Over 75% of voters want maximum age limit for elected officials, poll shows
Just a moment...
Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
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.
In 1789, the average lifespan for a Supreme Court justice was 67 years. By 1975, that expectancy had risen to 82 years.
Just let agelimits apply to judges as well and make judges appoint judges while you're at it to minimize the politicizing of the bench.
Age limits are difficult.
They're not that hard, and they're simple and direct, and we already use them. Don't overcomplicate it.
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?
Considering a lower age limit would have to be put in place by existing politicians, that particular slope is not slippery at all. And slippery-slope arguments are categorically invalid except when you can point to a specific reason why doing something will make it likely to be done in excess.
I think testing for cognitive function is going to prove impossibly difficult - or at least for now. How do we set and quantify an acceptable value for cognitive function? How will we execute testing? When do we test? How often? Who will do the testing? How do we counter for potential performance drugs for test candidates? Do we notify the public on the test findings? There's just a lot involved with making this the barrier to entry vs age or term limits.
So you advocate your style of politics with lifetime appointments? Certainly nothing authoritarian to see here
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
A rare example where a Gentleman's Agreement that is important to how our government runs was actually codified.
I think the idea in the Senate is that those people would have been seasoned bureaucrats who were intimately familiar with law - lawyers in particular. The House was more the everyday man representing the people of his district.
Now that we vote for senators, too, I'm not sure what role they really play. I'd also add that we need to remove the cap on headcount in the house. I did the napkin math once and we should have something like 2.5x the representatives we have now, IIRC.
You don't understand why the people who vote on various things won't vote against themselves?? I'm guessing it's the same reason why voting on pay raises for themselves always pass.
That's easy to fix: exempt anyone in office at the time the bill passes.
voting on pay raises for themselves always pass.
The only votes congress has taken regarding their own pay is voting to deny a raise. Every year Congress is set to get an automatic COLA raise, u less they refuse it via vote it automatically kicks in. Those are the votes congress has been conducting. They have voted in pay raises for congressional staff members.
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 problem with no gerrymandering is that it’s actively hard to enforce without false positives
I think term limits on the presidency meant that Trump ran against Clinton instead of Obama.
Obama was more popular than Clinton.
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.
You mean like how most places don't let you vote before you turn 18 because it is accepted that children have not developed the cognitive ability to make sound decisions in regards to electing officials?
This is a strawman argument. OP was talking about an age limit for elected officials, whereas you are now talking about age restrictions on the voters. Yes, we are both talking about cognitive decline in decision making; however there is a substantial difference between putting an age limit on those who can be in power vs. putting an age limit on those who can decide who is in power.
I think once you get over 80 it is time to step aside and let the world move forward.
I don't necessarily disagree, but how do we prevent this logic from being used to disenfranchise voters above the max age? If they're not sharp enough to make decisions in the government, how are they sharp enough to vote?
I see two options, if we're going to have limits on serving in Congress. One, they maintain the right to vote for the same reason 18 year olds do -- they're legally considered adults, and they deserve a say in matters that affect them, like wars. Two, people above the age can't vote, but no law which passes can affect their day to day. They wouldn't need to pay taxes, social security and Medicare payments would be guaranteed to not go down for them, and they generally aren't held as autonomous adults in legal matters.
This is a can of worms, and needs to be carefully handled.
There are plenty of perfectly capable and intelligent people until the day they die. People are individuals not the average of their demography.
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.
We already have restrictions on other government jobs about how old you can be.
For the sake of clarity, are you referring to the minimum age limits of U.S. government officials?
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.
My argument isn't that it should be avoided because of it's novelty, I'm saying that, in order to justify such rules, one must be of the belief that the voters are unable to determine the competency of who they elect. Given that a democracy is founded upon the idea of a government ruled by, of, and for the people, it is of paramount importance that the people be able to make such decisions for themselves.
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?
My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to "ensure" the competency of the candidate; however, it should be noted that there is a difference between such a restriction based on competency, and another based on, for lack of a better term, trustworthiness, e.g. a natural born citizen clause (this is not an argument for, or against the natural born citizen clause, I'm simply outlining the scope of my previous statement).
Both limits are stupid.
And yet we have minimum age requirements. Why does your bullshit argument about voter autonomy not apply there?
My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to “ensure” the competency of the candidate.
Why do you assume people like minimum age requirements either?
The Constitution is difficult to change. I'd get rid of the "natural born citizen" bit too.
Obviously people are picking incompetent election officials since we have quite a few, when you are given choices the selection of choices is important too. People are being given limited bad choices and choosing the lesser of evils. We have too many of these old timers who spend their days sleeping through important decisions or/and just being led by others.
First past the post at work
People are being given limited bad choices and choosing the lesser of evils.
What's interesting about this statement is that I interperet it as saying that the candidates that the voters are considering are pre-chosen by some independent third party that the voters have no control over. I would argue that, as it currently stands, in the U.S.A, for example, there is no such gatekeeper -- the DNC or, GOP are not gatekeepers as the voters could choose to simply ignore them, and vote for an independent; however, from what I can tell, the issue certainly seems to be that the general public thinks that they only have two choices so they vote accordingly. This is quite possibly a symptom of the FPTP voting system, but I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter to say conclusively.
Given we have elected officials that are literally freezing while talking to reporters and yet would probably still win election after election? I don't think the public cares if they are competent. They just care that their party symbol is next to their name so they vote for them.
Will that really change if we added age limits? They'll just pick a successor and people will mindlessly vote for the new candidate instead.
We all know the Bidens, McConnells, Pelosi's, etc aren't really a single person. They have a whole team of people behind them who are making the decisions, doing the research, etc. You're not really voting for the person as much as the administration that comes with that person.
For example a lot of people that were part of the Obama administration are part of the Biden. The person changed but the power structure more or less remains the same.
The question does still remain whether the public not caring about the competency level of a specific elected official is grounds to restrict their voter autonomy. An argument could certainly be made that voting in a less competent candidate could be a strategic move.
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This mindset is not conducive to a properly functioning democracy.
Agreed. This is my fundamental issue with the constant call for term limits.
You're overthinking it. Babies can't run for office and that's a good thing.
I would argue, with a rather high degree of confidence, that this would never occur. If it did, it would certainly indicate a complete degredation in the core functions of the government, as well as the trust that the public has in its operation -- I suspect that a revolution would be imminent. Furthermore, due its unstable nature, I would wager that it would be rather fleeting.
I'm willing to concede to that accurate idea
That makes sense until you remember Biden won the presidential election
To be fair, the election was between a 74 and 78 year old.
From what I can gather, Biden's victory was due to a more of a strategic vote, than a vote truly for Biden.
Not like there was much of a choice
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?
Disco sales are up, if this trend continues...
Enforce more common driving tests as you get older.
Everybody ages differently. It's like saying that men shouldn't drive until 25 because of their statistical probability to drive recklessly. Or that black teens should be pulled over more often because they get arrested for drug possession more often.
I'm surprised at the broad support for ageist policies on Lemmy. I figured a leftist space would be more principled.
I understand a lot of people are tired of old politicians but it doesn't mean we need to start discriminating. I've met people who are quick and with it well into their 80s.
I've also met people who are near-zombies by 68
It varies by the individual - so why don't we judge people on their individual characteristics instead of groups they happen to fall into? Race, gender, sexuality, age, nationality, disability, etc.
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.
Instead they're doing that by gutting social programs to appease the top .01 percent.
I mean they can try but I think most politicians / parties would consider such a move political suicide regardless if they manage to ram it through or not. In some countries retirement is a pretty vague thing altogether though so the quick and easy fix is to just quit voting the people you consider too old into congress.
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
person, woman, man, camera
Oh shit, wheel you to the old folks home. You forgot about the TV!
Jim Crow for senior citizens?
That would be pretty easy to get someone to say you passed
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:
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.
a shorter term limit will term out qualified, great representatives with real expertise
This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers. If representing constituents interests did require specific skills, there would be pre-requisite courses. We don't elect people to design and build nuclear reactors - we select them based on their skills. There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren't necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician's main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
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
This doesn't make much sense to me. As in, we need to keep shitty politicians around for longer to kind of water down and spread out the shittiness over a greater period of time lest it be intensified.
This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers
That's correct. It can't be. New Representatives basically get nothing done. It takes them the two years they have to learn the ropes before they have to start fund raising for their next election. Federal Office is like Professional Sports. How often does someone just walk into it with no prior experience and succeed? It's not just about representing. It's about knowing how to negotiate and convince other representatives to care about what your constituents want. If Advisers are doing all the work, why don't they just run? You know who has all the time and money to "advise" candidates? Lobbyists.
water down and spread out the shittiness
I'm not arguing to keep bad politicians around for no reason, just observing that the reasons they're shitty in the first place are separate from how long they have to do it. If we solve the problem of politicians staying in office too long but we don't do anything about their incentives and ability to be on the take, all we've done is make their time in office maybe more urgent and valuable.
When in doubt, expect your designs to create unintended consequences- especially if they are simple and optimistic and don't deal directly with the actual source of the problem.
This is not to say that we should have septuagenarians in office- I really think we shouldn't- but fundamentally the problem is we don't vote these people out.
I often feel like a politician's main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
I know what you mean, but conceptually isn't that the point?
For example constituents work jobs and make money. Why should I give money to the government? It's the politicians job to convince the constituents.
There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren’t necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician’s main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
Man, I wish that were the case. Convincing other REPRESENTATIVES is the main job of a legislator. The reason why lawyers are so good at the role of legislating (the nuclear engineer equivalent in your analogy) is that they are both trained in 1. Convincing others of their argument 2. Understanding legal standings and the workings of government. These skills should be the basis for someones eligibility to be elected. The reason we select one candidate over another is the ideas and values they represent for us in the day in, day out melodrama of governing. The only reason you think the important part is convincing constituents is because that is the part you see. The real work is making the damn sausage.
Ranked-choice would go a long way in cleaning up our two-party system. And getting young people to vote in greater numbers.
But let's face it. People want age limits because they recognize that this is a potential solution because the other solutions seem far away and difficult to attain. Dems won't support ranked-choice because being less-terrible than repubs is basically their only sure way to get elected.
For clarity, I'm not arguing against age limits- I just think that these things:
...are separate problems. If we solve the first one, that'll be a good thing, but if we do it without also addressing the second one, we'll still have the same accountability/corruption problems but with faster turnover.
Worse than that, setting up rules that go a bit like: [after n terms/x age, we can't elect you even if we love you and you're great] will go a long way towards addressing that first problem, but could create problems down the line.
For example, when we created the notion of a debt ceiling (we can't do the thing without a supermajority, even if it's the right thing) seemed reasonable on its face, it would bind the hands of future profligate spenders and that would solve the debt problem, right? But, we really just tied the hands of majorities and gave bad-faith minorities the power to ransom their political demands against turning the world economy into a dumpster fire.
Fundamentally, it's the voters' job to vote out the people that aren't fit to serve, and the reasons we don't reliably do that seem to be that machine politics and corrupt democracy seem to make it risky to vote out your McConnells and Grassleys and Pelosis and Feinsteins and such, because so much of the institutional gravity of the parties revolves around them.
I say, yes! Forcibly retire the dinosaurs with a pension and make them develop their successors before they're dead. But, don't expect that to solve the democracy problem, work on that too
If it's meaningful to elect the absolute best people the system isn't good enough.
I am fine banning politicians from being lobbyists.
The Fiensteins and McConnells only exist in super safe, non-competetive elections.
You're overthinking things. People over 65 are experiencing physical and mental deterioration and should not hold office. That's the end of the conversation, stop muddling the issue.
The other 25% are old.
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.
Frankly I think this is something that needs to be indirectly addressed. We need to reduce the importance of seniority in Congress such that people won't worry about new blood losing them influence. And, we need to make it easier for people to run for office. It's all about encouraging turnover.
The problem with a mental acuity test is that it can very easily be corrupted for disenfranchisement. After 2016 the idea of a basic civics test to vote might've seemed appealing for instance, but in practice it would almost certainly be used to suppress minority votes.
Airplane traffic controllers were set to a max retirement age of 56 due to mental degredation. I don't believe presidents should be capped at that but it is a good example of a federal institution (FAA) limiting based on age for cognitive reasons. 65 sounds good to me. Maybe that will keep parties from sinking all their resources into few baskets and focus on passing down knowledge and promoting younger members.
Should be lower than that
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.
As far as divesting, would you be okay with not necessarily liquidating but moving investments into a 3rd party holder?
Basically like "okay this is what you had in an investment fund, now a third party (for sake of argument fidelity) takes over the fund and now fidelity advisers manage it in its entirety until the person is no longer a representative.
The question really being, what kind of divesting do you want? Because straight liquidation could still negatively impact younger candidates, given that the liquidation would remove potential legitimate interest from their portfolio. Meaning that them running could negatively impact their future.
Age is absolutely the problem. Bickering partisan politics over 40 years led to a division in our country. The millennial conservatives I know are reasonable, the boomers aren't. Their minds went funny with too much fox news and that's just the plain facts.
Term limits and an inability to invest would just make it a completely unwanted job for anyone without some significant fallback plan.
Younger. We want people who have decades left to live with the decisions they make.
I'd argue (as a 54 year old, naturally), that you need experienced people in these positions.
Capping it at 45 would mean you have a 10 year window on public service, 35 to 45. That won't work.
At the same time, too old, and they don't comprehend what they're legislating. I'm not sure I would be competent to write laws on AI, and I've been working in tech for 30 years.
We need to stop putting static laws in place they need to be dynamic because shit changes and then loopholes are created.
If the generation most representative is the oldest and the limit doesn't bar to, It should.
They shouldn't have the population to swing votes and to lead the country. There should be checks and balances on the voters as well.
Baby boomers are setting the terms and vote the most and have the highest population. It's no wonder the US is out of touch, and in debt all the way inside of its own asshole.
If I fell upstairs stroke out reading a prompt of course I don't give a fuck about young people lol I'm just trying to survive walking and talking. It's just not right.
The President needs to be capped at 1 6 year term. So we dont get this fake progressive rhetoric the first term, and selling out to their corporate donors the next.
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.
It would need to be a fairly large limit. Places that have have short term limits have ended up seeing worse legislators with more corruption. It's easier for the rich and retired to run often, after all.
We can do both but the existence of one old lucid person doesn't mean we shouldn't be avoiding 65 year olds holding onto power. They're demonstrably worse at politics: you can tell because a reality tv boomer bumble is dividing our country and we're in a frequently hot civil war with an actual insurgency targeting power plants.
All of these equivocators about the issue seem to fail to understand what has actually happened with mass boomer dementia. That needs to change. Learn the party line: 65 or over, no more governing.
It doesn’t matter what we want. This has been proven many times over. They American government is beyond checks and balances. They do what they want- not what we want.
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.
Generational generalizations are an effective way of dividing the populous.
No one does...
Bernie himself says he's too old, and his entire purpose is to build up the next generation.
It's just Bernie is the one example people have to try and get people to be against this.
There's a shit ton of elderly conservatives and moderates in office, but there's only one elderly progressive. So that's why people immediately throw him out there.
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.
Depends largely on the jurisdiction. Vote by mail has a huge impact.
My home state, Oregon, has been doing vote by mail since 2000.
In 2022 there were 2,985,820 registered voters on a population of 4.24 million people.
https://sos.oregon.gov/elections/Pages/electionsstatistics.aspx
1,997,689 cast ballots.
So that's 66.9% of all eligible voters and 47.11% of the population as a whole.
Why don’t they just vote for younger people? Why does there need to be a law?
First past the post voting is why.
So many problems go back to that.
But in this case, committee assignment is based on seniority. So the longest serving members get first dibs. This means that to keep power, the parties must put money into keeping incumbents in place.
Because older politicians are more established and have larger networks to support/bribe them.
But like I said, there are politicians in other countries too. This seems to be exclusively an American oddity
Because seniority gets you the powerful positions. So its beneficial to a party and its constituents to keep the same person in place as long as possible so that they get the more powerful assignments.
Because young voters don't show up to primaries.
They probably should
We know they don't. It doesn't really matter why, unless you think there's some as-yet-unknown reason why it's actually a good thing that people vote that way
Our options are guys they fall upstairs and stroke out reading teleprompters. We don't get a choice of young people lol they get voted by in primaries not by voters but funding and politico. if they even make it there.
I don't want age limits because that's ableist. I want term limits. That's an entirely different thing and this poll is intended to receive/manufacture consent.
Now if only polls mattered, then we could be on our way to making sure the majority of the people who participated in polls are happy!
I would tend to agree, however, I do wonder what happens if something like this were put into place, and then life extension starts redefining what "old" means.
Then the limit will be shifted up. Simple as
Life extension has already begun redefining what "old" means: it means holding onto 40+ years of political bitterness and partisanship until a reality tv boomer has successfully divided us from our countrymen.
No need for specifying an exact number, something like 'no one over the age of the national average life expectancy minus fifteen years shall be eligible to hold an elected seat'. Tying it to the national life expectancy allows for the age to keep up with modern advances without requiring additional legislation while incentivizing politicians to improve lifespans if they want to continue holding power.
Yup, that is the solution! As if we can't vote them our or primary them.
Damn I hope our country can fix this massive issue in the next 5 to 10 years.
Term limits solves most of this.
I'm not convinced that's the truth. But we also need term limits universally. I think too that officials need a way to get elected without third party funding in the US. Like even if you run there should be a system for running too.
Only need term limits for non-proportional systems, like the one seat for president. If Congress was proportional to the national vote, term limits is just an unnecessary complication.
The real problem is that seniority is what gets you the good, powerful council and leadership positions. This encourages everyone to keep their current incumbent, even if it's someone like Diane Feinstein who barely knows where she is at any given time. We won't be able to get rid of the gerontocracy problem unless we change that.
It's a fine balance. Too short term limits lead to straight up bribery without any repercussion (trying to hold on to a political position, for example).
But there already is straight up bribery, and there's usually no repercussions.
Not in Florida, it didn't. The Florida Legislature is as corrupt as ever.
Just say no to OLD WHITE ASS
Instead of and age limit, I think there should be a maximum sexual assault limit. Like if someone was found either civilly liable or criminally convicted of sexual assault 1 or more times, then they should be disqualified for any office.
I wonder what the response would be if the question were phrased differently. For instance, "Do you believe you should be able to vote for the person you support?"
Edit: Have to laugh at the downvotes.
Does that mean you do don't think people should be able to vote for the person they support? What age should be the cutoff point? How about limiting the voting age to those between 30 and 65? Maybe candidates should be required to be right-handed.
The way to decrease the average age of candidates is to support, organize, and vote for younger ones, not start restricting who you can vote for.
A more pressing question might be, "Do you think a felon who's incarcerated in a Georgia state prison should be allowed to be president?"
Currently incarcerated? No. Formerly incarcerated? Why not?
There're no restrictions on someone being president while serving a long prison sentence. And how about someone formerly incarcerated for murdering someone on 5th Avenue or found to have committed treason serving as president?
This fits here nicely:
George Takei:
Lost in the breathless, non-stop coverage of Biden’s age is the fact that most of Trump’s former cabinet members are literally warning us he’s mentally and temperamentally unfit to serve again in office.
Press, stop creating a false presidential competency issue, like you did a false email server issue. Just stop it.
Age limits seem ridiculous in a democracy. If you think someone is too old, there is a great way to remove them. Don't vote for them. Anything less then that is not democratic.
Personally I think these polls are silly or inaccurate. If 75% of voters think there should be an age limit, then why are there so many old politicians?
What you're revealing here is that our system is not very democratic. If the pool of realistic choices is all 70+ then the result will be 70+ even if the majority of people don't like it.
Isn't there an age limit in the other direction, too?
Might be. Get rid of that to.
I suspect it would make zero difference in the average age. People vote these politicians in.
We have a defacto age limit, and voters can decide it every election.
Then stop voting for the old people.
I dont know why anyone bothers with polls for what they want from politicians. Because theres one poll that decides what we actually want. If you dont want a really old guy for president, dont fuckin vote for one!
Exactly
It went from ‘anything but trump!’ To ‘we don’t like what we had to do to make sure trump lost so make new laws so we don’t do it again’
So much of this is just stuff that sounds nice until you think about it, codifying ageism and blocking older people from political life is unjust and undemocratic.
The US already has minimum age laws for the House (25), the Senate (30), and the President (35).
And I strongly oppose those as well
This has nothing to do with age and everything with ability. A test of mental abilities would be fairer but then a lot more politicians than the old ones would disqualify.
The problem there is, who makes the test? How do you avoid a regulatory capture type scenario where one party (you know which one) games the system so that the elder statesmen on the other side of the aisle are the only ones who lose their seats?
A test of mental abilities has a long history of being used to exclude ideological or ethnographic opponents of the majority. For example what language would the test even be in?
This isn't ageism. If it was ageism is already codified in the US constitution.
Correct, it is, and that was a mistake as well.
Over 75% of 2,335 voters (the amount of participants in this poll). These polls mean nothing.
Says the guy that doesn't understand statistics
Always love when people say the dumbest shit about statistics super confidently. 2,335 is a significantly larger sample size than you'd need to draw accurate enough conclusions
Not disagreeing, but it would not have taken much effort to copy/paste into the body:
Methodology: The poll surveyed 2,335 adults between Sept. 5-8 and has a margin of error of ±2.7 points.
Of course everyone should read the article but some people don't.
The pollsters told us Hillary was definitely gonna win. Campaigns increasingly have pollsters that create "third party" data that makes them look good. I don't care what's kosher in a statistics course, we're seeing these polls because someone is paying a lot to make it all happen.
75% reactionaries. Yeah, let's throw out all our most experienced, knowledgeable people.
It seems cool at first but think it through. It's a dumb idea to combat a problem that really isn't that big of a problem. For every zombie like Diane Feinstein, there's a Bernie Sanders that's sharper and more energetic than some 20 something's I know.
We have a perfectly good mechanism to get zombies out of office without throwing out the baby with the bath water, and it's called voting.
I feel confident Bernie would be happy to step down if it meant the heavily-entrenched geriatrics like McConnell and Feinstein did as well. This isn't a matter of individual liberties, so we don't have to hold the standards to minimizing any potential harm; we can instead focus on decisions which affect the greatest good. I strongly disagree with your opinion "for every zombie like Diane Feinstein, there’s a Bernie Sanders that’s sharper and more energetic than some 20 something’s I know" and instead think it's more like there are 10 geriatric zombies doing harm to the country and system for every 1 decent Bernie Sanders-type.
Not sure the olds bags are doing harm, at least not any more than any other politician. Has nothing to do with their age.
If they suck, they can be voted out.
75% percent tired of old people having all the voting power and rejecting all ideas for change because it's going to make their last 10 years of their old ass life uncomfortable.
I totally agree with you and feel the same way about term limits.
There already is a limit - it's called an election.
Edit: It seems to me that people just don't care enough about democracy and they want to blame the government for their poor choices. This is stupid and a distraction from issues that matter. Issues that we should be voting about. 75% of people should stop being lazy Americans and vote. Also, we've gotta keep pushing for Ranked Choice Voting. THIS would solve the problem of ineffective politicians more so than taking rights away from (dumb and lazy) voters.
All of lemmy would disgree with you. But, you are right. Instead of voting for the right candidates, they like to blame the "system" and admit defeat. That way, they don't have to take any responsibility and keep blaming "them". It is not far from voter suppression.
The system blows you know it and I know it. Now it's just a matter of whose blowing you to say otherwise.
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 think I finally realize why the news and politics communities are so popular here.
You will. I've got some years left. I will admit the move from Reddit was a bit perplexing.
But I'm learning. Sync and Thunder are interesting. Working out for me.
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
I will never understand the people who have enough money for thirty lifetimes but not only keep working, but keep working a job that involves being a full time piece of shit.
I can understand people who love their jobs holding on, which makes me think they love being pieces of shit more than spending more time with their families and pursuing passion projects.
Most people under thirty are facing their "retirement" being two weeks of palliative care that wipes out their savings but there's 80 year olds out there dragging their bodies out or bed each day to try and take even more.
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.
It seems like there are some ugly games played involving voter age. I don't like it.
stop talking shit about @FReddit@lemmy.world 😠
I appreciate that.
Early 50s and my back hurts...
I had some kind of random ten years' of good health through my fifties. Then it all came to a stop like a train wreck -- pneumonia, Covid, chemotherapy. And somehow I ended up type 2 diabetic.
Doh!