The Patriot Post® · An Idea Only an Academic Would Find Clever

Last week, Yale Law School professor Samuel Moyn appeared on Ross Douthat’s New York Times podcast, “Interesting Times.” Moyn recently wrote a book titled Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth ― and What to Do About It, and he joined the podcast to discuss the issue and offer his views on how to rectify it. For context, a gerontocracy is a group of people governed by the old.

Douthat and Moyn began by discussing the geriatric septuagenarian and octogenarian political class that has clung to power in Washington, DC, using the following examples: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died while still on the Supreme Court instead of resigning when Democrats could have replaced her; former President Joe Biden, who was senile in office; Senator Mitch McConnell, whose health is poor; and President Donald Trump, who is advanced in age.

Moyn’s book describes forming a coalition between the old and the young to help the young take care of the old, but also to make the old more willing to take care of the young by redistributing their wealth and power. The wealth and power gap between the Baby Boomers and Gen Z, according to Moyn and Douthat, is a crisis that isn’t discussed.

As the conversation continued, Moyn threw out his most “edgy” idea as a proposed solution: giving more weight to the youngest voting demographic so that children who are not yet able to vote are represented, thereby balancing out the power dynamic.

Here is that exchange:

I try to keep an open mind about new ideas and opinions, but this take on parents and children is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Douthat’s response is perfect: pic.twitter.com/tx26XZxpxw

— Caleb Wait (@calebwait) August 4, 2026

Douthat’s response was utterly on point. “I think that’s daft,” he told Moyn. “I think it’s absurd to imagine that a 24-year-old recent college graduate has a better assessment of the interests of my own children than I do.”

Moyn then tried to explain that family interests are different from age-based interests and that a parent voting for the interests of the child is inadequate.

This is just absolutely ridiculous. Moyn’s proposed solution only creates an even bigger problem — namely, a communist or statist takeover. It attempts to free the individual from the norms and restraints of society and the child from obligations to the family. At the end of the day, it subjugates the whole of society to whims while utterly ignoring the individual.

The family, not the individual, is the structure on which all of society is built.

Democrats believe that parents are merely tools to raise the next generation, that the individual is the fundamental building block of society. Under this logic, each individual deserves a say as long as they are sufficiently indoctrinated by the state. That’s why the Left proposes lowering the voting age to 16. They know children are easier to manipulate because their prefrontal cortices aren’t yet fully developed; therefore, they aren’t truly capable of future planning.

Let’s take this out of the realm of politics and into the realm of education. Back in 2021, Terry McAuliffe, during the Virginia gubernatorial race, said something that reflected the same worldview as what Moyn expressed. He told voters, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Parents saw with their own eyes what their children were learning because of the COVID lockdowns, and they were not happy. Parents, by and large, understand and accept that education is part of raising their children. However, if their kids can spout transgender ideology but can’t read, write, reason, do math, or think critically, then that’s not the kind of education they bargained for. Needless to say, McAuliffe lost that election.

Back to Moyn, his premise wouldn’t solve the problem. If older generations are hoarding political power, that’s likely because younger generations either don’t have the wealth to fund their own campaigns or don’t have any good candidates (see Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maxwell Frost, etc.).

Samuel Moyn’s take was a silly one. Allowing the revolutionary takeover of our young through brainwashing in the name of children leads to the disenfranchisement of every age group. It just might destroy America rather than fix it.