regarding voter registration... my position is that it's a terrible idea altogether. Everybody should be automatically eligible to vote wherever they live, by virtue of being a citizen, with no registration required, in all the elections happening in that voting district.
But how do you know someone is a citizen and living in the specific voting district. The problem is that we generally do not have any central database or registry that actually has that information.
Tax filings and DMV records would be the two easiest ways, saying "its too hard to figure out where everyone lives" is a laughable excuse these days.
I think some sort of voter registration is important, because you DO need to know where people are, and things like DMV records can be inaccurate. Automatic registration when you turn 18 in the district your parents live in could work, and any time you file a change of address form your registration is auto updated and a form gets mailed to you that says "Hey, looks like you just moved, let us know if this is incorrect" or something.
Basically something that requires the least effort possible for the voter.
And fuck off with disenfranchisement of felons.
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.
Voter registration is one issue, turnout of registered voters is another. Youth not being registered is a legitimate problem, but if they also, once registered, don't even bother when a ballot literally shows up on their doorstep, accompanied by a stack (local/national/state) of voter pamphlets with full platforms, statements, links to websites, and candidate information including headshots and contact info (and again, 12.7% of registered 18-24 y/o in 2023 in WA) then that's not an issue addressable by easing registration. They are registered, they just can't be arsed in roughly 86% of cases.
In 2023 total turnout in WA was only 36%
Getting youth turnout to half of the average is pretty good imo.
And go back to 2020, 84% total turnout (about as good as you'd expect without mandatory voting) with 72% of registered 18-24s voting.
Mail in ballots work.
Getting people to vote at all in non presidential elections is hard.
Aioua on
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
regarding voter registration... my position is that it's a terrible idea altogether. Everybody should be automatically eligible to vote wherever they live, by virtue of being a citizen, with no registration required, in all the elections happening in that voting district.
But how do you know someone is a citizen and living in the specific voting district. The problem is that we generally do not have any central database or registry that actually has that information.
This is a technology problem, we don't solve it by adding an extra step in for people who want to exercise the most fundamental right they possess in a democracy.
off the top of my head, a state could:
- take DL data, IRS data, SS data, and medicare / medicaid data, normalize it. There's your baseline.
- offer a couple of tiers of ID at the polls: let's say that if you show up in person, then at minimum you get to vote for the statewide races just by virtue of being in the building. District races, you have to show you live there if you're not in the normalized dataset that includes your address.
- provisional ballots if you can't demonstrate who you are at all
- free ID for everyone who wants one
it's true that you do actually need to know who somebody is and where they live in order to accurately do voting for local and district races. And it's also true that there are spots all over the country (like along every state border) where just having your ass in the building is no easy guarantee that you live in the state. Texarkana is going to have challenges. New England needs a solution. You can't just rely on geography.
But again, this is a technology problem, we shouldn't start solving it by saying "no one gets to vote at all unless they ask nicely first". That's bullshit.
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.
Just for the sake of argument, let’s say Bernie Sanders had won the primary in 2020 and then somehow managed to win the general.
Would we be talking so much about his age? (As a reminder, he’s 82, a year older than Biden)
Do we think he would have voluntarily stepped down after a single term?
He’s a year older, but more cogent than either Trump or Biden are while speaking at the moment.
It’s hard to say, being president ages you pretty hard. Look at Obama at the end of his term.
Biden was significantly more coherent while running even in 2020 compared to now.
Impossible to say on whether Bernie would have kept it to a single term. I don’t believe he mentioned a single term in the primaries and it didn’t start in Biden’s rhetoric until later in the primary/general.
If Bernie had won I think we likely would be seeing a more aggressive primary in progress now though.
After watching it the John Stewart monologue I think it was pretty evenhanded.
Both aren’t really fit for the presidency and with the stakes as high as they are with Trump, a candidate of Biden’s age and limitations (and candidly, the public’s concern of the above) is an incredible risk.
+5
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
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 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.
I would say that I think this is in fact largely a problem with political machines and power structures, and we're only focusing on age because the age of politicians and supreme court justices and so on has become the loudest of the coal mine canaries.
People are too old to govern when the problems they claim they're trying to fix today are the problems their generation caused decades ago. Especially if they themselves are the ones who caused those problems because they've been in office so long. For a good example: Biden and student loans. Sure he's "pushing" for forgiveness but I've not forgotten that motherfucker is the one who caused the problem in the first place by making student loans unable to be discharged through bankruptcy, unlike every other loan in existence.
+7
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Why? If they are good at it and the people they serve like what they're doing, why?
Specifically on the ageism front, it's because people who get into government become insulated to the rest of the world over time. It's why we saw Pelosi doing her best Clintonian-era governance act 20 years after it was relevant.
They are simply out of touch, and will continue to serve as an out-of-touch politician because they appeal enough of a plurality of pensioners to get them to win the nom and cruise on name recognition/hyperpartisanship, regardless of their actual competence.
There are exceptions, but they're all outliers. The longer someones in office, the longer they're separated from what living in this country is really like, the less they become relevant to modern society.
With age comes mental decline, it's unavoidable.
jungleroomx on
+4
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
So like.
Don't vote for him.
This isn't an age issue, it's a policy issue. Are you saying that if he was only 50 and was trying to fix a problem he had created only 15 years ago, it would be more acceptable? No, you'd still be pissed. Because the issue isn't his age, it's the things he did in the past.
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.
The goal of our society should be to have people work become successful and then retire to enjoy the remainder of their lives.
Deciding to continue to work well into your twilight years is a failure of the society.
I disagree. Being required to work well into your twilight years to survive is a failure of our society. But some people like their work, and want to continue doing it. Lots of very successful actors continue working into old age, because they love what they do.
Limiting someone just because they passed an arbitrary number is either ageism or generationalism. I am perfectly ok with setting additional testing that must be done for older people to engage in dangerous activities, like driving or becoming President. I am not ok with saying "You hit arbitrary mark X, and must now retire." Boomers are already outnumbered by younger generations in the House, and that gap will only continue to widen as time continues its inexorable march forward.
As far as older people wielding the most power, that's an entirely unsurprising consequence of the fact that they've had more time to accumulate power. A professional politician who is 50 will have spent ~30 years accumulating power. At 80, that person will now have had 60 years.
For anyone else that might find this graph confusing and weird to read but also very important info:
67% of the Senate is 60 or older and 44% of the House is 60 or older.
To everyone worried about the logistics of automatic voter registration, I am pretty sure almost all of Europe has that figured out for years. Also Australia? Also many countries that are not us? But I am not 100% certain.
+7
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
This isn't an age issue, it's a policy issue. Are you saying that if he was only 50 and was trying to fix a problem he had created only 15 years ago, it would be more acceptable? No, you'd still be pissed. Because the issue isn't his age, it's the things he did in the past.
I don't have much of a choice, because the other guy is worse, and primaries are rigged for pensioners, faithless electors, and the DNC doing whatever they want to make sure the "right" person is chosen.
And age is an issue. Mental decline is a proven, tangible thing. I don't think Biden is senile but it's clear he's been softened up, even since his election. He's 100% not the man that served with Obama and anyone who says they haven't seen any changes needs to go back and watch some 2008 election videos.
In Bidens case, it's both: I think his policies AND his age are problematic. But again, my choices are him... and the other fucking guy. And I'm not voting for the other guy.
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 shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates* for the parties won* the primaries*. Voters* picked* them over other* candidates*.
ah yes the highly democratic process known as us presidential primaries.... where 3 states vote for whichever candidate the media is force feeding them and then we declare it over
extremely convincing, who can argue with the results!? look how well it is working
The issues with the primary process and political party control are due to our first past the post voting system, not because our political leaders are old.
i agree, i pointed out in a post i made initially that I don't actually think the issue is age. we have a completely derelict political system that happens to be producing 80 years as its output right now
its impossible to have meaty conversations in a 35-way across the conference room type thread like this, especially when participants have things to do during the day other than post
but ultimately I agree with you
when the boomers are finally all dead, we already have a sneak peak of whats coming next.... congresspeople and eventually a presidential candidate who is more interested in being a social media entity than a civic leader. improvement? hardly.
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.
This isn't an age issue, it's a policy issue. Are you saying that if he was only 50 and was trying to fix a problem he had created only 15 years ago, it would be more acceptable? No, you'd still be pissed. Because the issue isn't his age, it's the things he did in the past.
It's both. I only used him for one example, he is far from the only one who has been in office for 3+ decades and has had a direct hand in many of the problems that exist today. It also ties into how old people tend not to change their ways, another reason why no one over 70 should be allowed in any kind of office. People with no future have no right to decide it for everyone else based on their outdated opinions and values. It's possible that some of them could change, but I view that in the same way as things like "not all men" or "all lives matter" because it's trying to claim nothing needs to change just because a few trees are fine while the forest as a whole is on fire.
Like you all seem to be approaching this like the presidential election is some kind of meritocratic thing where the best candidate is found organically via performance excellence and then chosen by the electorate.
That’s not actually how our system works though. Our presidential elections are a system of back room deals, money, and celebrity. Operating as though our system is some kind of aspirational meritocracy is naive.
Like you guys seem to think anyone can credibly run for president. We can’t. There’s already extensive control systems to prevent that and the only thing that can upset those systems making all the choices of who we’re electing for us is the rogue candidate already being rich and famous before they enter the party and destroy the plan they had.
I'm not saying it's easy, but there are lots of 'ordinary' people involved in politics.
Barack Obama was a one term senator who became president; before that he was a state senator, and a writer/professor. AOC was working in a restaurant and as a local organizer before running for congress.
Now, they are both obviously very charismatic and most importantly, prodigious fundraisers. But this idea that only people pre-selected by the party machine make it through is false.
Barack was Chicago Dems, and he got that senate spot by not abusing Jeri Ryan. You see there was a good chance Barack wouldn’t get that senate seat because his Republican opponent was endorsed by the former Republican senator that was well liked. However less than 3 months before the general election that guy, Jack Ryan, had his divorce proceedings unsealed and his abuse of Jeri Ryan (yes 7 of 9) was bad enough that the republicans made him ditch the candidacy (ah simpler times) and then they brought in a carpet bagger from Maryland to try and stop Barack. Which failed. Again you didn’t choose this candidate, they did not show up organically. They showed up because of the large party systems driving all of this.
AOC happened due to the hubris of the Democratic party not thinking they needed to concentrate on defending against this upstart in a pretty much totally safe district, and she was an able master of internet celebrity in her initial candidacy. Again it wasn’t due to merit. It was due to a strategic failure in the back room dealings of the Democratic Party. Who’s done their best to make sure her situation doesn’t happen again.
I mean, is your idea that we should have a democracy where there are no organizations? Just millions of people standing in the proverbial town square and somehow we get to the best one?
Like of course Obama had local support and was involved in local politics; he still went from being a national unknown to beating the brakes off the biggest name in democratic politics in the space of four years. If “the Chicago Dems” could just make that happen on demand all of our presidents would be from there.
AOC ran a strong campaign that beat a multi-term incumbent and somehow it’s not based on her merit? Like anyone who put their name in the hat would’ve won the same victory because “the machine” spontaneously decided to lose this time?
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yes the entrenched party system is at the heart of this matter. No you don’t get to just extricate it from the consideration of the issue. Unless you’ve got some way to totally reformat our government thus that it isn’t an entrenched two party system.
I think the age issue would be more problematic for biden if the alternative wasn't somebody nearly equal to his age and who has shown even more cognitive issues. I am not advocating Biden stepping down though as the incumbency advantage is strong. That is also one of the most weird things I find with the GOP lining up behind trump is best case he gets in and you have a one term highly polarizing president and none of the toads who have tried to mimic trumps trumpyness have succeeded because it always comes off as fake.
+1
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
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 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.
I think the age issue would be more problematic for biden if the alternative wasn't somebody nearly equal to his age and who has shown even more cognitive issues. I am not advocating Biden stepping down though as the incumbency advantage is strong. That is also one of the most weird things I find with the GOP lining up behind trump is best case he gets in and you have a one term highly polarizing president and none of the toads who have tried to mimic trumps trumpyness have succeeded because it always comes off as fake.
If, say, JD Vance or Josh Hawley was running, we would be shitting ourselves about how old Biden is because we'd be worried he would lose.
We would not actually care as much about whether he was able to do the job. What we want is for the other guy to not be doing it!
So in re: Biden, I say fuck it. If he dies he dies. Luckily we have a pretty good black female Democrat standing right there who can walk into the oval office no problem.
They even put her name on the ticket next to the old guy!
I think the age issue would be more problematic for biden if the alternative wasn't somebody nearly equal to his age and who has shown even more cognitive issues. I am not advocating Biden stepping down though as the incumbency advantage is strong. That is also one of the most weird things I find with the GOP lining up behind trump is best case he gets in and you have a one term highly polarizing president and none of the toads who have tried to mimic trumps trumpyness have succeeded because it always comes off as fake.
If, say, JD Vance or Josh Hawley was running, we would be shitting ourselves about how old Biden is because we'd be worried he would lose.
We would not actually care as much about whether he was able to do the job. What we want is for the other guy to not be doing it!
So in re: Biden, I say fuck it. If he dies he dies. Luckily we have a pretty good black female Democrat standing right there who can walk into the oval office no problem.
They even put her name on the ticket next to the old guy!
Under no circumstances do I want a literal cop to be president.
I think the age issue would be more problematic for biden if the alternative wasn't somebody nearly equal to his age and who has shown even more cognitive issues. I am not advocating Biden stepping down though as the incumbency advantage is strong. That is also one of the most weird things I find with the GOP lining up behind trump is best case he gets in and you have a one term highly polarizing president and none of the toads who have tried to mimic trumps trumpyness have succeeded because it always comes off as fake.
If, say, JD Vance or Josh Hawley was running, we would be shitting ourselves about how old Biden is because we'd be worried he would lose.
We would not actually care as much about whether he was able to do the job. What we want is for the other guy to not be doing it!
So in re: Biden, I say fuck it. If he dies he dies. Luckily we have a pretty good black female Democrat standing right there who can walk into the oval office no problem.
They even put her name on the ticket next to the old guy!
Under no circumstances do I want a literal cop to be president.
NO circumstances?
None at all?
There's nothing that woudl sway you? Really? Under no circumstances? Man I'm surprised Pretty shocking!
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.
The problem is the people who get into office fix the system to keep themselves in office despite their actual performance.
Entrenched politicians are a problem, and the longer politicians are removed from the rest of society the more disconnected they become. So it's actually a two-fold issue with career politicians.
How anyone can look at the shit that happened with Feinstein before she died and say "yes, obviously our system works" is beyond me.
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.
Except the issue is that these entrenched old people will never give up power because not many people ever electively give up power, and they are hanging onto it so long that they visibly lose the ability to function in public on the regular, and the entirely unregulated systems that keep them in power, and make it so it’s very much not a simple matter of just running against them, are controlled by them and focused on keeping them in power.
Mitch McConnell out here straight up blue screening at press conferences, difi not even realizing she fucking retired.
That’s going to keep happening because our system is designed to keep making it happen.
+1
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
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?
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.
+7
ElJeffeRoaming the streets, waving his mod gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
I mean, it's just kind of funny hearing that our system is run by nefarious machines who have a death grip on power and completely control who gets elected to office, but they will collapse into ineffectiveness against the awesome might of an age limit.
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.
+10
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
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?
Yes. Because we've allowed them to become an entrenched power and shore up support, fix the primary system, and do all the shit that we all very well know is a problem.
You asked why a politician being in office for 30 years is bad. You also just answered it.
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?
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 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?
What are all these perfectly good politicians that are not being engineered by the party who are being chosen over 80 year olds who have consolidated power since the days of leaded gasoline?
I mean, it's just kind of funny hearing that our system is run by nefarious machines who have a death grip on power and completely control who gets elected to office, but they will collapse into ineffectiveness against the awesome might of an age limit.
It would be a direct hard limit that keeps dudes from damn near a century prior directly in charge of our world.
Given incumbency, you're generally leaving political change up to the reaper rolling the dice, and reducing the likelihood of an actually prepared candidate running.
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people couldn't stop talking about his age at any point during his campaign
I think some sort of voter registration is important, because you DO need to know where people are, and things like DMV records can be inaccurate. Automatic registration when you turn 18 in the district your parents live in could work, and any time you file a change of address form your registration is auto updated and a form gets mailed to you that says "Hey, looks like you just moved, let us know if this is incorrect" or something.
Basically something that requires the least effort possible for the voter.
And fuck off with disenfranchisement of felons.
In 2023 total turnout in WA was only 36%
Getting youth turnout to half of the average is pretty good imo.
And go back to 2020, 84% total turnout (about as good as you'd expect without mandatory voting) with 72% of registered 18-24s voting.
Mail in ballots work.
Getting people to vote at all in non presidential elections is hard.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
This is a technology problem, we don't solve it by adding an extra step in for people who want to exercise the most fundamental right they possess in a democracy.
off the top of my head, a state could:
- take DL data, IRS data, SS data, and medicare / medicaid data, normalize it. There's your baseline.
- offer a couple of tiers of ID at the polls: let's say that if you show up in person, then at minimum you get to vote for the statewide races just by virtue of being in the building. District races, you have to show you live there if you're not in the normalized dataset that includes your address.
- provisional ballots if you can't demonstrate who you are at all
- free ID for everyone who wants one
it's true that you do actually need to know who somebody is and where they live in order to accurately do voting for local and district races. And it's also true that there are spots all over the country (like along every state border) where just having your ass in the building is no easy guarantee that you live in the state. Texarkana is going to have challenges. New England needs a solution. You can't just rely on geography.
But again, this is a technology problem, we shouldn't start solving it by saying "no one gets to vote at all unless they ask nicely first". That's bullshit.
Absolutely.
Edit:shit slipped on the post button before finishing the thought.
He’s a year older, but more cogent than either Trump or Biden are while speaking at the moment.
It’s hard to say, being president ages you pretty hard. Look at Obama at the end of his term.
Biden was significantly more coherent while running even in 2020 compared to now.
Impossible to say on whether Bernie would have kept it to a single term. I don’t believe he mentioned a single term in the primaries and it didn’t start in Biden’s rhetoric until later in the primary/general.
If Bernie had won I think we likely would be seeing a more aggressive primary in progress now though.
After watching it the John Stewart monologue I think it was pretty evenhanded.
Both aren’t really fit for the presidency and with the stakes as high as they are with Trump, a candidate of Biden’s age and limitations (and candidly, the public’s concern of the above) is an incredible risk.
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.
Specifically on the ageism front, it's because people who get into government become insulated to the rest of the world over time. It's why we saw Pelosi doing her best Clintonian-era governance act 20 years after it was relevant.
They are simply out of touch, and will continue to serve as an out-of-touch politician because they appeal enough of a plurality of pensioners to get them to win the nom and cruise on name recognition/hyperpartisanship, regardless of their actual competence.
There are exceptions, but they're all outliers. The longer someones in office, the longer they're separated from what living in this country is really like, the less they become relevant to modern society.
With age comes mental decline, it's unavoidable.
Don't vote for him.
This isn't an age issue, it's a policy issue. Are you saying that if he was only 50 and was trying to fix a problem he had created only 15 years ago, it would be more acceptable? No, you'd still be pissed. Because the issue isn't his age, it's the things he did in the past.
67% of the Senate is 60 or older and 44% of the House is 60 or older.
I don't have much of a choice, because the other guy is worse, and primaries are rigged for pensioners, faithless electors, and the DNC doing whatever they want to make sure the "right" person is chosen.
And age is an issue. Mental decline is a proven, tangible thing. I don't think Biden is senile but it's clear he's been softened up, even since his election. He's 100% not the man that served with Obama and anyone who says they haven't seen any changes needs to go back and watch some 2008 election videos.
In Bidens case, it's both: I think his policies AND his age are problematic. But again, my choices are him... and the other fucking guy. And I'm not voting for the other guy.
i agree, i pointed out in a post i made initially that I don't actually think the issue is age. we have a completely derelict political system that happens to be producing 80 years as its output right now
its impossible to have meaty conversations in a 35-way across the conference room type thread like this, especially when participants have things to do during the day other than post
but ultimately I agree with you
when the boomers are finally all dead, we already have a sneak peak of whats coming next.... congresspeople and eventually a presidential candidate who is more interested in being a social media entity than a civic leader. improvement? hardly.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
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 both. I only used him for one example, he is far from the only one who has been in office for 3+ decades and has had a direct hand in many of the problems that exist today. It also ties into how old people tend not to change their ways, another reason why no one over 70 should be allowed in any kind of office. People with no future have no right to decide it for everyone else based on their outdated opinions and values. It's possible that some of them could change, but I view that in the same way as things like "not all men" or "all lives matter" because it's trying to claim nothing needs to change just because a few trees are fine while the forest as a whole is on fire.
I mean, is your idea that we should have a democracy where there are no organizations? Just millions of people standing in the proverbial town square and somehow we get to the best one?
Like of course Obama had local support and was involved in local politics; he still went from being a national unknown to beating the brakes off the biggest name in democratic politics in the space of four years. If “the Chicago Dems” could just make that happen on demand all of our presidents would be from there.
AOC ran a strong campaign that beat a multi-term incumbent and somehow it’s not based on her merit? Like anyone who put their name in the hat would’ve won the same victory because “the machine” spontaneously decided to lose this time?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
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.
If, say, JD Vance or Josh Hawley was running, we would be shitting ourselves about how old Biden is because we'd be worried he would lose.
We would not actually care as much about whether he was able to do the job. What we want is for the other guy to not be doing it!
So in re: Biden, I say fuck it. If he dies he dies. Luckily we have a pretty good black female Democrat standing right there who can walk into the oval office no problem.
They even put her name on the ticket next to the old guy!
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Under no circumstances do I want a literal cop to be president.
NO circumstances?
None at all?
There's nothing that woudl sway you?
Really?
Under no circumstances?
Man I'm surprised
Pretty shocking!
There’s really no option where Trump isn’t the worse of the two.
The problem is the people who get into office fix the system to keep themselves in office despite their actual performance.
Entrenched politicians are a problem, and the longer politicians are removed from the rest of society the more disconnected they become. So it's actually a two-fold issue with career politicians.
How anyone can look at the shit that happened with Feinstein before she died and say "yes, obviously our system works" is beyond me.
Except the issue is that these entrenched old people will never give up power because not many people ever electively give up power, and they are hanging onto it so long that they visibly lose the ability to function in public on the regular, and the entirely unregulated systems that keep them in power, and make it so it’s very much not a simple matter of just running against them, are controlled by them and focused on keeping them in power.
Mitch McConnell out here straight up blue screening at press conferences, difi not even realizing she fucking retired.
That’s going to keep happening because our system is designed to keep making it happen.
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?
Yes. Because we've allowed them to become an entrenched power and shore up support, fix the primary system, and do all the shit that we all very well know is a problem.
You asked why a politician being in office for 30 years is bad. You also just answered it.
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?
http://www.audioentropy.com/
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.
What are all these perfectly good politicians that are not being engineered by the party who are being chosen over 80 year olds who have consolidated power since the days of leaded gasoline?
It would be a direct hard limit that keeps dudes from damn near a century prior directly in charge of our world.