As I get older — I turned 75 this spring — I notice that my own faculties, both physical and mental, are not as quick and agile as they once were. I realize that that decline has probably been going on for a lot longer than I have been wont to admit.

That realization prompted me to think about people of my generation and older who have achieved positions of great power and influence in their careers, and whose egotism and hubris lead them to believe that they were somehow exempt from the degradation of their capabilities that age brings to damn near all of us.

I have examined a handful of decisions made by elderly politicians and am saddened by the disproportionate impact these decisions have had on the course of our democracy. Let me list them.

• Mitch McConnell, March 2016 — 74 years old at the time — refused to allow Merrick Garland to be considered as a replacement for Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court nearly eight months before the general election.

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2014 — 81 years old at the time — despite two bouts of cancer and numerous pleas from liberal scholars, decided not to retire at a time when President Barack Obama and a Democratic-controlled Senate could have named and confirmed her successor.

• Mitch McConnell, September 2020 — by then 78 years old — cravenly reversed his decision on confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year, allowing President Donald Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ginsburg just 38 days before the general election.

• Joe Biden, March 2023 — then 79 years old — went back on his oft-implied intention to be a “bridge candidate” and serve only one term as president, thus preventing the next generation of young, dynamic Democrats from participating in a vigorous primary contest that would have allowed the nation to really get to know the party platform, and its eventual nominee, and be excited to vote for that candidate instead of holding their noses and voting for the guy not named Trump.

In my opinion, this country would be vastly different — and much better — today if those individuals had valued our democracy as much as their party or their own egos. Women’s health care would not be at risk. The 14th Amendment stance on birthright citizenship would still be the law of the land.

Even if Donald Trump had somehow been able to beat a young, vibrant, agile, articulate Democratic candidate in November of last year, the Supreme Court would at least be made up of justices willing to keep him from trying to tear down our great nation.