind of criminal or has done anything that would warrant an impeachment inquiry, so when someone does this, and is in favor of it, they put themselves on the line with voters.“We saw this after Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial: the Republicans took a big hit. And we think the same will happen this time. People send their representatives to Washington to do a job and to run the country in a responsible way, and this is clearly irresponsible. So [D’Esposito] will suffer for it.”In the 2022 midterm elections 18 Republicans, including D’Esposito, won in congressional districts that had voted for Biden, as the Republican party secured a razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.In Long Island, which experienced a curious swing to the Republicans in 2022, D’Esposito isn’t the only newly elected Republican at risk. Before those midterm elections three of the island’s four congressional districts were represented by Democrats. In the 2020 presidential election, Biden won convincingly in the same three districts.But in 2022, even as Democrats outperformed expectations around the country, this south-eastern part of New York state plumped for Republican candidates – including George Santos, who has since admitted inventing parts of his résumé and has been charged with fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds.Democrats attributed the swing, in part, to a popular Republican candidate for that year’s governor’s race, and the test in next year’s elections will be whether Republicans can hold on to those seats.Even before the launch of the impeachment inquiry, the 18 Republicans in Biden-won districts were already under pressure from an “Unrepresentatives” campaign launched by the progressive movement Indivisible. That campaign has seen Indivisible highlight how the supposed moderates have voted in line with the hard-right wing of the party.The new inquiry – which comes after eight months of Republican investigation into the president has failed to yield any evidence of wrongdoing – could add to that backlash. But Michael Dawidziak, a Republican political consultant based in Long Island, said Democrats might be putting too much hope in an impeachment-related backlash.“[Voters] are not going to be that upset about a Biden impeachment as opposed to, you know, crime and economy and the things that affect your quality of life,” Dawidziak said.The self-proclaimed more moderate members of the Republican party have largely sought to justify their support for the impeachment inquiry by characterizing it as an example of Congress applying checks and balances on the president.Mike Garcia, a California representative who like D’Esposito and Santos won in 2022 a previously Biden-supporting district, told the Hill he wanted to “seek clarity”, while Congressman Marc Molinaro, a New Yorker, said: “We want to be sure that we’re getting answers.”D’Esposito has offered similarly considered support.“I’ve spent my career as an NYPD detective and know the value of seeking the truth through finding the facts, and I am eager to find out exactly what the truth is behind the allegations surrounding President Biden and his family,” he said in a statement.But in Long Island, some Democratic voters fear that the Republican tightrope-walking might be successful. Casey Shields, who lives in Lynbrook, said that despite Biden carrying the district convincingly in 2020, it leans to the right.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Nassau county is a secret Republican stronghold, hence [D’Esposito’s] and Santos’ magic rise to power,” Shields, an accountant, said. “I can’t imagine many people who voted him in will be turned off by his desire to impeach Biden. His district is begging to be a red state.”Mary Russell, 67, said people who decide to vote for any Republican know what they are getting from the Donald Trump-dominated party.“I am not sure there is such a thing as a ‘moderate’ Republican,” Russell, who voted for D’Esposito’s opponent in 2022, said.“[D’Esposito] supporting the retaliatory impeachment inquiry to appease the hard-right members, confirms his inability or desire to stand for the majority of Long Islanders who know the inquiry to be a waste of time and money.”Despite that, Russell said she doubted that D’Esposito’s support for the impeachment inquiry would be a defining issue.“I wish it would have an impact, but I fear it will not, based on where the district leans. It’d also depend on who his challenger is.”In Garden City, in the north of D’Esposito’s district, Republican voters were adamant that the impeachment inquiry was justified.“Biden should be in prison. They should put him in jail, and his son, the whole administration,” said Anthony DeAngelis, an equities trader.Maria Bicocchio, 71, who voted for Trump and D’Esposito in 2020, was slightly more nuanced on whether the impeachment inquiry could prove to be a problem among people who voted for Biden in 2022 before switching to the Republican party in 2022.“It could be but then again, maybe they have woken up and decided they’re not so sure about Biden,” she said.There are indications that impeachment might not be a huge vote loser for Republicans. A Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday found that 48% of voters support the impeachment inquiry, with 42% opposed. Among independent voters, 47% said they were in favor of the inquiry, with 36% opposed. (A further 17% had no opinion.)Still, Democrats will hope that the inquiry can at least tarnish enough Republicans to help them win back the House next year.“Campaigns are all about informing the voters about how their incumbent elected representatives have been performing,” said Jacobs, the Nassau county Democrats chair.“D’Esposito wants to come across as a moderate because he knows this is a moderate district. But when it comes right down to it on issues like this, he’s a Maga Republican, he’s exactly what Donald Trump wants to have in the Congress. I think voters need to know that.” More

There haven’t been many good days for Ron DeSantis’s flailing presidential campaign lately, and news that the Florida governor has slumped to fifth place in a poll for the New Hampshire primary will hardly have lifted his spirits.Yet the biggest blow of the past week came from Florida’s once fiercely loyal Republican party, which appears to be souring on the idea of their man in the White House.The state party’s scrapping last weekend of a loyalty oath for candidates in its presidential primary next year was, on its face, an innocent move, declared by its sponsors to merely ensure voters could choose from all Republicans competing for the White House. Removing Donald Trump from Florida’s ballot because he would not pledge support for the eventual nominee would be undemocratic, they said.But there appears to be more behind the defiance than just giving the former president a leg up in a race he already leads by a substantial margin. The action, which the Republican Florida governor lobbied hard against, sends a clear signal to DeSantis that he no longer enjoys the unquestioned allegiance of the party in his own state, a potentially fatal position for a candidate seeking to convince the rest of the country he is best qualified for the presidency.“People are paying attention, and they notice when a candidate’s home state is balking,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.“One thing that DeSantis was correctly noted for was his iron grip on the Florida Republican party. They didn’t question his directives, the legislature passed bills they didn’t even have extensive hearings on because DeSantis submitted them, and he kept his people in line.“He had an iron grip, but the iron has rusted. This suggests, yet again, that DeSantis has lost not only prestige, but influence, which is what really matters in the pre-nomination battle.”Rumblings have circulated for months that some Florida Republicans have become “fatigued” with their second-term governor and his extremist agenda. Several voted in the most recent legislative session against a six-week abortion ban that passed anyway, while others have criticized his feud with Disney over transgender rights.The reversal of the loyalty oath requirement approved in May for the 19 March primary heralds a significant crystallization of that opposition.Before the vote, behind closed doors at the Florida Republican party’s statesman’s dinner at an Orlando hotel, one senior operative told NBC News it “would be viewed as a ‘fuck you’ to DeSantis” if it passed.After it did, another Republican source told the outlet: “DeSantis just got steamrollered in his own home.”It came at a critical stage for his presidential run, with DeSantis’s poll numbers continuing to collapse (he trails Trump for the Republican nomination by 50 points in a Quinnipiac survey, and has slipped to third place behind Trump and Nikki Haley in New York); and while his latest campaign reset, following the dismissal of more than a third of his staff and appointment of a new manager, struggles to gain a footing.“This is going to be a case study going forward for many years, just because you won an election in your state by a landslide, that does not mean that you are unstoppable at the national level,” Sabato said.“In fact, it may mean relatively little, even when it’s a mega-state like Florida. Was Ron DeSantis the candidate who won in a landslide in 2022, or is he the presidential candidate who’s slipping below the radar today? Well, he’s both of those things. And they aren’t contradictory.“Can he reverse it? Anybody can reverse anything given the right time and circumstances, but it sure doesn’t look that way. In all the polls I’ve seen he just keeps dropping, and pretty soon one of those other candidates, maybe it’s Nikki Haley, maybe somebody else, will end up going above him in the polls. Maybe it’s only a few points, but that’s all that’s needed to change the narrative.”Notably, the measure to reverse the loyalty oath was brought by the Republican state senator Joe Gruters, the former chair of the state party who has clashed with DeSantis over the Disney wrangle. In June, Gruters accused DeSantis of vetoing spending in his district as retribution for not supporting him.“The governor is clearly upset I endorsed Donald Trump for president, so he took it out on the people of Sarasota county,” he said in a statement at the time. “Simply because I support his political opponent, the governor chose to punish ordinary Floridians.”Gruters did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian, but told reporters after the Orlando vote that it was about fairness.“It’s not about the pledge. It’s about creating unnecessary roadblocks late in the game that makes it perceived that it’s anti-Trump,” he said, according to Politico.DeSantis, who skipped the Orlando humiliation for fundraising events in New York, will have the chance to try to win back the support of state Republicans at the party’s Florida Freedom Summit in Kissimmee on 4 November.“The Florida GOP will remain neutral, but we will work to support the entire Republican team by helping give all the presidential candidates as many opportunities as possible to connect with Florida voters,” spokesperson Nathalie Medina told reporters.Before that, however, DeSantis must plot his strategy for the next Republican primary debate on 27 September in California, seen by many as another possible make-or-break moment for his campaign.“He’s had a lot of turnover in his management team, his campaign team, so we’ll see. A lot of us are watching whether that’s going to make a difference, particularly looking ahead to the next debate,” said Susan MacManus, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at the University of Florida.“Will he continue to focus on policy, which is what a lot of people would prefer, or is he going to have to get into the bashing of Trump and his colleagues on the stage? I don’t think the payoff for him is good in bashing, it’s in identifying problems facing the country and talking about how he will deal with them.” More

A speaking tour from the son of the former US president Donald Trump has been delayed for a second time, with organisers blaming a “scheduling conflict”.Donald Trump Jr was scheduled to tour the country in July but it was postponed until September amid claims of visa trouble. Under the revised schedule, he was due to speak in Brisbane on Monday night, before events in Melbourne and Sydney this week.A spokesperson for Turning Point Australia, which organised the events, confirmed Trump Jr had obtained a visa for the September events but was not in the country.They confirmed the events had been rescheduled for a second time by Trump and had now been pushed back to December.“The event was rescheduled last week after we were informed of the scheduling conflict,” he said.
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The spokesperson also referred Guardian Australia to a YouTube clip by Tim Pool, the organiser of a Miami event on 6 October.Pool had said: “Donald Trump Jr is not going to be able to make it; he’s a very, very busy man.“Sorry to everybody who was really looking forward to seeing Donald Trump Jr. When these things come up, they come up.”Trump Jr is Donald Trump’s eldest son. He is the executive vice-president of the Trump organisation and has written two books on conservative politics.He is now scheduled to speak on 10 December in Sydney, 11 December on the Gold Coast and finish his tour in Melbourne on 12 December. More

A new Washington Post-ABC poll showing Joe Biden trailing his presidential predecessor Donald Trump by 10 percentage points was excoriated by leading political pollster Larry Sabato.Noting that the pollsters themselves cautioned that their survey was an outlier, Sabato – the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia – called the decision to release it “ridiculous”.“Ignore the Washington Post–ABC poll,” Sabato wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “How could you even publish a poll so absurd on its face? Will be a lingering embarrassment for you.” He added: “Just plain embarrassing – for them.”The New York Times’ chief political analyst Nate Cohn also criticized the poll that said Trump was ahead of Biden in the 2024 White House race.Referring to a Post-ABC poll in May that found Trump was up seven percentage points on Biden, which was similarly inconsistent with most polling, Cohn wrote on X: “It’s really really hard to release outlying poll results, so you’ve got to give credit to ABC/Post here, but I do have a fairly major quibble with ABC/Post here: if you release consecutive ‘outlying’ poll results … you don’t get to dismiss your results.“If it happens twice in a row in the same race, it’s clear that this is the result of some element of your approach, and you either need to decide you’re good with it and defend it or you need to go home.”The Washington Post acknowledged its survey was not in line with most polling, which generally finds that the Democratic incumbent Biden and the former Republican president Trump would be in a close, competitive race if they faced each other in the 2024 election.The Post wrote in its analysis: “The … poll shows Biden trailing Trump by 10 percentage points at this early stage in the election cycle, although the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat.“The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggests it is probably an outlier.”Despite the criticisms, at least one person stood by the poll results, with host Martha Raddatz saying on Sunday’s ABC This Week: “Whatever caveats, whether that is an outlier, that’s a tough one to spin.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn response to Raddatz, former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile said on the show: “It’s a tough one to spin, Martha, but I don’t believe Democrats should be sitting in a panic room.”Brazile went on to urge Democrats to “get out there, make your case to the American people”, who she said are angry due to rising living costs.Raddatz replied: “They are talking to the American people … and yet it is those pocketbook issues. The message may be out there, but they’re not feeling it.”Trump does hold commanding leads in national and key state polls regarding the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He enjoys that advantage despite facing more than 90 criminal charges across four separate indictments charging him with attempted subversion of the 2020 election that he lost to Biden, retention of classified information after his presidency and hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. More

The US Congress has had no shortage of viral moments in recent months. Senator Dianne Feinstein seemingly became confused over how to vote. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell experienced two extended “freeze episodes” during press conferences. And several members of Congress mistook TikTok for the name of a breath mint (Tic Tac).

The world’s oldest democracy currently has its oldest-ever Congress. President Joe Biden (80 years old) is also the oldest US president in history. His leading rival in the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump, is not far behind at 77.

Biden and Trump are both older than 96% of the US population. Unsurprisingly, they are both facing widespread questions about their ages and cognitive abilities.

How did we get to this ‘senior moment’?

America’s increasingly geriatric political leadership is not a surprising phenomenon. As the authors of the book, Youth Without Representation, pointed out earlier this year, the average age of US members of Congress has consistently risen over the past 40 years.

Some of this shift can be attributed to actuarial realities: much like the ageing US electorate, American politicians are living longer and fuller lives in old age than they did before, particularly compared to the time of America’s “founding fathers” (many of whom were under the age of 40 when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776).

Some of this may also be attributed to older Americans being far more likely to vote than their younger counterparts. In 2016, for instance, nearly three-quarters of eligible voters over the age of 65 reported they had voted, compared to less than half of those aged under 30. And those older Americans may prefer electing politicians closer to their age range.

Yet lifespans have increased around the world and the ageing of US politicians still stands out compared to other developed nations. The average age of government leaders in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has actually decreased since 1950 – and today is nearly 25 years younger than Biden.

Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis said the country’s founding fathers would “probably” implement maximum age limits on elected officials if they “could look at this again”. But this raises the question of why they didn’t do it the first time.

Read more:
Yes, Joe Biden is old and has low approval ratings, but this is why he’s still confident of re-election

What did the founding fathers think about term limits?

The founding fathers fiercely debated term limits for both presidents and members of Congress and even included them for members of the Continental Congress in the first Articles of Confederation. However, they ended up not being written into the Constitution.

As much as Americans cherish the idea of the nation being founded on a constitution and laws instead of traditions and monarchy, the founding fathers ultimately did not legislate any term limits. Instead, they largely assumed custom, tradition and democratic elections would dictate the terms of office.

In fact, the first president, George Washington, helped begin the custom of a president not seeking longer than two terms in office.

Mirroring Cincinnatus, a Roman leader who became legendary for being given dictatorial control over Rome during a crisis but then voluntarily relinquishing control once the crisis was over, Washington left the presidency after two four-year terms.

George Washington was 57 when he was inaugurated.
Wikimedia Commons

For more than a century after that, US presidents adhered to Washington’s convention (which historians contend that Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, in reality ended up setting) and did not serve a third term in office.

The first to break that tradition was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who won four terms in office, including a third just before the second world war. After he died in office at the age of 63, Congress ratified the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution that limited presidents to two four-year terms.

While US presidents have faced term limits for most of the past century, members of Congress continue to serve as long as they like. (There are currently 20 members over the age of 80. Feinstein, the oldest at 90, has served six terms as a senator from California.)

Dianne Feinstein returns to the Senate Judiciary Committee following a more-than-two-month absence as she was being treated for a case of shingles.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Part of the reason for this omission may be that the founding fathers and early American leaders did not expect members of Congress to stay in office as long as they now do. In the years after the Constitution was ratified, members of Congress simply did not seek re-election as frequently.

For example, the average length of service for US senators has more than doubled from about 4.8 years back then to 11.2 years today.

The price of elected office and who can afford it

Beyond demographics and changing habits of US politicians, one underestimated contributor to America’s increasingly elderly political leadership is that running for political office in America is more expensive than ever.

The 2020 election was not only contentious, but it was also the most expensive in US history. It cost more than US$14.4 billion (A$22.5 billion) for the presidential and congressional races – more than double what was spent in the 2016 elections.

The 2022 elections also broke a record for spending in a midterm election at US$8.9 billion (A$13.9 billion).

On an individual level, the average winner of a House of Representatives race in 1990 spent around US$400,000. By 2022 that had risen to US$2.79 million. The average winner of a Senate race in 1990 spent nearly US$3.9 million, compared to US$26.5 million in 2022.

Read more:
Why do voters have to pick a Republican or a Democrat in the US?

It should come as no surprise that the ten most expensive House and Senate races in US history took place in the past five years.

Those with the resources necessary to afford such expensive campaigns are more likely to be older than not. Whether it be independently wealthy business owners or well-established politicians with extensive fundraising networks, the high cost of admission for political office undeniably favours the old.

In an era of extensive polarisation, it can often seem like Americans cannot agree on much. One area of agreement, however, is that their politicians are simply too old.

Yet while a majority of Americans may tell pollsters that, most still consistently end up voting for a candidate who is considerably older than them. That will very likely be the case again in the 2024 presidential election. At least one of those probable candidates (Trump or Biden), though, will be barred by term limits from being on the ballot again in 2028. More

Pete Buttigieg, the US transport secretary and a military veteran, has criticized Donald Trump after a report that he sought to bar a severely wounded veteran from public appearances during his presidency.In an interview with the Atlantic, Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said Trump had been irritated after Luis Avila – who lost a leg and suffered brain damage after an IED attack in Afghanistan – sang at Milley’s 2019 welcome ceremony.“Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded,” Milley said Trump told him after the ceremony.Milley told the Atlantic that Trump said Avila should never appear in public again.On Sunday, Buttigieg – who was a lieutenant in the US navy reserve and served a tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2014 – told CNN that Trump’s alleged order was “just the latest in a pattern of outrageous attacks [by Trump] on people who keep this country safe”.Military members wounded in combat, Buttigieg said, “deserve respect and a hell of a lot more than that from every American, and definitely from every American president”.Buttigieg also said: “The idea that an American president, the person to whom service members look as a commander in chief, the person who sets the tone for this entire country, could think that way or act that way or talk that way about anyone in uniform, and certainly about those who put their bodies on the line and sacrificed in ways that most Americans will never understand … I guess wounded veterans make president Trump feel uncomfortable.”Trump has a previously attacked members of the military. In 2020, the Atlantic reported that Trump had said the Aisne-Marne American cemetery – where more than 2,000 American military members who died in France are buried – was “filled with suckers”.The Atlantic reported that Trump had also said the more than 1,800 marines who died at Belleau Wood, the site of a key battle in the first world war, were “suckers” for getting killed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump denied the report, but he has a history of criticizing service members. In 2015 he referred to John McCain, the late US senator and navy veteran who spent nearly six years in a Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, as a “loser”.Trump added: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” More