When I was a child, I was taught to take turns. It was one of the first civic lessons many of us learned: share space, make room for others, understand that leadership and opportunity belong to a community, not an individual.

Somewhere along the way, too many of our political leaders forgot that lesson.

Across Hawaiʻi and the nation, we are increasingly governed by leaders well into their 70s and 80s who refuse to relinquish power, refuse to cultivate succession, and refuse to acknowledge that leadership is not ownership.

In Washington, the average age of congressional leadership continues to climb. Here in Hawaiʻi, many of our elected officials are older than the mandatory retirement age imposed upon Hawaiʻi Supreme Court justices.

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That fact alone should force us to ask an uncomfortable question: If we recognize that advanced age can limit the effectiveness of judges entrusted with interpreting the law, why do we pretend it poses no challenge for legislators tasked with shaping the future?

This is not an argument against elders. Hawaiʻi’s cultural respect for kūpuna is one of our greatest strengths. Elders carry wisdom, memory and continuity. They connect us to place, to genealogy, to struggle and survival. But respect is not the same thing as permanent political entitlement.

In healthy communities, elders are supposed to prepare the next generation to lead — not barricade the doors behind them.

For many younger people in Hawaiʻi, what we are witnessing feels less like stewardship and more like betrayal.

Today’s younger generations inherited an economy where housing has become unattainable, where wealth inequality grows wider every year, and where many working families still lack basic protections like paid family leave. We inherited environmental crises that leaders acknowledged for decades while failing to act with the urgency those crises demanded.

Our reefs are dying. Our freshwater systems are under stress. Our food security remains dangerously fragile. Climate change threatens every aspect of island life.

And yet the people making many of these decisions are individuals who will not live long enough to experience the full consequences of their inaction.

That reality creates a dangerous imbalance in democratic accountability. The people who will live with the future the longest often have the least power to shape it.

Democracy depends on renewal. A political system that cannot regenerate leadership becomes stagnant. It becomes disconnected from emerging realities, technologies, values and crises. It protects itself instead of adapting. It mistakes longevity for wisdom and power retention for public service.

Leadership should never become a lifetime possession.

The irony is that true elders understand this deeply. Indigenous traditions across the world recognize that leadership is cyclical. One generation’s responsibility is to prepare the conditions for the next generation to thrive. A leader’s legacy should not be measured by how long they held power, but by whether they left behind stronger people, stronger institutions, and a livable future.

Too many of our leaders are failing that test.

The solution is not mandatory age caps alone, though perhaps those conversations deserve more attention. The deeper solution is cultural. We need to rebuild the expectation that leadership includes succession.

That stepping aside can be an act of wisdom. That mentoring emerging leaders is part of the job. That democracy requires circulation, not accumulation.

Our elders taught many of us to take turns. Maybe it’s time they remembered the lesson too.