Beyond the obvious point — which is that Dianne Feinstein is a decaying husk who shouldn’t even have a driver’s license, much less a Senate seat — notice again how the staff handle this situation. They just come right out and tell Feinstein what to do, in full view of the public. They’re not ashamed in any way of admitting that they’re running Feinstein’s office. In that respect, they’re just like Joe Biden’s handlers, who have no problem silencing the president of the United States with jazz music, like he’s a drunk winner at some award’s show that no one watches.

What this shows us is not simply that we’re living in a gerontocracy. This is much worse than that. These episodes reveal that, like the late Soviet empire, we’ve actually gotten used to living in a gerontocracy. We’re not ashamed of it anymore. Political operatives — whose entire job is to shield their bosses from bad press — have no problem shoving this in our faces. This means our gerontocracy is much more than an international embarrassment, it’s now a full-blown national security crisis. They aren’t just laughing at our leaders in East Asia right now. This isn’t just social media fodder for them. At this moment our enemies are proceeding with the understanding that our government is incapable of holding a press conference, much less mounting any kind of defensive response to a surprise attack. And unfortunately for all of us, they’re probably right about that.