What an odd comment. The article is not claiming that these people are the most influential people in America, just that these are the most influential octogen

What an odd comment. The article is not claiming that these people are the most influential people in America, just that these are the most influential octogenarians. The same article could be written for any age range. And commenting about how "scary" it is that there are influential teens or 40somethings would be equally strange. And perhaps there's value in generational diversity? The first half of the comment seems to just serve as a conclusion drawn from the premise in the last line, which doesn't have a ton to do with the article, other than the fact that 3 of the listed people are politicians. But then, there are thousands of politicians across the country, and it stands to reason that longer tenure tends to be paired with a sense of influence. Of course, the article also has activists and donors media types, and so on. But, again, these kinds of people tend to have influence, and are found at many ages.