Republicans did not engineer this advantage. They inherited it. From Obama.

Hmmmm.  I have commented many times that pundits are overlooking something quite meaningful which happened between 2008 and 2016.  

Lauded as he was by the mainstream media and academia, Obama was terrible for his party.  By the end of his administration, Democrats were down more than 1,000 elected state and federal positions.  He shredded the party bench of up and coming talent.  

Which explains why the Democratic party leadership looks like an old folks home.  Almost everyone is in their late seventies or early eighties.  And a not insignificant number are clearly in their dotage with embarrassing declines in mental acuity.  

This did not occur by accident.  This happened because Obama happened, driving polarization between the Democratic Party and the citizens of the nation and a rebellion of the masses which resulted in a dramatically thinned talent pipeline.  This was for the Democratic Party what the One Child policy was for the Chinese Communist Party.  A guarantee of future trouble.

After 2016, the Democratic Party bench of talent, of rising stars, was more than decimated.  It was vaporized.  

From "Our model of social change is still rooted in midcentury clichés. Younger Americans imagine that starting a family and owning a home was much easier..." quoted by Ann Althouse.  The pundit she is quoting has the wrong end of the stick.  As he is supposedly a conservative, I can only assume that Yuval Levin is completely immersed in the hot house of Washington, D.C. beliefs.

Yuval Levin makes his argument:

America’s top political leaders are remarkably old. Our president will turn 80 this year. His predecessor, who is contemplating running again, is about to turn 76. The speaker of the House is 82. The Republican leader in the Senate is 80, and his Democratic counterpart is a comparatively sprightly 71.

This is very unusual. And it’s not because this cohort has just gotten its turn at the wheel, but because it has held power for an exceptionally long time. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, whose presidencies spanned more than a quarter-century, were all born roughly within two months of one another in the summer of 1946. Nancy Pelosi has been the Democratic leader in the House for almost 20 years. Mitch McConnell has led Senate Republicans for about 15 years. Our politics has been largely in the hands of people born in the 1940s or early ’50s for a generation.

We should wish them all many more healthy years and be grateful for their long service. But we should also recognize the costs of their grip not only on American self-government but even on the country’s self-conception.

He is not wrong in his observations.  The current crop Washington, D.C. political leaders are an aged lot.  

But what is most striking is not, I don't think, the ages of Washington politicians, but how those ages differ between parties.  Sure, McConnell is old.  But his House colleague, Kevin McCarthy is only 57.  Recent conservative nominees to the Supreme Court are also young and sprightly Amy Coney Barrett (50), Brett Kavanaugh (57), and Neil Gorsuch (54).  

If Democrats don't run Biden in 2024, who are their top realistic candidates?  That is an extraordinarily thin group.  Newsom?  Harris?  It is a short and select list with thin resumes.  Especially if you limit it to anybody less than 70 years of age.  

On the Republican party side, it is much easier to think of possible candidates and they all have deep resumes and are notably younger.  Abott (64), DeSantis (43), Pence (62), Sununu (47), Baker (65), Noem (40), Sara Sanders (40), Youngkin (55), Tim Scott (56), etc.

On the Democratic side, who are the leading contenders?  Bernie Sanders (80), Warren (72), Klobuchar (62) and that is about it.  It is a thin, thin bench which is also quite old.

For all Levin's pseudo sophisticated commentary on an age phenomenon, models of social change, focus on age cohorts and their reputed characteristics, the sins of Baby Boomers, etc. - It all sounds like Washington echo chambers.  These are the stories insiders are telling themselves.  The reality is outside the beltway and it has little to do with the puffery of these themes.  There are plenty of accomplished young politicians.  They just are mostly out in the states as Governors and they are disproportionately Republican.

Nothing is a given and Republicans did not engineer this advantage.  They inherited it.  From Obama.