America doesn’t run on Dunkin’. It doesn’t run on oil, coal, wind, or solar either. The great hidden energy source powering this rust-bucket republic is the eternal flame of political necromancy: old people who will not, under any circumstances, let go of the wheel. While the rest of the world debates how to keep the lights on when the planet finally stops forgiving our bullshit, America has discovered the only true renewable resource — the stubborn will of geriatrics in power, a resource as inexhaustible as it is humiliating.

Other countries have clean energy. We have Mitch McConnell rebooting like a frozen iPad during a press conference. Germany has wind turbines. We have Chuck Grassley, a man who was in the Senate when Pong was considered a marvel of modern technology. China has hydroelectric dams. America has Donald Trump — 79 years old, spray-tanned to a waxy orange shine, ranting about windmills giving him cancer and managing to make a dozen grammatical and spelling errors in a 140 character tweet while doing so.

This isn’t a republic anymore. It’s an elder care facility with nuclear weapons. And the staff — i.e., us — are trapped, forced to smile politely while the residents shuffle into hearings, forget which country they’re bombing, and press the wrong button on Medicare reform because their glasses fogged up. Welcome to the Geriatric Oligarchy, the last empire on earth to be ruled by the undead.

Government by Glitch

The telltale sign of our gerontocracy is the “freeze moment,” those harrowing instances when a senator turns into a malfunctioning animatronic doll in front of the cameras. Mitch McConnell — the Grim Reaper of legislation, a man whose entire career has been one long funeral procession for democracy — has now been captured twice short-circuiting in mid-sentence. His aides crowd around him like IT guys trying to reboot a router, until eventually he sputters back to life with the charm of a fax machine. This is the guy shepherding conservative policy for 40 years. At this point, McConnell’s gavel should come with a defibrillator.

Dianne Feinstein became the morbid punchline of 2023, rolled into hearings in a wheelchair, occasionally forgetting she was supposed to be alive, let alone voting. Her staff whispered instructions in her ear like stage managers coaching a very unconvincing corpse. And for what? To make sure California still had a reliable “aye” for Silicon Valley tax breaks and war budgets.

And then there’s Trump, the Commander in Chief, an octogenarian carnival barker whose speeches now resemble a rambling open-mic night at a dementia ward. He’ll start on “energy independence,” veer into a story about flushing toilets fifteen times, then end with an unhinged riff about Taylor Swift being an agent of Iran. This is the man with the nuclear codes. Sleep well, America.

These aren’t harmless quirks of aging. They’re signs of a system that has given up pretending it represents the living. Our leaders are older than microwaves, yet we’re supposed to believe they’re prepared to handle quantum computing, climate migration, or the next pandemic. They’re not even prepared to handle a flight of stairs.

Retirement for Thee, Not for Me

Here’s the kicker: ordinary Americans don’t get to age in peace. They get to work until their spines collapse and then die in debt. The Social Security trust fund is treated like a disposable ATM for defense contractors, and pensions have been reduced to casino chips for Wall Street. “Retirement” for most of us means you stop working when you physically can’t, and then Walmart hands you a neon vest and tells you to greet customers until your knees explode.

But for politicians, the rules are different. For them, retirement is optional. Lifelong six-figure salaries. Platinum healthcare packages. Chauffeurs. Personal assistants. Lobbyists eager to buy them dinner until the embalming fluid is pumped in. They cling to power not out of duty but because it’s the most lucrative senior discount on the planet. Why go play golf when you can keep shaking down industries for campaign cash while interns fetch your oatmeal?

And the cruel irony? The same crop of fossils who never leave office are the ones pushing to raise the retirement age for everyone else. Grassley’s wrinkled hand is always in the air to say you should work until 70, while he personally clocks in at 91 to vote against reproductive rights. These people don’t believe in retirement for you. They believe in retirement for your dreams.

Frozen Policy, Fossilized Minds

It’s not just the age. It’s the worldview. Politicians born when segregation was still the law are shaping policy for a multiracial country. Lawmakers who bought their first house for the price of a used Kia are deciding whether you should have student debt forgiveness. Men whose last experience with reproductive health was their prostate exam are legislating abortion.

Every modern issue is run through the filter of people who still write checks at the grocery store. Regulating TikTok? You might as well ask your great-aunt to explain the blockchain. Crafting climate policy? These are people who won’t live to see the seas rise over their Florida condos. Reimagining student debt? They paid for college with part-time jobs at gas stations and think the real problem is you bought too many lattes.

Our tech policy is written by people who think “AI” means “AOL Instant Messenger.” Our military strategy is signed off by people whose formative experience with war was watching Patton in theaters. The gerontocracy isn’t just old — it’s irrelevant, out of time, making decisions for a future it won’t inhabit.

Old Voters, Old Leaders, Old Country

Why does this keep happening? Because the old vote. They don’t just vote, they live for it. Early bird special, Fox News until their eyes bleed, then to the polls. They’ll crawl over broken glass to vote for the same septuagenarian senators who’ve been scaring them with ads about caravans since the Reagan administration.

Young people, who actually have to survive in the future, are too busy juggling three jobs and praying their landlord doesn’t raise rent again. They don’t have time to spend four hours in a church basement filling out ballots next to retirees wearing MAGA hats. Democracy has become a geriatric hobby, like stamp collecting or sudoku. And the result is predictable: old people elect old leaders, who then pass laws that benefit — surprise! — old people.

This isn’t government. It’s a feedback loop of arthritis.

Death as a Term Limit

In any sane system, there would be age caps, cognitive tests, mandatory retirement. But not here. In America, the only real term limit is death, and even then, sometimes not. Strom Thurmond held office until 100. Feinstein’s corpse was practically co-sponsoring bills. Henry Kissinger lived to 100, and people were still asking for his opinion on foreign policy, as if the man hadn’t spent his entire life bombing countries into rubble.

We are ruled by a political class so old that embalming is a campaign expense. And because the money never stops flowing, they never stop ruling. It doesn’t matter if their brains are Swiss cheese — as long as their bodies can be wheeled to a voting button, the machine keeps running.

America’s Only Renewable Resource

So yes, while other nations look for sustainable futures, America has found its answer: geriatric power. Not “power to the people.” Power from the people, siphoned into the veins of ancient senators and an orange-faced ex-reality TV star who can’t remember what state he’s in. It’s infinite, because aging is infinite. As one generation of fossils finally dies, another batch of decrepit Boomers takes their place, clutching their Medicare cards and their stock portfolios like holy relics.

It is the only renewable resource America has left. Unfortunately, it doesn’t generate light or heat or clean water. It generates inertia, gridlock, and policies written by people whose main concern is whether Jell-O counts as a solid or a liquid.

We are the first civilization in history to be smothered not by war or famine but by the relentless grip of a generation that refuses to get off the stage. The country of youth, innovation, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, Silicon Valley, and hip-hop is now being steered into the abyss by leaders who can’t remember where they parked.

Hospice with a Flag

The American empire, once draped in bombast about freedom and dynamism, is now a hospice with a flag out front. Our leaders shuffle through its halls, clinging to their IV drips of campaign donations, muttering old slogans about liberty while quietly drooling on the Constitution. And the rest of us — younger, poorer, angrier — are trapped inside, forced to watch the decline on live TV.

The only question left is whether a younger generation will finally rip the keys away, or whether we’ll keep letting Grandpa drive until he floors it into the oncoming traffic of history.

Until then, buckle up. America runs on geriatric power. It’s the only thing we can still produce at scale.