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Sitting in Congress is still an elite job because it comes with near-infinite status. It is not just "I worked in Congress". "My father worked in Congress." "My grandfather worked in Congress." Unless you are extremely execrable you permanently graduate in life to a higher class of network and social connection. And even particularly odious congressmen can tap into status networks reserved for them. If you're too much of a pariah to go to Davos there's probably a Billionaire in Montana who loves your brand of fiery stock slop. Lauren Boebert was a welfare baby of a single mom who dropped out of high school, she's probably one of the stupidest and most infamous members of Congress, and presumably her four sons can open basically any doors they want to.
The actual work of being a Congressmen probably sucks, but mostly for tolerable reasons. The average Congressman will not exercise meaningful political power and might feel frustrated by gridlock and commute. This is probably why so many quit early. But you couldn't really solve this with increased pay or benefits. It's their own fault that Congress is so impotent. On a personal level, the average Congressman has many opportunities to help individual Americans. They can pass on military appointments and constituent services, meet with citizen-activist-lobbyists, "draw attention" to anything they choose via social media, etc. etc.
I think the implication is that Congressional turnover is bad because experienced legislators can wield power more effectively. I'm not so sure. I don't think turnover is a problem unless it reaches extremely dysfunctional levels (too much or too little). The problem is more that Congress continues to castrate itself, mostly for political reasons that are theoretically within their control. No one is making them wear the cock cage except themselves, they just prefer that the Executive Branch is responsible for everything important because it insulates themselves from the worst controversies of dealing with the public.
Most Congressmen when you meet them are somewhat decent people, they're just often much stupider than you'd expect and way in over their heads and totally captured by the DC social world. Maybe you want the Department of Education abolished, that sounds crazy to them so they won't ever even consider it. You don't know how an appropriations committee works, you don't know what a motion is or how one is advanced, you just have crazy political ideas like Medicare for All. If you knew how the sausage was made like they did then you'd surely agree with what they're doing, and sometimes they have to patronizingly protect you from your own crazy ideas because you don't know "how it really works".
I do understand that for almost all jobs and careers and positions, non-regrettable attrition is a thing. But as pointed out in the background context of the video, the point is that for Fong: he believes the loss of Sam Graves and Gary Peters is regrettable attrition. I suppose the bigger underlying questions are:
Anyway, I do completely with what you say about how being a member of congress is definitely a huge step up in status.
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