“Send him back from wherever he came from,” demands Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California, speaking of Elon Musk. I guess xenophobia is back in style. The difference is that Republicans want to deport illegal immigrants, while Democrats want to deport legal immigrants.

Waters also recently claimed, “We don’t know everything that Elon Musk has done with his high-technology ass. We don’t know what he’s been accused of by some as it relates to the election.”

This would be a grave accusation – Election hacking! Rejecting the results of a free and fair presidential election! – if anyone took 86-year-old Maxine Waters seriously. Thankfully, very few Americans do.

Earlier this year, our Dan McLaughlin wrote that the Congressional Black Caucus has a geriatric problem in the House. “Out of 58 members, 20 are age 70 or older (34.5 percent, significantly higher than in the House as a whole, and six are age 80 or older (10.3 percent).” (Ironically, Dan’s piece did not mention Houston-area congressman Sylvester Turner, who died suddenly at age 70 this week.)

A lot of members of the Congressional Black Caucus represent heavily Democratic districts. As incumbents, they start any primary with enormous advantages in name recognition, fundraising, and are extremely unlikely to lose a general election. This means they can make the most incendiary and outrageous claims like “Musk hacked the election results,” with minimal consequences.

Elderly, nutty members of Congress are not the primary reason that Democrats lost in 2024. But they certainly didn’t help; they reinforce the sense that a significant chunk of the House Democratic membership is a sclerotic bunch of doddering, yammering nutjobs, the mirror image of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Lauren Boeberts of the world.