There is a stark difference between “old” and “senescent”. Of course, there’s also a pretty considerable gulf fixed between “career politician” and “normal citizen” so that first difference may be a bit harder to detect.
Bear in mind that our legiscritters don’t really do any of the real work of running the government. They’re the figureheads for political machines whose entire purpose is to get them reelected. Their staff does the work of filtering the constituent comments, reading — and writing — the bills, answering phone calls and emails and generally getting done the job that we typically think we elected the critters to do. The critters themselves spend their time making speeches, talking to donors about what the important people want, creating photo-ops and generally acting like celebrities.
There is a stark difference between “old” and “senescent”. Of course, there’s also a pretty considerable gulf fixed between “career politician” and “normal citizen” so that first difference may be a bit harder to detect.
Bear in mind that our legiscritters don’t really do any of the real work of running the government. They’re the figureheads for political machines whose entire purpose is to get them reelected. Their staff does the work of filtering the constituent comments, reading — and writing — the bills, answering phone calls and emails and generally getting done the job that we typically think we elected the critters to do. The critters themselves spend their time making speeches, talking to donors about what the important people want, creating photo-ops and generally acting like celebrities.