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I'm 62, which is embarrassingly old to be effing around on the fediverse.
But I just want to say these octogenarians can't possibly represent me.
It's partly their age.
But to me wealth is the more corrupting factor. Some of these people have never had a real job, or at least in decades.
I'm both hoping to work until I'm 70 or die sooner.
These rich assholes can't represent anyone except other rich assholes.
Fediverse skews older than traditional social media from what I've seen.
Yeah I'm realizing the fediverse feels so homey because it seems dominated by people old enough to remember the internet of the 90s, the ones that knew AOL was not the entire internet or even 'web' proper. We're already acclimated to an internet where 'discoverability' took a little more elbow grease.
I am in my thirties and see the decisions these people are making will ensure that I never get to "retire". It partly their age but mostly their wealth, does Glitchy Mitch have to worry about money, fuck no. You be be sure that he is going to horde all the wealth he can and do his best to look like the Pale man from Pans Labyrinth
You're welcome here!
I agree, I'd rather see the wealth divestments, gift disclosures...
Maybe this age thing is actually a cop-out and is just a lead up to trying to change the voter age. I don't support it.
I don't understand why there aren't term limits across the board either. Some Congress wo/men have been there for decades ffs!
Definitely. Age limits are difficult. Some people lose it early. Some never do.
Two terms and you're out seems to me to mostly resolve this.
You can even make it just two consecutive terms. I think I'm largely fine with that. At least it's better than the alternative.
Also, lifetime appointment. That was designed at a different time. Scotus should be a (reasonably long) single term. Then you're done with the federal judicial system.
Yes, can't endorse this enough. Judicial appointments need a term limit, no matter the position. Maybe 10 years maximum.
10 years is nice to because it wouldn't line up exactly with new presidents, so it would guarantee different parties would most likely get to pick.
In 1789, the average lifespan for a Supreme Court justice was 67 years. By 1975, that expectancy had risen to 82 years.
Yes! Term limits are the answer, not age limits. It’s effectively the same thing but protects us in two ways (instead of just one: ie age) and does so without the slippery slope that an age limit would entail.
If a pilot is forced to retire at 65 due to fear of killing a couple hundred, there is absolutely zero reason someone in charge near 400 million shouldn't have a maximum age cap
the slippery slope that an age limit would entail.
Can you elaborate?
He means that people have different rates of cognitive decline than others, so if you like this 70 year old politician and he's great, why not?
I think that's ridiculous. Term AND age limits would make much brighter futures. We should be electing officials that will have to live under the shade of the trees they planted, which is not the case for most US politicians today.
There didn't used to be but after FDR hit 4 terms in a row, they passed the 22nd Amendment in 1947, it was ratified in 1951.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
I think term limits would be 90% effective. That and fixing gerrymandered districts. How many of those old folks in the House have been cruising to easy reelection due to rigged voting districts? Limit the House to 5 terms and the Senate to 2 terms. That's a maximum of 22 years someone could be a federal elected politician excluding the presidency. That's more than enough time to leave their mark on the country.
Term limits, no gerrymandering, ranked choice voting, and more than two political parties.
I think no gerrymandering would absolutely nuke the red presence. Honestly looking at how bad the district maps are it's insane it's even gotten that far.
Term limits, no gerrymandering, ranked choice voting, and more than two political parties.
We already have more than two parties, its just almost nobody votes for them. With rank choice voting they'll be more visible than they are today.
The issue with enacting a mandatory age limit in a democratically elected government is essentially conceding to the idea that the voters are unable to determine for themselves whether an elected official is competent, or not. This has substantial, and serious implications.
We already have restrictions on other government jobs about how old you can be. And we also have term limits on the office of the President.
It's not breaking new ground or saying anything new that Congress and other elected officials should not be able to serve in excess of 10 years.
There's already a lower age limit though, so they can determine that anyone under the age of 35 is definitely not competent, but when it gets to people of older age is when it turns into an issue?
And yet we have minimum age requirements. Why does your bullshit argument about voter autonomy not apply there?
they shouldn't even be driving a car. statistics show that for every year over 70 is similar as a year under 20 for drivers. so a 75 year old drives like a 15 year old. and a 90 year old is a newborn?
Just make the retirement age enforced for elected officials too. If the average American is expected to retire at 67, shouldn't our representatives be younger than that?
I get where you're going with this, but I'm worried it would just incentivize Congress to raise the retirement even higher.
Last thing I need is our octogenarian overlords dictating that I need to work until I'm in my mid 80s just because they refuse to step down.
You've quoted the age for full Social Security benefits, not something that's enforced or even expected. Retirement's just an option for anyone who can afford to do so.
And a basic mental aptitude test please, we don't need psychos or idiots either
TBH I think these calls for age limits or term limits are indirectly targeting real problems (like since when do we want people born before the automotive age regulating the internet? and why are both parties led by people still stuck in the 70s?) but the indirect-targeting has a way of creating unintended consequence:
a shorter term limit will term out qualified, great representatives with real expertise
a shorter term limit may intensify corruption if a rep or senator only has so much time to cash in and line up that fat consulting gig
Fundamentally, the voters should be voting out the Feinsteins and McConnells when their age or health conflicts with their ability to represent their interests, and this "let's have age limits and term limits" resolve kinda speaks to me of a desire for self-governance to happen, but without voters having any responsibility in the matter. It's time for our relationship to self-rule be a lot less passive, a lot more assertive.
The meta-problems at play (corruption, the presence of money in politics, the role of first-past-the-post voting to force voters to vote based on how they bet other people will vote, etc) aren't going to be resolved by term limits or age limits- if we want our elected officials to reflect the public interest, all of those conflicts-of-interest have to go.
I'd like to see ranked-choice voting replace FPTP, and for money to be strictly limited in politics, and an end to the permanent campaign our politics have become, and for revolving-door gigs for ex-legislators and regulators to be strictly scrutinized, and for voters to be able to confidently vote out their dinosaurs. If we fix those things, the problem of being ruled by people too old to do the job probably goes away by itself.
The other 25% are old.
Retirement age is 67. If that's good enough for the normal workers than any politically connected office should be the same.
You don't have to retire at 67 though. It's not a requirement.
Some people maintain their mental lucidity well into their 80s. I think this type of limit would be ageist. People should not be discriminated on things they can't control.
If enough citizens democratically decide that a candidate is mentally lucid enough to be president or senator or what have you, why should we remove that democratic choice from the population?
I agree that I'm tired of really old politicians like Biden or Trump or McConnell or Pelosi, etc. But I'll express that with my vote, not try to cancel out other people's votes.
Moscow mitch is the perfect example for this. ~4 years ago he was spearheading overturning wade vs roe, and now he can barely make a sentence on TV. There HAS to be room for retirement between those 2 stages of brain damage.
I'd think, because the Constitution only defines minimum ages, we would need an amendment identifying maximum ages.
65? 70?
Let's set it up with term limits as well.
President is already capped at 2 terms of 4 each, what seems fair for everyone else?
2 six-year terms for Senator? 12 years?
6 two year terms for Congress? Also 12 years?
18 years for Supreme Court?
I’m not sure age is the problem. It’s greed and corruption.
I would also require anyone RUNNING for an elected office to divest themselves completely of all investments and business ties. Everyone running would get the same campaign funding and that is all they are allowed to use. For anyone elected, base pay would be significantly increased. This would naturally allow more younger candidates to both run and be elected, since you don’t have to be a corrupt, wealthy, ancient subhuman to fund a campaign.
I’m with you on the term limits, too.
I think term limits for Congress, Senate and supreme court would be a better solution. You can be Bernie and be old and lucid and not totally stuck the past but if you've been in office for 50 years GTFO and let someone else try.
This age discrimination is a clever right wing ploy to remove Bernie from office and to hurt Biden's re-election. And I can tell from the responses here and in real life that it's working.
There are plenty of people on the right who are willing to stooge exactly like McConnell does, but highly principled lifelong public servants with almost no skeletons in their closet like Bernie are pretty much impossible to replace.
In any matchup against Biden, besides Trump, age favours the GOP. In a matchup between Trump and Biden, they are both the same age, but since the media has been using Biden's stutter and unflattering video cuts to make him look senile, it still favours Trump.
Ultimately people need to stop voting for bad people, especially ones have already proven that they do a bad job, regardless of their age.
75% of voters don't vote, so as usual, this is an utterly pointless poll.
I see your point, this is likely a useless statistic, but:
The elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 were three of the highest-turnout U.S. elections of their respective types in decades. About two-thirds (66%) of the voting-eligible population turned out for the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate for any national election since 1900. The 2018 election (49% turnout) had the highest rate for a midterm since 1914. Even the 2022 election’s turnout, with a slightly lower rate of 46%, exceeded that of all midterm elections since 1970.
So young people are voting, and it only feeds into the right to say that "most people don't vote". It makes people think voting means nothing.