Like I’ll put it this way. In am related to a career politician they were in governance for over 30 years of my life. This shouldn’t fuckin happen! We should have more turnover of our governance than that. No one let’s go of power until they are good and god damned ready, and that’s why the system of power needs to include a way that the power lets go of the individual, and after a certain point makes attaining that power impossible.
Edit:shit slipped on the post button before finishing the thought.
Why? If they are good at it and the people they serve like what they're doing, why?
And please make sure to tie your response directly to their age, because if your answer is something like "the political machine! Entrenched power!" then those are problems with political machines and power structures, not age.
No other field is like this. If a scientist is told "you have done excellent work for the past 30 years, super insightful, best we've ever seen... but now you're in your 50s, so fuck off and die so we can hire a 25 year old" we consider this to be unacceptable. Public service shouldn't be the one place where ageism is allowed.
I don’t think it’s necessarily ageism to be concerned about capacity to handle the job when we are talking about people who are 80+, who are on the cusp of the human ability to function and are in some of the most critical, high-stress jobs in the country…
I mean ageism is one thing. Someone rejects an application to be a dental hygienist from a 50 year old because they want a 25 year old, yeah that is terrible. Someone rejects an application to be a dental hygienist because the person is 90, then its reasonable to assume that more than simply age is starting to come into play in the hiring decision.
It's definitely fair to consider the capacity of someone to handle the job, but that should apply just as much to a 50 year old with early onset dementia or a 40 year old who's just kind of stupid.
If someone can do the job, they can do the job. A person isn't a statistical average of their demographic, they're a person.
The rural south is statistically much more likely to be racist. Should we ban the rural south from running for president? Of course not, because logistics aside, the problem isn't being from the rural south, the problem is being racist, no matter how strong the correlation.
We are a capable people, we can do better than to just write off entire demographics because we can't figure out how to solve the ACTUAL problems.
I think this issue is also dancing around the one I pointed out in the OP: the distinction with age related physical decline and age-related mental decline is important, but the public doesn't see it. Trump walking weird is seen as more of a problem then the things he says - because to some extent, when your message is "hate and vitriol" you don't actually need to include a lot of challenging content.
But the other component of that is just...being president, or any politician isn't a demanding job in the same way that being a surgeon is, for example. However you set it up, an issue with being a surgeon is that if you're doing surgery we're talking about time-sensitive issues on the matter of seconds, and manual dexterity. There are plenty of ordinary people who have problems with both these things, and it's why they're not surgeons.
There are kind of...vanishingly few situations where that matters and they're so extreme to the point that it doesn't matter. Like, is the fitness of a candidate really at it's core based on "they will promptly and immediately launch a retaliatory nuclear strike?" which is sort of the only one I can think of.
a lot of people in their 70s and 80s really should have their keys taken away from them, but they refuse to acknowledge anything is different and keep a vice grip on to them. even though they put themselves and others in danger.
again, it's why I think the military is right to have a mandatory retirement age.
Except for the commander-in-chief, the guy with the nuke codes.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldnt run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
So you're saying that if I refuse to vote for Joe Biden on the grounds that I believe his mental faculties are declining, and will instead vote 3rd party this year, you and everyone else on this forum will be chill with that?
Lacking incumbency and a dedicated civil service, the institution of term limits means that legislation becomes even more captured by special interest groups than it currently is.
I don't generally go in for anything that tells people they're not allowed to vote for the person they want. Term limits, age restrictions, birth origin, whatever. Doesn't mean I think voting for an 81 year old with Kamala Harris as the back up is great for the whole Project.
Lot of stuff is this way. I think when someone spends 40 years in office it fucks with them in ways we do not want, more often than not, but term limits aren't a good solution. Can't really regulate your way out of the concept of greater civic responsibility.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
I'm not saying our system works great. It's full of problems! I just don't think an age limit will solve any of them. For every Feinstein who gets age-limited out, you're just as likely to get a perfectly good politician aged out and replaced by someone shitty.
Also, aging out politicians seems likely to result in the outgoing politician just trying to engineer their replacement, like Kennedy did with Gorsuch. What makes you think the old stodgy anti-progressive dem isn't going to try to set up an equally anti-progressive replacement, especially if they're grumpy about getting aged out?
Because without actual incumbency we have a race on our hands. Incumbency fucks election math. The parties already try to engineer replacements. Like half the people that run for offices are people the party taps for the position. The thing you’re worried about there is already a standard feature of our system.
I'm not saying that party machinery is not an issue.
I'm saying that codification of ageism does not solve the problem.
Also, what you're arguing against isn't even age - it's incumbency. If you don't like incumbency, then implement term limits. Because your argument works much better against a 55 year old who's been in office since they were 25 than a 70 year old who's been there for two terms.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Everyone does age differently and I don't think there's any clean way to set a hard age limit that doesn't filter out people that are perfectly capable of doing the job well
But politicians being in office for extremely long spans of time seems pretty self evidently bad to me
Both because yes, old age tends to come with lots of nasty physical and mental side effects that degrade their ability to do their job well, and also because in many cases, we're talking about people who were elected during a certain moment, whose tenure has long outlived that moment, whose viewpoints and ideology no longer suit the current moment. But they can remain in office because they have name recognition, because they have experience with the system and friends in all the right places. If your career in national politics started in 1994, I don't really care if you're 60 years old or 90 years old, if you haven't evolved with the times then I don't really want you around anymore.
There's no reason an elderly politician CAN'T evolve with the times, but it happens infrequently enough that I'd gladly sacrifice the few that do to get rid of the ones who don't. Move into a mentor role and help new voices get elected! Advise younger representatives on how to get their agendas passed!
The benefits of SOME kinda term limits seem very clear to me, and seem to very easily outweigh the drawbacks.
I don't think that age should be a quantifiable limiting factor, but it's clear that many people in both parties are simply interested in building golden tombs for themselves. There should be criteria, and those criteria should probably be more regularly reviewed the older a person gets, similar to drivers license. But, just like a person could, potentially, be a safe driver at age 100 and should then be allowed to continue driving, if a person is healthy and has control of all mental faculties and wants to continue to run/hold office, they should be able to until they aren't anymore.
Some sort of standard procedure to measure cognition and (non-political) competency, with a mechanism in place where a failure to do so (either by not achieving a passing grade or a refusal to submit to evaluation) results in the ability to remove that person from office without a political majority/supermajority. but this would definitely be DOA since there's no way that the people being evaluated would volunteer to do so, and would be immediately rendered inert by the system inevitably devolving into an immediate rubber stamping
EDIT: And while it's hard to argue against "holding office in the US for decades fucks you up mentally in observable ways" that's a separate issue and one that I don't really think should have a mechanism to force someone out, other than elections.
There's no reason an elderly politician CAN'T evolve with the times, but it happens infrequently enough that I'd gladly sacrifice the few that do to get rid of the ones who don't. Move into a mentor role and help new voices get elected! Advise younger representatives on how to get their agendas passed!
Anybody in their 70s and 80s who have managed to keep their finger on the pulse of the nation would have little difficulty finding up-and-coming politicians who will value their advice.
The voters are always free to opt for younger candidates in primaries but they tend to prefer older.
Biden was chosen over several younger candidates, primarily due to his name recognition: and name recognition comes with a long career, and a long career comes with age.
Republicans, too, have rejected Gen-Xers Cruz and Haley, preferring 77-year-old Trump.
I don't think that age should be a quantifiable limiting factor, but it's clear that many people in both parties are simply interested in building golden tombs for themselves. There should be criteria, and those criteria should probably be more regularly reviewed the older a person gets, similar to drivers license. But, just like a person could, potentially, be a safe driver at age 100 and should then be allowed to continue driving, if a person is healthy and has control of all mental faculties and wants to continue to run/hold office, they should be able to until they aren't anymore.
Some sort of standard procedure to measure cognition and (non-political) competency, with a mechanism in place where a failure to do so (either by not achieving a passing grade or a refusal to submit to evaluation) results in the ability to remove that person from office without a political majority/supermajority. but this would definitely be DOA since there's no way that the people being evaluated would volunteer to do so, and would be immediately rendered inert by the system inevitably devolving into an immediate rubber stamping
EDIT: And while it's hard to argue against "holding office in the US for decades fucks you up mentally in observable ways" that's a separate issue and one that I don't really think should have a mechanism to force someone out, other than elections.
The problem with the idea of cognition tests as disqualifiers, is that they're only currently effective because they don't create leverage over core levers of political power. The very second that the results can leverage political power, the people administering them, the office's and institutions become political and will be manipulated to that end.
Something can be so important that in fact we can't implement what would otherwise be "reasonable" safety measures for it because of that - i.e. a related example would be that I would argue democratic vote counting is so important it has to be inefficient (hand counted, by a large number of people employed to do that).
The voters are always free to opt for younger candidates in primaries but they tend to prefer older.
Biden was chosen over several younger candidates, primarily due to his name recognition: and name recognition comes with a long career, and a long career comes with age.
Republicans, too, have rejected Gen-Xers Cruz and Haley, preferring 77-year-old Trump.
Do you suppose they chose those candidates because they like that they're old, or do you think possibly the fact that both of them had the biggest name recognition (and in Trump's case, the most on-screen charisma) among their respective fields may have played a factor
I am baffled by the repeated assertion in this thread that if a person wasn't fit for the job then the voters simply wouldn't vote for them. That's just not how anything works.
I don't think that age should be a quantifiable limiting factor, but it's clear that many people in both parties are simply interested in building golden tombs for themselves. There should be criteria, and those criteria should probably be more regularly reviewed the older a person gets, similar to drivers license. But, just like a person could, potentially, be a safe driver at age 100 and should then be allowed to continue driving, if a person is healthy and has control of all mental faculties and wants to continue to run/hold office, they should be able to until they aren't anymore.
Some sort of standard procedure to measure cognition and (non-political) competency, with a mechanism in place where a failure to do so (either by not achieving a passing grade or a refusal to submit to evaluation) results in the ability to remove that person from office without a political majority/supermajority. but this would definitely be DOA since there's no way that the people being evaluated would volunteer to do so, and would be immediately rendered inert by the system inevitably devolving into an immediate rubber stamping
EDIT: And while it's hard to argue against "holding office in the US for decades fucks you up mentally in observable ways" that's a separate issue and one that I don't really think should have a mechanism to force someone out, other than elections.
The problem with the idea of cognition tests as disqualifiers, is that they're only currently effective because they don't create leverage over core levers of political power. The very second that the results can leverage political power, the people administering them, the office's and institutions become political and will be manipulated to that end.
Something can be so important that in fact we can't implement what would otherwise be "reasonable" safety measures for it because of that - i.e. a related example would be that I would argue democratic vote counting is so important it has to be inefficient (hand counted, by a large number of people employed to do that).
How effective can something be if it doesn't affect anything
The voters are always free to opt for younger candidates in primaries but they tend to prefer older.
Biden was chosen over several younger candidates, primarily due to his name recognition: and name recognition comes with a long career, and a long career comes with age.
Biden wasn't "chosen" by young people until the field had cleared out.
Okay so without name recognition from a long career/exposure, and without a party machine to boost/promote a young candidate, how, precisely, do these people show up? We're specifically eliminating "people who have been around long enough that they are recognized/have a reputation" as well as "organizations to promote people who otherwise lack recognition/a reputation".
And even if they do show up, what happens if people go "nah, I like the last one, she did a good job and I want more of that". Will people who currently can't be arsed to vote at all suddenly appear and vote specifically for these new unknowns? What if they don't? What if they vote for the (heaven forfend) old person?
Okay so without name recognition from a long career/exposure, and without a party machine to boost/promote a young candidate, how, precisely, do these people show up? We're specifically eliminating "people who have been around long enough that they are recognized/have a reputation" as well as "organizations to promote people who otherwise lack recognition/a reputation".
And even if they do show up, what happens if people go "nah, I like the last one, she did a good job and I want more of that". Will people who currently can't be arsed to vote at all suddenly appear and vote specifically for these new unknowns? What if they don't? What if they vote for the (heaven forfend) old person?
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Is there any situation where we ever say " We need an octogenarian to solve this complex series of problems! "
People should plain not be allowed to run if there is no chance they are alive to see the consequences of their votes
Y'know, I was gonna plant this tree so people could sit under it later, but since I won't see it bear fruit, guess not. Fuck them kids.
Pretty metaphor, please explain in detail how planting a tree has the same level of impact as passing laws that will affect millions if not billions of people.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
12% of "young" voters in WA turned out in an odd-year election where, gosh, we had city council, school board, and a number of other actually relevant issues on the ballot.
I invite you to guess how many "youth driven leftist" candidates were on the ballot. Please note our ballot regularly includes Goodspaceguy (that is his name), a man who believes in roughly nothing but space and "government bad", and Mike the Mover, a man named Mike who is a Mover, who also believes "government bad". They have been on every ballot for my entire life.
The "movement" appears to be lacking moving parts, and cannot be declared like Michael Scott declares bankruptcy. Vote in local elections. Run in local elections. Hold office, gain experience, move up. Engage.
A fucking bartender from NYC with a performance degree did it. She kicks ass. Where the fuck's everyone else? Is "the machine" keeping people out of the city council election? School board, dogcatcher, port authority?
Edit: And we don't have party primaries, even, so it's not that. (We're going to ignore the issues with top-two jungle primaries for a moment.)
I would simply insist that candidates I dislike were not actually elected or whatever as a way of affirming that if we disbarred the particularly bad candidates that we would get better candidates through the non-electoral process
Like yeah elections suck. This isnt a thread about why the Democratic party or US politics sucks.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Its interesting in a way because before recently a president as old as Biden or Trump was unthinkable. Regan was 74 when he ran for his second term and was considered unusually old, the median age on inauguration of presidents when considering all 40 is a spry 55. Teddy Roosevelt was 42!
Historically someone like Buttegeig would have been considered a lot more appropriate as a presidential candidate as far as age.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Yes, clearly the minority of the party should have won.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Yes, clearly the minority of the party should have won.
This clap back doesn’t change that it didn’t come down to a wide primary where we got a broad choice it came down to patronage and back room dealing with everyone that told him he needed to step down because he was too old folded and gave their supporters to him in exchange for appointments in his regime.
We say "you shouldn't be too old when in office". Okay, sure, fine, but this runs into "it's good to have experience when holding office". I don't think either of those things is too controversial, right? One ought not have one's first go at things be say, Prime Minister or President. Congress, state rep, something, you know. Get used to "how being a politician works", "how government works"; it's a job after all, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say "one ought to have experience at a lower level before moving up to a higher level".
We now have a conflict between gaining experience at a lower level and holding position at a higher level. Do we sacrifice how much experience we want someone to have? I really don't think that's a good idea, but then we're saying "okay, you need to gain experience in doing your job and being a public servant, but you then only get to use it for a very short time 'cause you're too old now". This seems dumb.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
If sanders was serious about protecting his political gains he would be trying to find a stable of young politicians to take his place. He should be trying to find someone to run against him in Vermont.
Like if I was an aging politician I would be trying to find my competitors in the primary. Like actively searching for someone that’s in line with my ideals that can win the popularity contest against me by generating excitement for their candidacy.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
Young people liked Sanders better but I think they liked his name recognition too. He had serious rep as leftist since the ‘60s.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
12% of "young" voters in WA turned out in an odd-year election where, gosh, we had city council, school board, and a number of other actually relevant issues on the ballot.
I invite you to guess how many "youth driven leftist" candidates were on the ballot. Please note our ballot regularly includes Goodspaceguy (that is his name), a man who believes in roughly nothing but space and "government bad", and Mike the Mover, a man named Mike who is a Mover, who also believes "government bad". They have been on every ballot for my entire life.
The "movement" appears to be lacking moving parts, and cannot be declared like Michael Scott declares bankruptcy. Vote in local elections. Run in local elections. Hold office, gain experience, move up. Engage.
A fucking bartender from NYC with a performance degree did it. She kicks ass. Where the fuck's everyone else? Is "the machine" keeping people out of the city council election? School board, dogcatcher, port authority?
Edit: And we don't have party primaries, even, so it's not that. (We're going to ignore the issues with top-two jungle primaries for a moment.)
There does seem to be a notion in younger circles that building up experience is either unimportant or actively undesirable, and the proper way to do things is to show up on the national stage and demand to be put in charge. And so you get your Beto's and your Buttigieg's who have charisma but no experience showing up to run for president as, respectively, a two-term congressman and failed senatorial candidate, and a mayor.
Meanwhile, after AOC won her seat in 2018, you saw a lot of people wanting her to throw her hat into the presidential ring in 2020.
I think Obama taught a lot of people the wrong lessons, as a comparative neophyte who took the presidency, and wasn't to repeat that to regain that sweet sweet hopium. And even Obama had bothered to become US senator.
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I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
No he shouldn’t be running for president either.
And he should have retired from office a decade ago, yes?
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
We say "you shouldn't be too old when in office". Okay, sure, fine, but this runs into "it's good to have experience when holding office". I don't think either of those things is too controversial, right? One ought not have one's first go at things be say, Prime Minister or President. Congress, state rep, something, you know. Get used to "how being a politician works", "how government works"; it's a job after all, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say "one ought to have experience at a lower level before moving up to a higher level".
We now have a conflict between gaining experience at a lower level and holding position at a higher level. Do we sacrifice how much experience we want someone to have? I really don't think that's a good idea, but then we're saying "okay, you need to gain experience in doing your job and being a public servant, but you then only get to use it for a very short time 'cause you're too old now". This seems dumb.
Looking at history it would seem reasonable to consider the amount of experience someone might have between their late forties to early sixties to be appropriate.
I mean considering that Regan was considered to be just as much of an anomaly at 69 as Kennedy or Roosevelt at 43 and 42, and yet in the last two elections every serious candidate (Bernie, Trump, Biden, Hillary) was older than Reagan and in this election every serious candidate is over 78, it seems something has seriously gone askew somewhere.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
If sanders was serious about protecting his political gains he would be trying to find a stable of young politicians to take his place. He should be trying to find someone to run against him in Vermont.
Like if I was an aging politician I would be trying to find my competitors in the primary. Like actively searching for someone that’s in line with my ideals that can win the popularity contest against me by generating excitement for their candidacy.
Wait, so the problem is that old people with old opinions entrench their power, and so you want the old person to find someone with his same ideals and groom them to take his place?
Shouldn't the solution be for the old person to fuck off and shut up so times can a-change?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Biden was outright chosen by the party almost as clearly as Clinton was.
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
No he shouldn’t be running for president either.
And he should have retired from office a decade ago, yes?
Yup, he’s 82 and still Senator. While it’s generally easier for a Senator to do their job in old age than a President, there are limits to that, as Feinstein found out.
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I think this issue is also dancing around the one I pointed out in the OP: the distinction with age related physical decline and age-related mental decline is important, but the public doesn't see it. Trump walking weird is seen as more of a problem then the things he says - because to some extent, when your message is "hate and vitriol" you don't actually need to include a lot of challenging content.
But the other component of that is just...being president, or any politician isn't a demanding job in the same way that being a surgeon is, for example. However you set it up, an issue with being a surgeon is that if you're doing surgery we're talking about time-sensitive issues on the matter of seconds, and manual dexterity. There are plenty of ordinary people who have problems with both these things, and it's why they're not surgeons.
There are kind of...vanishingly few situations where that matters and they're so extreme to the point that it doesn't matter. Like, is the fitness of a candidate really at it's core based on "they will promptly and immediately launch a retaliatory nuclear strike?" which is sort of the only one I can think of.
People should plain not be allowed to run if there is no chance they are alive to see the consequences of their votes
Except for the commander-in-chief, the guy with the nuke codes.
Do you live in Wyoming or North Dakota?
Lot of stuff is this way. I think when someone spends 40 years in office it fucks with them in ways we do not want, more often than not, but term limits aren't a good solution. Can't really regulate your way out of the concept of greater civic responsibility.
I'm not saying that party machinery is not an issue.
I'm saying that codification of ageism does not solve the problem.
Also, what you're arguing against isn't even age - it's incumbency. If you don't like incumbency, then implement term limits. Because your argument works much better against a 55 year old who's been in office since they were 25 than a 70 year old who's been there for two terms.
But politicians being in office for extremely long spans of time seems pretty self evidently bad to me
Both because yes, old age tends to come with lots of nasty physical and mental side effects that degrade their ability to do their job well, and also because in many cases, we're talking about people who were elected during a certain moment, whose tenure has long outlived that moment, whose viewpoints and ideology no longer suit the current moment. But they can remain in office because they have name recognition, because they have experience with the system and friends in all the right places. If your career in national politics started in 1994, I don't really care if you're 60 years old or 90 years old, if you haven't evolved with the times then I don't really want you around anymore.
There's no reason an elderly politician CAN'T evolve with the times, but it happens infrequently enough that I'd gladly sacrifice the few that do to get rid of the ones who don't. Move into a mentor role and help new voices get elected! Advise younger representatives on how to get their agendas passed!
The benefits of SOME kinda term limits seem very clear to me, and seem to very easily outweigh the drawbacks.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Some sort of standard procedure to measure cognition and (non-political) competency, with a mechanism in place where a failure to do so (either by not achieving a passing grade or a refusal to submit to evaluation) results in the ability to remove that person from office without a political majority/supermajority. but this would definitely be DOA since there's no way that the people being evaluated would volunteer to do so, and would be immediately rendered inert by the system inevitably devolving into an immediate rubber stamping
EDIT: And while it's hard to argue against "holding office in the US for decades fucks you up mentally in observable ways" that's a separate issue and one that I don't really think should have a mechanism to force someone out, other than elections.
Anybody in their 70s and 80s who have managed to keep their finger on the pulse of the nation would have little difficulty finding up-and-coming politicians who will value their advice.
Biden was chosen over several younger candidates, primarily due to his name recognition: and name recognition comes with a long career, and a long career comes with age.
Republicans, too, have rejected Gen-Xers Cruz and Haley, preferring 77-year-old Trump.
The problem with the idea of cognition tests as disqualifiers, is that they're only currently effective because they don't create leverage over core levers of political power. The very second that the results can leverage political power, the people administering them, the office's and institutions become political and will be manipulated to that end.
Something can be so important that in fact we can't implement what would otherwise be "reasonable" safety measures for it because of that - i.e. a related example would be that I would argue democratic vote counting is so important it has to be inefficient (hand counted, by a large number of people employed to do that).
Y'know, I was gonna plant this tree so people could sit under it later, but since I won't see it bear fruit, guess not. Fuck them kids.
Do you suppose they chose those candidates because they like that they're old, or do you think possibly the fact that both of them had the biggest name recognition (and in Trump's case, the most on-screen charisma) among their respective fields may have played a factor
I am baffled by the repeated assertion in this thread that if a person wasn't fit for the job then the voters simply wouldn't vote for them. That's just not how anything works.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
How effective can something be if it doesn't affect anything
Biden wasn't "chosen" by young people until the field had cleared out.
And even if they do show up, what happens if people go "nah, I like the last one, she did a good job and I want more of that". Will people who currently can't be arsed to vote at all suddenly appear and vote specifically for these new unknowns? What if they don't? What if they vote for the (heaven forfend) old person?
We're not doing this yet again. The first damn post says we're not doing this yet again.
Yeah gosh
The candidates might have to like, campaign
What a nightmare
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Then folks should stop saying we chose Biden like we had any fuckin options. All the options dropped out and gave Biden the seat because they realized if they stayed in he, and their combined centrism, was vulnerable from a mostly youth driven leftist movement.
And they directly did it because it was this old guy’s turn and they all got kickbacks for dropping out.
Pretty metaphor, please explain in detail how planting a tree has the same level of impact as passing laws that will affect millions if not billions of people.
12% of "young" voters in WA turned out in an odd-year election where, gosh, we had city council, school board, and a number of other actually relevant issues on the ballot.
I invite you to guess how many "youth driven leftist" candidates were on the ballot. Please note our ballot regularly includes Goodspaceguy (that is his name), a man who believes in roughly nothing but space and "government bad", and Mike the Mover, a man named Mike who is a Mover, who also believes "government bad". They have been on every ballot for my entire life.
The "movement" appears to be lacking moving parts, and cannot be declared like Michael Scott declares bankruptcy. Vote in local elections. Run in local elections. Hold office, gain experience, move up. Engage.
A fucking bartender from NYC with a performance degree did it. She kicks ass. Where the fuck's everyone else? Is "the machine" keeping people out of the city council election? School board, dogcatcher, port authority?
Edit: And we don't have party primaries, even, so it's not that. (We're going to ignore the issues with top-two jungle primaries for a moment.)
Like yeah elections suck. This isnt a thread about why the Democratic party or US politics sucks.
Its interesting in a way because before recently a president as old as Biden or Trump was unthinkable. Regan was 74 when he ran for his second term and was considered unusually old, the median age on inauguration of presidents when considering all 40 is a spry 55. Teddy Roosevelt was 42!
Historically someone like Buttegeig would have been considered a lot more appropriate as a presidential candidate as far as age.
Yes, clearly the minority of the party should have won.
Sanders is older than Biden. So is "old people shouldn't be running" your actual grievance or are you just using it as cover.
No he shouldn’t be running for president either.
Should either Biden or Sanders have run in 2020?
This clap back doesn’t change that it didn’t come down to a wide primary where we got a broad choice it came down to patronage and back room dealing with everyone that told him he needed to step down because he was too old folded and gave their supporters to him in exchange for appointments in his regime.
We say "you shouldn't be too old when in office". Okay, sure, fine, but this runs into "it's good to have experience when holding office". I don't think either of those things is too controversial, right? One ought not have one's first go at things be say, Prime Minister or President. Congress, state rep, something, you know. Get used to "how being a politician works", "how government works"; it's a job after all, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say "one ought to have experience at a lower level before moving up to a higher level".
We now have a conflict between gaining experience at a lower level and holding position at a higher level. Do we sacrifice how much experience we want someone to have? I really don't think that's a good idea, but then we're saying "okay, you need to gain experience in doing your job and being a public servant, but you then only get to use it for a very short time 'cause you're too old now". This seems dumb.
Nope.
Like if I was an aging politician I would be trying to find my competitors in the primary. Like actively searching for someone that’s in line with my ideals that can win the popularity contest against me by generating excitement for their candidacy.
Young people liked Sanders better but I think they liked his name recognition too. He had serious rep as leftist since the ‘60s.
There does seem to be a notion in younger circles that building up experience is either unimportant or actively undesirable, and the proper way to do things is to show up on the national stage and demand to be put in charge. And so you get your Beto's and your Buttigieg's who have charisma but no experience showing up to run for president as, respectively, a two-term congressman and failed senatorial candidate, and a mayor.
Meanwhile, after AOC won her seat in 2018, you saw a lot of people wanting her to throw her hat into the presidential ring in 2020.
I think Obama taught a lot of people the wrong lessons, as a comparative neophyte who took the presidency, and wasn't to repeat that to regain that sweet sweet hopium. And even Obama had bothered to become US senator.
And he should have retired from office a decade ago, yes?
Looking at history it would seem reasonable to consider the amount of experience someone might have between their late forties to early sixties to be appropriate.
I mean considering that Regan was considered to be just as much of an anomaly at 69 as Kennedy or Roosevelt at 43 and 42, and yet in the last two elections every serious candidate (Bernie, Trump, Biden, Hillary) was older than Reagan and in this election every serious candidate is over 78, it seems something has seriously gone askew somewhere.
Wait, so the problem is that old people with old opinions entrench their power, and so you want the old person to find someone with his same ideals and groom them to take his place?
Shouldn't the solution be for the old person to fuck off and shut up so times can a-change?
Yup, he’s 82 and still Senator. While it’s generally easier for a Senator to do their job in old age than a President, there are limits to that, as Feinstein found out.