Everything alters, and one by one we drop away

But not nearly fast enough.

Sarah Jones describes a sclerotic political system run by literally sclerotic people:

[Feinstein] has become a ghoulish spectacle and a warning: The system she represents is in trouble.

Feinstein’s fate condemns the very institutions to which she has dedicated herself. As Rebecca Traister noted in a 2022 profile, Feinstein participated enthusiastically in Supreme Court confirmation hearings for the conservative Amy Coney Barrett. “This is one of the best sets of hearings that I’ve participated in,” she told Senator Lindsey Graham at the time, and added, “It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions, and even some ideas, perhaps some good bipartisan legislation we can put together to make this great country even better. So thank you so much for your leadership.” Months later, Barrett would cast a vote in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. Though Feinstein cited Roe as a reason to oppose Barrett’s nomination, and voted against confirming her to the Court, her chumminess with Graham was out of keeping with the moment. It was as if the stakes eluded Feinstein.

Note that by October 2020, Graham had gone full fascist in the most unambiguous way possible. But Graham was still Feinstein’s friend on a personal level. The idea that in an age like this the personal is necessarily political is just a bridge too far for a bunch of ancient Democrats who grew up in a very different world.

Feinstein leaves us now with no choice but to assume the worst about her motivations. Her failure to retire — and before that, her decision to run for reelection despite her advanced age — can be chalked up to arrogance. She believes the system works because it first worked for her. She climbed the ranks, achieved high office, and stayed there. Lifted to such a vantage, a person has two choices. They can look outward, survey the American landscape in its full, broken reality, and act in accordance with what they see. Or they can disappear into the same institutions that elevated them to power. Feinstein chose the latter. The climate activists she once ridiculed tried to get her to choose another path, but she did not listen. Here we stand, then, in the ruins of Feinstein’s career, in what might also be the ruins of the American experiment itself. . .

Yet time itself is short. As the far right gathers strength, it threatens democracy, and our ruling gerontocracy has little to say. Feinstein is becoming a symbol of catastrophic personal failure, but the problem is widespread. Consider Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, age 78. As the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, his response to Justice Clarence Thomas’s almost-cartoonish levels of corruption has been to place his trust in Chief Justice John Roberts. “This is the Roberts Court,” Durbin told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “History is going to judge him by the decision he makes on this. He has the power to make the difference.” History will judge Durbin and Feinstein and the rest of them, too.

These people aren’t up to the moment, either intellectually or emotionally or physically. Anyone who points out that these factors are inextricably inter-related is liable to be accused of “ageism,” when the truth is that, as a certain philosopher once observed, the problem with this business is that’s filled to the brim with unrealistic . . . individuals. Individuals who thought their asses would age like wine. If that means it turns to vinegar, it does. If that means it gets better with age, it don’t.