6mo ago

Why American politicians are so old

www.vox.com Why American politicians are so old

And why the solution isn’t age limits.

34 comments

There is absolutely nothing wrong with older people holding positions of power.
2 paragraphs in and I already disagree. Most older folks don't have a fucking clue how the modern world works and have no business in positions of power.
- I will just say that life extention has made vampires of old men. with only a few exceptions, they express no real desire to hand the future to those who will be living it.
  
  I will just say that life extention has made vampires of old men [who are wealthy and powerful enough to acquire the necessary medical care]
  Being old doesn't make you a bastard, it's just that non-bastards don't tend to survive to old age in our society
- Disagree, it's that we let wishy-washy milk toast middle of the road politicians with no stances on anything stay in power because they don't challenge the status quo or literally anything. Those people can stay in power until they die. People who want change get gone. It's the America way sadly.
  
  Milquetoast*

It’s because they’ve concentrated so much fucking power. They just happened to exist at the best possible time to exist on the planet in the right fucking place. They don’t know what it’s like to have existed after them or to exist in a less optimal place. They are the most spoiled fucking generation in the history of the planet. No people has known such privilege.
- Ding Ding Ding! The prospect of giving up even a yota of that power makes them lose their fucking minds. Literally, because dementia.
  
  *an iota

I just want politicians that:
Grew up after reaffer madness craze
Knows that Cuba's leader's last name is not Castro
Was born after Israel switched from being bullied to being a bully
Didn't live through the 70s oil shortage or at least understands that we are a net exporter of oil
Understands that there is no "center" to pivot to capturing after primaries, it is all about exciting your base
- Israel was always a bully, even before they existed the zionists were there terrorizing and murdering people.

They’re so old…
Term limits aren’t the solution…
What?
They consolidate power due to the time they spend in office. It’s incredibly hard to vote out an incumbent. They get the campaign funds because they kiss the right asses of the rich and corporate classes, and that is not serving the citizens.
The solution is term limits, and banning them from working as a lobbyist or whatever.
- They get the campaign funds because they kiss the right asses of the rich and corporate classes, and that is not serving the citizens.
  That just sounds like a campaign finance problem to me. Term limits are inherently anti-democratic imo so I'd really rather avoid those, but campaign finance reform sounds wonderful.
  and banning them from working as a lobbyist or whatever.
  This also sounds like a great idea
  
  So you’re okay with care politicians who no longer reflect society at large writing laws and consolidating power?
  Biden, just for an example, was in congress longer than I’ve been alive. He’s been a leader in the DNC for at least half that.
  When I say “Biden is part of why we’re in this mess”…. This is exactly what I’m talking about.
  
  A great deal of our system of government is undemocratic. In particular, the difficulty of getting incumbents out of office is undemocratic, and term limits directly address that problem. Even if they're undemocratic in a vacuum, they enhance democracy in practice.
- Is banning them from lobbying sufficient?
  What if someone retired from politics and then works for Shell and pays for a free weekend getaway to the Bahamas for a Congress member? Or for their "friend"?
  Sounds like we need strict laws around what is lobbying
- Ban them from accepting straw donations, ban CPACs, ban PACs, ban revolving doors, ban stock ownership, enforce the emoluments clause, ban all the foreign money from the USA politics, and institute a campaign finance reform.

Because politics is more harassment than most people care to invite into their lives, unless they have some higher overarching reason to be in politics in the first place. Usually some corrupt bullshit.

I've been saying the barriers to get into politics are too fucken high for a decade. And just about everything that has happened in that time has made it worse.
- Too high?? Lauren Boebert dropped out of high school. She passed her GED in her 30s, right before she won her first election.
  
  Doesn't she also claim to be a millionaire? Education isn't the only barrier to entry. Financials and family connections likely play a bigger role. If I'm living paycheck to paycheck I can't stop working to go campaign. I also just can't walk into my local political party office and demand to be put on a ballot for something out of the blue.
  
  Because she was a useful idiot for moneyed interests with nothing better to do than hit fundraiser meetings, so the PhD educated social worker with fifty clients never had a chance. Like, what you're saying is true, but what they're saying about barriers being too high is also very much true.
  
  But she would never win a Democrat ticket. Democrats only elect perfect people. Perfect people don't exist. So democrats only elect people who pretend they're perfect.

If you can get social security I don't want you running the country. You got yours, and have no incentive to make it better for future you, since future you is dead.

Part of the reason why we wheel semi-conscious nonagenarians into Congress to vote on bills is because committee memberships and chair seats are given to people with seniority. So if you can hang onto a seat for a long time, you get a lot more power to determine what comes up for a vote.
If we implemented term limits we'd have to figure out a different way to determine who's on what committee, at the very least.
- Term limits for the house and the senate would be great. Not sure how you’d get them to pass though. They’re all in on the deal. Running as incumbent over and over again just seems to make them more and more invincible with every election.

American political office is elder abuse.

They're old because people want experience in the field.
They're all bad at the job because anyone smart enough to do well at it is also smart enough to not want to put up with the bullshit.

Because people vote for them in the primaries and there's rarely any young people who try to run.

34 comments