Is the Democratic party over the hill?

Call it a dilemma, quandary, or Catch-22 – just pray the aging Democratic party doesn’t pull a muscle trying to argue that it is in anything other than an unenviable position.

Eighty-eight-year-old Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, D.C.’s longtime representative in Congress, has repeatedly stated that she will seek yet another term in office. The only trouble is that every time she does, her staff scrambles to assure the world that isn’t actually the case.

One must sympathize with their impulse. Norton has been absent from her day job even as the district dominates national headlines, and struggled through what few public appearances she’s made. The situation is dire enough that Norton’s self-described “dear friend” Donna Brazile took to The Washington Post to urge her to step aside.

“There are a lot of talented Democrats in D.C.,” wrote Brazile. “If Norton decides not to run for reelection, there will be a very competitive race for the seat.”

And besides, the stakes are low should Norton ride off into the sunset, given the fact that Democrats have a stranglehold on her seat.

But Norton is no outlier. Across the country, the party is staring down the barrel of a much more difficult choice between aged incompetence and unpopular extremism.

The divide between these two factions – a stale establishment and radical insurgency – was only deepened by Joe Biden’s failed presidency, and the ongoing debate over who ought to bear the blame for it. On the one hand, Biden, then 78-year-old, was the most conservative viable Democrat to run in 2020. On the other, he governed far to the left of where he campaigned; and Vice President Kamala Harris lost her bid to succeed him in large part thanks to the unpopular, progressive positions she staked out in 2020.

The story of how the party came to be stuck between a rock and a hard place begins, ironically enough, begins with the presidential campaign of geriatric socialist Bernie Sanders.

In 2016, Sanders’s overperformance in the Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the general election, and Donald Trump’s presidency all inspired a leftward shift – or sprint – within the party. And in the years since, progressives such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, and New York City’s Zohran Mamdani have risen to prominence.

After Mamdani defeated establishment scion Andrew Cuomo in the Democrats’ Big Apple mayoral primary, the left turned the pressure up on party leadership to endorse Mamdani, who will face off against Cuomo once again come November.

Axios recently reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is facing a “revolt” over his failure to throw his weight behind the upstart.

The Democratic Party is plagued by two afflictions exemplified by each of its competing cohorts. One need only watch a half-minute of a Jeffries or Chuck Schumer speech to agree with their critics’ evaluation of them. Their plodding, low-energy delivery – occasionally interrupted by shrill outbursts – underlines their lack of conviction. The pair represent a kind of empty suit, go-along-to-get-along politics that voters have emphatically rejected in both parties for the better part of a decade now.

And that’s to say nothing of the fact that this wing is quite literally dying out. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) passed away in May after beating out Ocasio-Cortez to serve as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee just a few months prior. He was the eighth federal legislator to expire in office since November 2022; all eight were Democrats.

Biden is long gone. Schumer is 74 years old. Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the 85-year-old who made Biden king back in 2020, finally left House leadership this year. He endorsed Cuomo in the NYC primary, but has since come around and endorsed Mamdani in the general. The symbolism isn’t all that difficult to wrap one’s head around.

But then again, there’s little evidence that the far-left can find its footing outside of insular enclaves. Sanders came the closest to building a national movement in his mold, but his grumpy, grandfatherly affect has always softened the blow of his policy agenda. No one else is a proven entity anywhere but in large, ideologically uniform cities.

And for good reason. While Democratic voters are making googly eyes at socialism, it’s still a dirty word with the rest of the electorate. Among the former group, it boasts a +36 percent net approval rating; among the latter, it stands at a dismal -18 percent, according to Gallup.

Biden already test-drove the radicals’ laissez-faire immigration policy, while Harris took their social policies for a spin. They both ended up in the dustbin of American history, at once national jokes and villains.

The grass, at least for the elderly Democrat party, may not be greener on the other side.