Senator Lindsey Graham died seemingly out of the blue over the weekend after a tear in his aorta. He was 71 years old. The news was shocking, in part because Graham was a very active senator—he was just returning from a trip to Ukraine—and because he was seemingly at the height of his power, having built one of the most influential relationships with President Donald Trump of any politician. But another reason the news was such a surprise was because, compared to many of his colleagues in Washington, Senator Graham was on the younger side. That impression was fueled by the ongoing ordeal of Senator Mitch McConnell. The 84-year-old serving senator was reportedly found unconscious weeks ago after a fall, leading to his ongoing hospitalization. Early reports that EMS had responded to a cardiac arrest at McConnell’s residence when he was first hospitalized, his wife’s strange trip to China in the middle of all this, and the total radio silence for weeks from a supposedly active senator all led to speculation online that McConnell was faring far worse than his staff and Republican party insiders were admitting. Others went as far as to speculate that McConnell had already passed away, but that his team and establishment allies were attempting to delay the public acknowledgment of his death until after it would no longer force a special election. That theory gained enough traction online to prompt McConnell’s team to post a literal proof-of-life photo of the senator holding that day’s newspaper. This all follows, of course, the age-record-breaking presidency of Joe Biden, and the campaign that was derailed because of it. Now, Trump is on track to break Biden’s record and, at the end of his term, become the oldest serving US president in history. In addition to McConnell, many of the most prominent members of Congress are quite elderly, have been in office for decades, and show no interest in ever retiring. Senator Dianne Feinstein—who died of old age in 2023 at the