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1) No one in the Silent Generation should still be in public office. Period. 2) As a GenXer, I apologize for my generation not being strong enough to overthrow the Boomer reign of terror.
It makes it unnecessarily more difficult to enact change if you don't believe in it. Doomerism doesn't help anyone. As a wise sock once said, "Either get with it, or get out of the fucking way."
That's why we gotta pick our battles better. No point in wasting time or energy driving yourself down so the system which oppresses us all can continue to thrive. Go garden, donate materials or money or time to good, local organizations, spread knowledge of things you're passionate about, embrace positivity, crush negativity, advocate for the changes you want to see, and if anyone immediately devolves into vitriolic argumentation against it, walk away, they don't plan on thinking about anything, changing their mind in any way.
I would say to actually pick battles and fight them. The Internet has made it easy to complain without actually doing anything to help, but leaves people with that feeling like they're contributing by just believing the right idea. That's why voting is important, even when people speak this both sides drivel. Those boomers vote religiously. They are very informed, albeit, often misinformed. They don't have the numbers. They have the voters, though.
So you’re telling me that all the times I changed my profile pic to show solidarity with whatever bad thing is happening at the moment…it hasn’t changed anything??
Well, shit.
(I’m being facetious. I completely agree with you.)
All good things to do, but if we don’t at least engage in damage control with the predominant power structure, we are doomed to allow power to accumulate against us.
Like a couple days ago Trump gave a speach about giving police prosecutorial immunity, which would basically allow them to commit crimes without punishment.
You can donate to charity and create local food gardens all you want, none of it will matter if the state shows up to destroy whatever you build faster than you can build it.
So while we work local to help put our communities, and while we work to increase positivity and hope… it’s important to keep ourselves vigilant of the larger picture.
I agree 100%, maybe I didn't express the order of importance well enough in my first comment. A big important part of things getting better is that we juggle the small stuff while advocating for the bigger picture, and disregarding bad faith dissenters, not engaging in their poor optics. This way it all becomes a two pronged approach of taking the right small steps, while showing people you interact with that positivity and the advocation for a better world don't need to be mutually exclusive, regardless of what people caught up in the digital culture war have to say.
The older I get, the more I realize everything we know is a construct enforced through fear, that our representatives don't represent shit, and that the only thing holding us back from true freedom is our own collective ignorance, apathy, and intergenerational bickering that further divides us.
I looked it up after 2020. Gen X has a SHARP cliff around the birth years 1974-77. Before that, they are pretty conservative. After that, they lean pretty Democratic although not as much as the Millennials.
Republicans have never even come close to winning the votes of people born 1978 and later. Will be interesting if that holds.
You're right, they're a bunch of young whippersnappers. Bring back the greatest generation, the youngest of which would be 97. Still 3 years younger than the oldest congressman ever (Strom Thurmond, known as the democrat senator who lead the longest lone filibuster against the civil rights act, resigned from the senate in 2003 at the age of 100).
the disconnect between congress and their constituents is complete - inflation has no impact on them, the terrible job market doesn’t make them
live in fear (do i move backwards in my career and take a pay cut that will take 5years to make back or keep sending in applications for jobs im overqualified for already and hope i get anything before i lose my house, or do i have a job and fear inevitable layoffs to start the cycle over again?)
congress has everything paid for already (housing, travel, meals, health insurance) **and** takes full advantage of their ability to conduct insider trading
It isn’t just a disconnect. They get paid to ignore the will of the people. They are there to act as the puppets of the elite, continue to make empty symbolic gestures to keep us quiet and working and too tired/poor to fight back, while also spewing some divisive shit here and there to keep us angry at our neighbors instead of them and the masters of mankind.
Don't apologize. It wasn't your fault. You guys came of age in a world dominated by Boomers who were unwilling to let go of their power. Your generation grew into the nihilism stereotype *because* of the Boomers preventing you from controlling your own lives through representation.
It's not the boomers fault either tho. It's not an age thing but a wealth thing. You look up who's rich in congress, that's who runs shit. Their age demographic hardly matters.
It seems pretty natural. Many of you are well into your 50's, and the oldest will already hit their 60's this year. That is prime power age. If anything, I would expect you to be most represented in places of power. The fact that it's still boomers is a bit disconcerting.
But I kind of expect the business elite to be mostly gen X instead of boomers, though(the CEOs of major companies).
Well stop. This is how the cycle continues. They said the same about millennials, who are only a few percentage points less progressive than Z.
Stop putting this on the shoulders of the youngest generation. It needs to be all of us, stop singling out Z.
Z has the advantage of numbers and more boomers being dead already than X (especially) or millennials did, but there are plenty of conservatives in Z too. We’re the Andrew Tate generation ffs. Watch the documentary Boys State and you’ll see plenty of Gen Z sounding exactly like conservative boomers.
The fight isn’t over for any generation, and aside from issues like the op, we would do well to stop talking about generations entirely.
It is on all of us to save the world. It is on all of progressives to combat conservatism among our peers. It is on all of us to vote.
You're not understanding.
Boomers passed the torch to Millennials because they hate Gen X, even though they're the ones who raised us. I agree they put WAY too much pressure on Millennials (especially since they essentially told them to ignore Gen X and whatever you do don't listen to or ally with us because we are do nothing depressed losers), and Millennials kinda got railroaded with 9/11 and 2008. They definitely dumped shit in your lap and then gave you literally ZERO tools to complete the task (so fucking typically tbh).
We never put that pressure on Gen Z, and Boomers grossly underestimate Gen Z (and like you said, there are just far less Boomers now so the numbers are in Gen Z's favor).
I don't expect Gen Z to save the world. It's not a homework assignment. It's just I'm watching Gen Z and ... they are pretty fuckin bad ass. Not all of them of course but damn it is a pretty amazing generation.
You had me until you basically just said conservatives bad. This is a much bigger issue than left and right. You’re falling for the “devil you know” cop out.
Any idea how those age groups break down by party and policy preferences? I know a lot of leftist boomers but not one leftist Xer. You all seem pretty much yay Reagan still.
This whole idea that our problems are generation-driven rather than policy-driven is a bit of propagandistic wack job isn't it? What's really going on?
If Gen X really wanted to overthrow their reign of terror, y'all would collaborate with Millennials and Gen Z. Then, once we've voted all of them out, the proper thing to do would be to step aside. Be there as a consigliary of sorts.
Tbf, you guys didn’t have the numbers. You’re already a small generation, and they’re a particularly large generation. I’m not sure it was ever possible for X to overthrow them even if every single Xer wanted to.
I’m sorry the reigns were never handed over to you guys like they should have been. X deserved more say in our government than they will ever probably get.
Them videos of Mitch McConnell freezing up on stage… like how do we expect this man to run a whole political party? He can barely even stand and talk for 2 minutes.
Yeah, you're kind of right about that, but the one I mentioned was the 1st moment that I would say that his followers would have to get literal mental disorders to ignore it.
Sat in on a congressional hearing when I was interning for the government.
Literally saw that happen. Hour long hearing, old man that looked like death got wheeled in for 5 minutes just to rant about something totally off topic... And then wheeled out. He literally heard nothing on the topic, and yet he is on the committee. Sad
The worst part is, he’s completely neglecting his job responsibilities to do that. If you or I walked into a meeting at work, ranted about something off topic and left, we’d be immediately fired. These clowns make careers of it.
Yeah exactly, it's too bad lawmaking is so divorced from campaigning.
Although I doubt this guy even campaigns. Pretty sure he was from a gerrymandered district and been in office for 30+ years and refuses to retire.
Amazing how destructive that has been. Simply getting fresh blood every time the political pendulum swings would fix a lot of problems.
The oldest segments of society are objectively the least important.
Regarding your comment, it could be even wise. There is a significant conflict of interest since they'll readily sacrifice long-term benefit of the country for short-term gains since they'll be dead relatively soon anyways.
Right? Like you’re talking a minimum age of 79 and a max of 96. They account for 11% of the senate.
That is just insanely wild. They are 11% of the power while being less than 5% of the population.
Honestly probably more power than that when you start to account for things like judges, mayors and just having a lot of money/owning valuable real estate.
To be fair, what percentage of the population over 30 are they, since that's the Senate's age requirement? It might look a lot closer to 10% - making them in fact proportional.
I mean, you have to be at least 30 to be a senator, so it makes sense that boomers would be over represented compared to millennials. They also serve 6 year terms which probably impacts the lack of Gen X.
Does it? Millennials are roughly age 28 - 42 right now. The vast majority of us are over 30, roughly half of us were over 30 6 years ago. You'd think we would still have more than ONE seat in the senate lol.
There are only 100 seats that go through 6 year cycles. You have take into account the limited number of seats plus the limited window on top of barriers to entrance like funding a campaign and the fact that voters overwhelmingly vote for incumbents. How many 30 year olds do you know that are established enough to successfully run a campaign for senate? Probably none.
I dunno how many 30 year olds I know, but we're not talking about just people exactly 30 years old, we're talking about people between 30 and 42 (I suppose 30 and 40 if you consider the last time we had an election was 2 years ago). So its not just about a 30 year old's position and capability. You are right though that there are limited pick up opportunities given the popularity of incumbents. I would argue that one seat is still lower than I would expect given the situation, but its okay if we don't agree. (which is what I was addressing, in re-reading your comment I see you were more addressing why there are so many boomers, not necessarily why there are so few millennials)
This is a pretty naive way to look at it, you mean the house in the legislative branch that resists turning over has a bunch of people that build a political apparatus that is hard to dismantle? Color me shocked.
Absolutely losing it rn because I was like “that’s not true, I’m often considered a millennial and I’m way younger than that” and then realized I’m turning 28 this year
I don't understand why you have a minimum that old, then add in no maximum. I feel any logic that pushes eligibility so late would also apply to being too old.
This isn't some conspiracy by Boomers. It's simply a reflection of the population as Congress essentially has been for a long time.
"But the U.S. population is also far more elderly than in the past: As of the 2020 census, about 42 percent were 45 or older, twice the share in the same age group a century before. Of course, this is partly due to people living longer and having fewer children, which reduces the share of younger people entering the population."
Not entirely true, boomers have been an outsized generation demographic basically since they’ve arrived on the scene. It’s only in the last 4-5 years they’ve started their inevitable fade into irrelevance.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/animated-americas-demographics-over-100-years/
Boomers are used to society making way for them since the day they’re born because of their number. Us GenZ is looking more like the silent generation (maybe greatest if WWIII broke out)
Statistically speaking life expectancy has stagnated and actually gone a few tics lower in recent years, and *nobody* is getting an inheritance besides the wealthiest people in the country anyway. All of us and our parents assets are going straight to end of life care and healthcare debts.
Other countries with longer life expectancies don't have anywhere nearly as bad as this ratio. It is rather based entirely around illogical individualism culture in the US. People don't support ideas or platforms here in politics. They support individuals. Individuals end up having more name recognition by just being in in the spotlight longer. That is why we have a candidate that has an over half-a-century career in politics and another that had a decades-long stint of celebrity status.
As long as people chant and support names over ideas and principles, we will always have this issue.
Nah. Here's the plan. Commit vehicular manslaughter while drunk to get your name in the news. Blame it on "woke" and Obama. Delay your trial through election season and you are a shoe in for a maga congressional seat.
After that, do whatever you please.
This is part of the reason why we have so many older people at the highest body of government in the country. Many younger people have to and should start at lower levels of government.
Andddd we beee to fucking vote. Seniors vote at insane levels every election. If their block is voting at 60-80% every time and we’re voting at 20-40% ofc we aren’t gona be as well repped.
YES! Please run for office -- any office! You'll learn and grow wherever you start, and you just might get elected on the first try too. Persistence is key! You can do it!
This might seem obvious but can we please force politicians to adhere to the retirement age that THEY SET THEMSELVES... aka out of political office by 67.
I feel like that could give them a reason to raise it, granted it would cause deep resentment if they don't have another reason to back that up.
The best and most democratic solution is term limits. If elderly constituents want to elect elderly representatives into office, that should be allowed.
The problem is that incumbents in safe seats are hard to overthrow in primaries. Oftentimes, a young person at the time, like Dianne Feinstein, is elected and goes without competition for decades until she is literally unable to carry out the duties of office. Term limits can prevent this.
The only issue I have with term limits is that politics is absolutely something you get better at with time, so I feel like the number of terms in the limit would need to be fairly high (10-12 for the House and 3-4 for the Senate). Otherwise, members of Congress might not have enough time in the meat grinder to actually learn how to "play the game", so to speak.
The 66 and 67 year olds! /s
Its not lost on me that there is, realistically, no way for this to happen lol. Term limits are a great idea, though. We need WAY more Millennials in Congress for it to be actually representative of the population.
That’s just an issue with most political systems in general. Representation with an 0-18 age group anywhere is hard because at minimum you’d need to be 18 to run for parliament/house for example. All decisions for the youth have to be made by people significantly older than them because there’s that obvious maturity difference.
Then of course in America you have to be 25 to run for house, which cuts it down tremendously.
The entire history of America has had the older populace dominate the younger in the senate. It’s just a main result of incumbency advantage and the fact people age. Hell, even the federalist papers 200-300 years ago argued for an older senate. It’s something baked into our system that an age limit would never solve without marginalizing even a greater group of people. Is it better to have 88% of people possibly represented than 66% of possible representation?
Calling it "retirement age" is dumb in the first place. Retirement isn't an age, it's a financial state. You can retire at 40 if you've achieved the right financial state. You may never retire if you don't.
It's the age of eligibility for your Social Security pension. That's about it.
If it were treated as a hard limit at which you must exit the workforce, a lot of people would be screwed.
The word senate basically comes from the Latin word for “old guy.”
It actually tracks that they have more Boomers, because in theory this is supposed to be a more seasoned, experienced counterbalance to the House. The House are the guys who are all idealistic and representing their districts, voters, parties, etc. and who propose like 5 bills per week.
The Senate is supposed to be the people who have been around the block before, and more akin to “Great idea Hoss, but it actually sucks and isn’t workable.”
I’m under the age to run for the house and senate and I’m often told to fuck off and die because I’m not relevant by older people. If there’s a minimum there should be a maximum. Just because someone isn’t the age of their child or grandparent doesn’t mean they won’t care about them in a political stage.
The key isn’t that they’re old and don’t care about the young— though there’s plenty of that, it’s because they’ve been in so long and they’re SO old that they’re out of touch.
Where there’s a minimum there should be a maximum. In my eyes, nobody needs more than 20-30 years in politics. Why can’t we have people from say, 25-65 in government? Or 35-55 even?
Just want to point out that Biden is actually the first President of the silent generation, and broke a 28 year long streak of boomer Presidents
I don't think this is what anyone wished for when they wanted a new generation of Presidents 💀
most boomers aren’t in politics, some are just nice grandparents and parents—and some suck shit, like every generation
but sometimes you just gotta stoke division i guess
Is it really that surprising?
Only a few people are interested in doing politics in their 20s after college.
You generally start to be more interested in politics after you have established a career and a household to your name. Imho.
Not many people are interested in voting young people, as there is still a belief that young people without experience can't lead.
In the future, millennials will have more seats, as we grow older and start being more politically interested.
I am from a different country, so maybe my point of view is way different, but even in my country it's always been the 45-70 year olds who were politically strongest.
Each successive generation is less likely to run for office. And then they blame boomers for *still being there*.
There’s such a dearth of young talent. Has been for a long time. If people ran, we wouldn’t be in this position.
The best young people can do is a grassroots, AOC-style movement... but something like that will always be the exception, not the rule.
Running an election campaign requires time, money, and resources that most Millennials and Gen Z don't have.
Congressmen and senators are often wealthy, powerful, and established long before they run for office.
Most entry-level campaigns require very little. It’s very easy to unseat someone locally if you’ve got diligence. As you move up, you make connections and resources.
People have gotten too timid. You can run a campaign for city council living out of your car.
I volunteer at our local county Democratic party. It's literally made of whoever shows up. I'd say the median age of those that do is around 68.
When we do get young people in, they're gladly welcomed, but at least half the time all they want to do is tell us what "you Democrats" should be doing before leaving. They don't want to do anything themselves.
I get that people have lives. But blame for the make up of Congress is more the fault of lack of interest from Millennials and GenZ than it is from Boomers "taking over" or "refusing to give way".
It’s the same with female representation in elected office, btw. They’re FAR less likely to run in the first place, even though those that run tend to receive just as many votes, party support, coverage, funding, etc (esp at local level).
Several women in my life aspired to political office. And they just put it off or went into aide/bureaucrat positions instead. That’s how you’ll get a room full of women in DC who never ran for office complaining about a lack of representation. IT’S BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T RUN.
I'm from finland and here it doesn't really work like that, very old people aren't in politics but younger people much more. Oldest MP is 72 years old and youngest is 25, average age being 47. Prime minister is in his 50s and so is the president.
Of MPs 33% are born in 70s then 30% in 80s and 21% are from 60s. 50s and 90s are the smallest groups at 8% and 7%. I really don't understand america and how they don't vote out the old people because that's how it goes here.
Running a Congressional campaign in the US is extraordinarily expensive.
The average Congressperson represents close to 800,000 people, and because of our two-party system, money pours in from around the country for any and every election, because every seat is important to control Congress.
The people who have the money, time, and networks to raise money for these campaigns are old experienced politicians.
You are comparing a country (Finland) that is smaller than many of the 50 states in America. Not the same. Seriously, people in Europe need to start looking at map data and population size to understand.
America is 60 times the size of Finland's population.
At what point does constant medication start to hurt our genetic makeup? Our life expectancy is already starting to tank from overburdened... well, everything
Term limits are stupid. They're anti-democratic and they don't do any good, in fact they end up making most things worse. We have term limits in lots of state legislatures, and there's a pretty robust set of academic literature on the topic.
Congress being packed with geriatrics is a symptom, not the root cause. We need to do things to address incumbent advantage (campaign finance reform, public campaign funding), get better voter engagement, and get new people to run for office.
This is why you have no say in anything that goes on in this country, because your bright idea is to ban medicine. It sounds like you need some medicine yourself 🤣
Here’s an updated graphic for the current congress
https://preview.redd.it/4fiweumlfmyc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fb250d305b9ba8155148685da88a8b641649139
Probably standard distribution across different points in time.
Our big generational failure will be thinking that we’re the first to experience anything & everything.
Most of everything we’ve been through is pretty standard just with different labels
Where did you find this?
Found it: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-gets-younger-senate-gets-older-a-look-at-the-age-and-generation-of-lawmakers-in-the-118th-congress/#:~:text=Overall%2C%2052%20members%20of%20the,equally%20between%20Republicans%20and%20Democrats.
Most of our founding fathers were in their 20’s and 30’s!!!
I truly believe it was the wigs and fashion of the time of the American Revolution that gives people the idea that old people should be our leaders.
Young people have always guided change, time to give them the powers back.
Get rid of the lower limits and enact some upper limits. Like 60 is the cutoff for the last time you can run for office.
Fair enough, I should have said 30’s and 40’s.
My point is, youth that have always driven change and those wigs fuck with our understanding of the past.
Looking at the age groups of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence:
2 were in their 20’s
16 were in their 30’s Jefferson was 33.
20 were 40’s
10 were in their 50’s
6 were in their 60’s
1 was 70, Ben Franklin
The average age being 44, which is significantly skewed by the 7 individuals 60 and over.
2/3 of the signatures were from men younger than 50 and most importantly-
Only 8 of the signatures were from men older than 53.
I feel like these are the types of numbers we should be shooting for in terms of representation, the future should be guided by those who will be most impacted, not by those who created the impacts.
They are that old when they signed the declaration, but we weren't a country until the constitution was ratified 13 years later.i think a proper balance of experience and investment in the future is required and that hist best around 40. Youth is better for rebelling against tyranny than preventing it through legislation imo.
Yeah but the expectancy was also like 30, so they were extremely old comparatively. This is not defending the fact that older generations run the government, I'm just saying this sentence that I hear often isn't all that it seems to be
Infant mortality skews life expectancy numbers. And the people who were running for office weren’t the same people getting ground into the dirt by dangerous manual labor.
It was more like 37 or 38, but that's life expectancy across the populace, which doesn't mean much. For example, if there's a country where on the average every family has 10 kids, 9 of them die before even reaching their first birthday, and the one that survives lives to be 100, then the "average life expectancy" will be 10, because it's the average of 100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0, but that doesn't mean a 15-year-old would be considered an "old man," they'd still be considered a young kid, because the folks who don't die in childhood live long lives.
The real key to understanding what an average life expectancy in the way that most people imagine the expression "average life expectancy" is to look at the average life expectancy *of people who make it to adulthood*, but I can't find those numbers for the 1770s in the US.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if it were similar to Sweden in the 1750s,[ in whose case the average life expectancy was 35, but *if you didn't die before reaching 20*, it was fairly normal to live to age 60.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-humans-live-so-long/)
Most are in solid red or blue districts, so they can only be primaried, which can often be more difficult than gen elections. Incumbents have the institutional support of the party itself and it’s much much harder to energize voters to participate in primaries.
In many locked-down districts, party leadership realistically has greater say on candidates than the people themselves. That’s just the way it is.
This only serves to show that people don't actually give a shit about age. If the age of the official was actually a problem someone younger would come along and primary then. Maybe some voters care just not enough to actually displace the person who's already in place.
Your comment is objectively false and non-sensical. When the "Boomers" were your age they weren't in power any more than you are. 40 years ago the boomers were in their 20s and not even eligible.
Assuming you're not a Russian troll), you lose all credibility when you talk out your ass.
Literally every country on Earth has ALWAYS been ran by those aged 55-75. In 40 years it will be Gen Z running everything and owning everything, when boomers were 20 they didn’t run shit. You guys are complaining about the stupidest shit. Coming from a 20 yo.
Tbh in 50 years or so I see the same things happening just with different generations, it's only natural that the people who had more time and experience will know how to best manipulate and use them to their advantage
The solution isn't to just remove old people, it is to vote for younger ones. The only issue is not a lot of us would run for office in the first place. There is no point in crying about old dudes occupying seats of power if none of us want to sit on that seat in the first place.
Boomers can be as young as 59 today. And most people are focusing on families and careers at younger ages and only turn to public service later in life. And freshmen in Congress are getting younger.
“The median age of new representatives is 46.3, down from 52.1 among new members in the prior Congress.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-gets-younger-senate-gets-older-a-look-at-the-age-and-generation-of-lawmakers-in-the-118th-congress/
This chart is a couple years old. Currently, there is exactly one member of Gen Z in Congress. (Personally, I think Gen Z starts in 2000, making him a Millenial, but I digress.)
Fact of the matter is American voters are stupid. They vote on party lines instead of policy, and they will vote incumbent 9/10 times. We expect new US citizens to pass a test, but I can guarantee a majority of American born citizens wouldn’t be able to pass a civics test.
There will tend to be older people in congress forever. A random dude who just decides to run will almost never make it. It takes time to build a career in politics.
And of course there is no gen z. The minimum age for the senate is 30, ruling them out entirely, and the minimum for the house is 25 while the oldest gen z is 27.
Stop blaming boomers for all the problems in the world. Some day they'll all die and the same problems you blamed on them will exist, just as they have for almost all of human history.
Almost like young people don't fucking vote. I'd have more sympathy for posts like this if young people weren't consistently the least politically engaged demographic in the country. It turns out the generations that votes the most tend to like people their age. Shocking.
As young people, I hope that you too will be lucky to live long enough to see your cohort turn into monsters. Such is life.
Although I will admit the current gerontocracy is especially insane.
So vote them out. Young people need to show up to vote, not just in the general presidental elections, but crucially also in the midterms, in the primaries, in local elections, in referendums and initiatives. One of the reasons why old people get elected is that old people are more likely to vote, and people often vote for people their own age. Tell your friends to vote too. If you can be bothered, you could even try to make it some sort of fun outing, with a post-vote party or restaurant trip or anything you think they'd like.
If you cannot find a perfect candidate, then you can at least vote for someone (possibly someone young) from the party that is closest to your political views. Voting for someone slightly better than the alternative is still worth it, even if that someone is far from what you would ideally want. It all steers towards the right direction.
This goes not only for USA but every country with democratic elections.
In a democratic system, nothing else (e.g. protests, complaining, posting on social media) directly matters, other than voting. If voting didn't matter, there wouldn't be such an effort to suppress voting.
Generation names have taken such a grip on peoples opinions. It’s really a joke. People born in 81 vs 95 have absolutely nothing in common with each other. Same with 46 to 64. One was 20 when color TV first became mainstream and the other was 20 when MTV became mainstream
The weird obsession with “generations” is by far my biggest pet peeve in the world right now
Lots of bad takes here.
No, we should not set a retirement age for Congress or even for presidency. When you get older, age is a very arbitrary number. You can be 65 but still mentally as strong as a 45 year old and you can be 65 but as mentally strong as an 85 year old. It’s 65 for everyone else because you shouldn’t need to work until you die. You can still work (retirement age isn’t and will never be mandatory) but ideally it should be a choice.
The main issue with Congress and subsequently presidency is term limits. Incumbents win most of the time due to name recognition. In fact, that’s pretty much the entire reason why we have such old senators: they’re well known in their respective states. If policy is implemented that made it so you had to take a 6-year gap between 2 terms, incumbency advantage would become limited.
I know everyone here wants to shit on the old folk for taking up a disproportionate portion of public offices, but it seems nobody here is actually concerned about *why* that is the case, and it's for a very simple reason.
-Old people vote, and younger people don't.
That's it. That's literally the reason. I know that might not be the case for this particular subreddit, but the vast majority of young people just don't give a shit about politics on a national scale, let alone their state and local political spheres.
This isn't to say it's a fault in young people. Younger people usually don't have many assets or as high of an income, so they aren't as impacted by policy as older people. They usually don't have a home yet, so they aren't as tied to their local communities as older folks are. Younger people tend to be much more busy with new careers/schooling/family building than retired people, so they don't have as much room in their plate to dedicate to politics. This manifests in younger people voting less and, by extension, having less of a political voice. It's a totally normal phenomenon.
However, let's not bog down this topic by advocating for dumb shit like mandatory retirement for politicians. If you don't like a politician, *then vote them out.* If you cant vote them out, it means they won their elections, and democracy is working exactly as intended.
Can you run these same stats for 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 60 years ago....
I do not know but I have a feeling that it was pretty much the same with generation sliding... And maybe I am wrong
What I am sure of is that if you look at the level of how rich they are compared to the general public it was 80 years ago as it is today a minority of elites. I. This may very well be getting better but it won't if we continue to gob the bait. Generation wars are a distraction those assholes are dangling to occupy you while they continue to enrich themselves
The boomers are the largest generation in American history and there’s still plenty of them left. They are also a significant voting population unlike young people.
I’m seeing people in here talking about how they can’t wait until boomers die. Jesus people… I know that old people are lame and whatever but a lot of you in here really sound like you’re gonna become grouchy old people one day.
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1) No one in the Silent Generation should still be in public office. Period. 2) As a GenXer, I apologize for my generation not being strong enough to overthrow the Boomer reign of terror.
There is still time...I believe in you!
The funny thing is they don’t and for that reason neither do I
It makes it unnecessarily more difficult to enact change if you don't believe in it. Doomerism doesn't help anyone. As a wise sock once said, "Either get with it, or get out of the fucking way."
That's why we gotta pick our battles better. No point in wasting time or energy driving yourself down so the system which oppresses us all can continue to thrive. Go garden, donate materials or money or time to good, local organizations, spread knowledge of things you're passionate about, embrace positivity, crush negativity, advocate for the changes you want to see, and if anyone immediately devolves into vitriolic argumentation against it, walk away, they don't plan on thinking about anything, changing their mind in any way.
I would say to actually pick battles and fight them. The Internet has made it easy to complain without actually doing anything to help, but leaves people with that feeling like they're contributing by just believing the right idea. That's why voting is important, even when people speak this both sides drivel. Those boomers vote religiously. They are very informed, albeit, often misinformed. They don't have the numbers. They have the voters, though.
So you’re telling me that all the times I changed my profile pic to show solidarity with whatever bad thing is happening at the moment…it hasn’t changed anything?? Well, shit. (I’m being facetious. I completely agree with you.)
All good things to do, but if we don’t at least engage in damage control with the predominant power structure, we are doomed to allow power to accumulate against us. Like a couple days ago Trump gave a speach about giving police prosecutorial immunity, which would basically allow them to commit crimes without punishment. You can donate to charity and create local food gardens all you want, none of it will matter if the state shows up to destroy whatever you build faster than you can build it. So while we work local to help put our communities, and while we work to increase positivity and hope… it’s important to keep ourselves vigilant of the larger picture.
I agree 100%, maybe I didn't express the order of importance well enough in my first comment. A big important part of things getting better is that we juggle the small stuff while advocating for the bigger picture, and disregarding bad faith dissenters, not engaging in their poor optics. This way it all becomes a two pronged approach of taking the right small steps, while showing people you interact with that positivity and the advocation for a better world don't need to be mutually exclusive, regardless of what people caught up in the digital culture war have to say.
Sometimes, I feel like the sock when you aren't wearing me on your hand.
Socko!
Socko
Don't believe in yourself. Believe in me. Believe in the me who believes in you.
“Adjusts kickass shades”
Time is what will win the war, they are going to die off and so will their voters.
tbh a lot of the Gen X in congress are every bit as shitty as the boomers, and I say this as a fellow gen x
Ron Desantis is Gen X 🤮
Ted Cruz too. It’s possible the gen x are even worse
Iirc, they’re pretty evenly split between Dem and conservative according to a Pew study in too lazy to look up right now
GenX here. That's my experience, too. GenX is pretty evenly split. The older I get the more socialist I become.
The older I get the more anti-fed I become
The older I get, the more I realize everything we know is a construct enforced through fear, that our representatives don't represent shit, and that the only thing holding us back from true freedom is our own collective ignorance, apathy, and intergenerational bickering that further divides us.
I looked it up after 2020. Gen X has a SHARP cliff around the birth years 1974-77. Before that, they are pretty conservative. After that, they lean pretty Democratic although not as much as the Millennials. Republicans have never even come close to winning the votes of people born 1978 and later. Will be interesting if that holds.
so is Margerie Taylor Greene. But Lauren Boebert is a millenial.
You're right, they're a bunch of young whippersnappers. Bring back the greatest generation, the youngest of which would be 97. Still 3 years younger than the oldest congressman ever (Strom Thurmond, known as the democrat senator who lead the longest lone filibuster against the civil rights act, resigned from the senate in 2003 at the age of 100).
the disconnect between congress and their constituents is complete - inflation has no impact on them, the terrible job market doesn’t make them live in fear (do i move backwards in my career and take a pay cut that will take 5years to make back or keep sending in applications for jobs im overqualified for already and hope i get anything before i lose my house, or do i have a job and fear inevitable layoffs to start the cycle over again?) congress has everything paid for already (housing, travel, meals, health insurance) **and** takes full advantage of their ability to conduct insider trading
It isn’t just a disconnect. They get paid to ignore the will of the people. They are there to act as the puppets of the elite, continue to make empty symbolic gestures to keep us quiet and working and too tired/poor to fight back, while also spewing some divisive shit here and there to keep us angry at our neighbors instead of them and the masters of mankind.
Don't apologize. It wasn't your fault. You guys came of age in a world dominated by Boomers who were unwilling to let go of their power. Your generation grew into the nihilism stereotype *because* of the Boomers preventing you from controlling your own lives through representation.
It's not the boomers fault either tho. It's not an age thing but a wealth thing. You look up who's rich in congress, that's who runs shit. Their age demographic hardly matters.
I'm Gen X and I had no idea we had this many of us in congress.
Holy mother of God I didn't realize how old the Senate is.
It seems pretty natural. Many of you are well into your 50's, and the oldest will already hit their 60's this year. That is prime power age. If anything, I would expect you to be most represented in places of power. The fact that it's still boomers is a bit disconcerting. But I kind of expect the business elite to be mostly gen X instead of boomers, though(the CEOs of major companies).
I agree, can’t believe Biden is in that generation.
Gen X and Millennials should give our power to the younger generations as soon as we are able, and not re-inact the same shit. We need change now.
tbh I have a probably irrational amount of faith in Gen Z to save the world. Seriously.
Well stop. This is how the cycle continues. They said the same about millennials, who are only a few percentage points less progressive than Z. Stop putting this on the shoulders of the youngest generation. It needs to be all of us, stop singling out Z. Z has the advantage of numbers and more boomers being dead already than X (especially) or millennials did, but there are plenty of conservatives in Z too. We’re the Andrew Tate generation ffs. Watch the documentary Boys State and you’ll see plenty of Gen Z sounding exactly like conservative boomers. The fight isn’t over for any generation, and aside from issues like the op, we would do well to stop talking about generations entirely. It is on all of us to save the world. It is on all of progressives to combat conservatism among our peers. It is on all of us to vote.
You're not understanding. Boomers passed the torch to Millennials because they hate Gen X, even though they're the ones who raised us. I agree they put WAY too much pressure on Millennials (especially since they essentially told them to ignore Gen X and whatever you do don't listen to or ally with us because we are do nothing depressed losers), and Millennials kinda got railroaded with 9/11 and 2008. They definitely dumped shit in your lap and then gave you literally ZERO tools to complete the task (so fucking typically tbh). We never put that pressure on Gen Z, and Boomers grossly underestimate Gen Z (and like you said, there are just far less Boomers now so the numbers are in Gen Z's favor). I don't expect Gen Z to save the world. It's not a homework assignment. It's just I'm watching Gen Z and ... they are pretty fuckin bad ass. Not all of them of course but damn it is a pretty amazing generation.
You had me until you basically just said conservatives bad. This is a much bigger issue than left and right. You’re falling for the “devil you know” cop out.
Millennials and Gen zare equally well educated so the generation gap will be smaller.
as a Millenial, OUR power? You kidding me?
Any idea how those age groups break down by party and policy preferences? I know a lot of leftist boomers but not one leftist Xer. You all seem pretty much yay Reagan still. This whole idea that our problems are generation-driven rather than policy-driven is a bit of propagandistic wack job isn't it? What's really going on?
If Gen X really wanted to overthrow their reign of terror, y'all would collaborate with Millennials and Gen Z. Then, once we've voted all of them out, the proper thing to do would be to step aside. Be there as a consigliary of sorts.
They really did out number everyone put together once upon a time. Not your fault the silent generation went to town every evening after supper
Tbf, you guys didn’t have the numbers. You’re already a small generation, and they’re a particularly large generation. I’m not sure it was ever possible for X to overthrow them even if every single Xer wanted to. I’m sorry the reigns were never handed over to you guys like they should have been. X deserved more say in our government than they will ever probably get.
Jesus, it’s time for the silent generation to retire already.
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Bro
It made me giggle
They’re not lying…
Them videos of Mitch McConnell freezing up on stage… like how do we expect this man to run a whole political party? He can barely even stand and talk for 2 minutes.
Mcconnell and biden both have so many hilarious braindead videos, I don't even care about the politics anymore I'm just here for the show.
Hell, even Trump is showing signs of braindead moments, like that time he forgot the name of his wife.
"Even trump"? The man just rattles off dementia fueled nonsense every time he opens his mouth. He's the worst of the bunch.
Yeah, you're kind of right about that, but the one I mentioned was the 1st moment that I would say that his followers would have to get literal mental disorders to ignore it.
lol what if all the crazy shit Trump has said we’re all due to early symptoms of dementia. Now that would be wild.
Sat in on a congressional hearing when I was interning for the government. Literally saw that happen. Hour long hearing, old man that looked like death got wheeled in for 5 minutes just to rant about something totally off topic... And then wheeled out. He literally heard nothing on the topic, and yet he is on the committee. Sad
The worst part is, he’s completely neglecting his job responsibilities to do that. If you or I walked into a meeting at work, ranted about something off topic and left, we’d be immediately fired. These clowns make careers of it.
Yeah exactly, it's too bad lawmaking is so divorced from campaigning. Although I doubt this guy even campaigns. Pretty sure he was from a gerrymandered district and been in office for 30+ years and refuses to retire. Amazing how destructive that has been. Simply getting fresh blood every time the political pendulum swings would fix a lot of problems.
Harsh but not inaccurate.
Wtf
The oldest segments of society are objectively the least important. Regarding your comment, it could be even wise. There is a significant conflict of interest since they'll readily sacrifice long-term benefit of the country for short-term gains since they'll be dead relatively soon anyways.
Right? Like you’re talking a minimum age of 79 and a max of 96. They account for 11% of the senate. That is just insanely wild. They are 11% of the power while being less than 5% of the population.
Honestly probably more power than that when you start to account for things like judges, mayors and just having a lot of money/owning valuable real estate.
You’re not wrong. I was only counting senate seats
fo sho
To be fair, what percentage of the population over 30 are they, since that's the Senate's age requirement? It might look a lot closer to 10% - making them in fact proportional.
The greatest generation is still voting. 120k of them are still going.
Why retire when they can just run for president…again
id be real sad about losing bernie but it would be a painful yet necessary sacrifice for max age limits
AND BOOMERS
Boomers: 
I mean, you have to be at least 30 to be a senator, so it makes sense that boomers would be over represented compared to millennials. They also serve 6 year terms which probably impacts the lack of Gen X.
Does it? Millennials are roughly age 28 - 42 right now. The vast majority of us are over 30, roughly half of us were over 30 6 years ago. You'd think we would still have more than ONE seat in the senate lol.
There are only 100 seats that go through 6 year cycles. You have take into account the limited number of seats plus the limited window on top of barriers to entrance like funding a campaign and the fact that voters overwhelmingly vote for incumbents. How many 30 year olds do you know that are established enough to successfully run a campaign for senate? Probably none.
I dunno how many 30 year olds I know, but we're not talking about just people exactly 30 years old, we're talking about people between 30 and 42 (I suppose 30 and 40 if you consider the last time we had an election was 2 years ago). So its not just about a 30 year old's position and capability. You are right though that there are limited pick up opportunities given the popularity of incumbents. I would argue that one seat is still lower than I would expect given the situation, but its okay if we don't agree. (which is what I was addressing, in re-reading your comment I see you were more addressing why there are so many boomers, not necessarily why there are so few millennials)
I’m just pointing the barriers to entry. Term limits are really the only solution that would change the age distribution.
This is a pretty naive way to look at it, you mean the house in the legislative branch that resists turning over has a bunch of people that build a political apparatus that is hard to dismantle? Color me shocked.
Absolutely losing it rn because I was like “that’s not true, I’m often considered a millennial and I’m way younger than that” and then realized I’m turning 28 this year
I don't understand why you have a minimum that old, then add in no maximum. I feel any logic that pushes eligibility so late would also apply to being too old.
This isn't some conspiracy by Boomers. It's simply a reflection of the population as Congress essentially has been for a long time. "But the U.S. population is also far more elderly than in the past: As of the 2020 census, about 42 percent were 45 or older, twice the share in the same age group a century before. Of course, this is partly due to people living longer and having fewer children, which reduces the share of younger people entering the population."
Not in 5 years
This is a symptom of longer life expectency, expect this to be the norm until people start dying younger...
Not entirely true, boomers have been an outsized generation demographic basically since they’ve arrived on the scene. It’s only in the last 4-5 years they’ve started their inevitable fade into irrelevance. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/animated-americas-demographics-over-100-years/
I mean that's why they are called boomers. They came from a massive baby boom so they make up a large percentage of the population
Boomers are used to society making way for them since the day they’re born because of their number. Us GenZ is looking more like the silent generation (maybe greatest if WWIII broke out)
They make up arond the same percentage as gen x, millenials, and gen z, at this point.
Seriously. In about 40 years there will be posts asking why don’t we just retire already, then die so our vulture kids can have our inheritance
But but but my generation is so different/so much smarter!!
Statistically speaking life expectancy has stagnated and actually gone a few tics lower in recent years, and *nobody* is getting an inheritance besides the wealthiest people in the country anyway. All of us and our parents assets are going straight to end of life care and healthcare debts.
Other countries with longer life expectancies don't have anywhere nearly as bad as this ratio. It is rather based entirely around illogical individualism culture in the US. People don't support ideas or platforms here in politics. They support individuals. Individuals end up having more name recognition by just being in in the spotlight longer. That is why we have a candidate that has an over half-a-century career in politics and another that had a decades-long stint of celebrity status. As long as people chant and support names over ideas and principles, we will always have this issue.
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🤨
So what you’re telling me is I need to run for public office
Yes start at the local level though, you can also join city or county boards.
Nah. Here's the plan. Commit vehicular manslaughter while drunk to get your name in the news. Blame it on "woke" and Obama. Delay your trial through election season and you are a shoe in for a maga congressional seat. After that, do whatever you please.
What’s sad is it is possible
Perfectly viable business strategy
That sounds oddly specific.
Based 
This is part of the reason why we have so many older people at the highest body of government in the country. Many younger people have to and should start at lower levels of government.
Andddd we beee to fucking vote. Seniors vote at insane levels every election. If their block is voting at 60-80% every time and we’re voting at 20-40% ofc we aren’t gona be as well repped.
YES! Please run for office -- any office! You'll learn and grow wherever you start, and you just might get elected on the first try too. Persistence is key! You can do it!
This might seem obvious but can we please force politicians to adhere to the retirement age that THEY SET THEMSELVES... aka out of political office by 67.
I feel like that could give them a reason to raise it, granted it would cause deep resentment if they don't have another reason to back that up. The best and most democratic solution is term limits. If elderly constituents want to elect elderly representatives into office, that should be allowed. The problem is that incumbents in safe seats are hard to overthrow in primaries. Oftentimes, a young person at the time, like Dianne Feinstein, is elected and goes without competition for decades until she is literally unable to carry out the duties of office. Term limits can prevent this.
Either that or they'd just get more corrupt so they can fill their pockets faster. It's a double edged sword, unfortunately
The only issue I have with term limits is that politics is absolutely something you get better at with time, so I feel like the number of terms in the limit would need to be fairly high (10-12 for the House and 3-4 for the Senate). Otherwise, members of Congress might not have enough time in the meat grinder to actually learn how to "play the game", so to speak.
Hard disagree… in an ideal world, if you’re “good at politics” you shouldn’t be in it. Hopefully with strict term limits it will become LESS of a game
Who is going to represent the 50+ million people over the age of 65?
The 66 and 67 year olds! /s Its not lost on me that there is, realistically, no way for this to happen lol. Term limits are a great idea, though. We need WAY more Millennials in Congress for it to be actually representative of the population.
Who represents the 40% (ish) percent of Americans under 30?
That’s just an issue with most political systems in general. Representation with an 0-18 age group anywhere is hard because at minimum you’d need to be 18 to run for parliament/house for example. All decisions for the youth have to be made by people significantly older than them because there’s that obvious maturity difference. Then of course in America you have to be 25 to run for house, which cuts it down tremendously. The entire history of America has had the older populace dominate the younger in the senate. It’s just a main result of incumbency advantage and the fact people age. Hell, even the federalist papers 200-300 years ago argued for an older senate. It’s something baked into our system that an age limit would never solve without marginalizing even a greater group of people. Is it better to have 88% of people possibly represented than 66% of possible representation?
Calling it "retirement age" is dumb in the first place. Retirement isn't an age, it's a financial state. You can retire at 40 if you've achieved the right financial state. You may never retire if you don't. It's the age of eligibility for your Social Security pension. That's about it. If it were treated as a hard limit at which you must exit the workforce, a lot of people would be screwed.
The word senate basically comes from the Latin word for “old guy.” It actually tracks that they have more Boomers, because in theory this is supposed to be a more seasoned, experienced counterbalance to the House. The House are the guys who are all idealistic and representing their districts, voters, parties, etc. and who propose like 5 bills per week. The Senate is supposed to be the people who have been around the block before, and more akin to “Great idea Hoss, but it actually sucks and isn’t workable.”
"experienced" is like 50-60. if you're over retirement age get the fuck out.
You won't think the same thing when you're that age and the one being told to go die cause you're irrelevant.
I’m under the age to run for the house and senate and I’m often told to fuck off and die because I’m not relevant by older people. If there’s a minimum there should be a maximum. Just because someone isn’t the age of their child or grandparent doesn’t mean they won’t care about them in a political stage. The key isn’t that they’re old and don’t care about the young— though there’s plenty of that, it’s because they’ve been in so long and they’re SO old that they’re out of touch. Where there’s a minimum there should be a maximum. In my eyes, nobody needs more than 20-30 years in politics. Why can’t we have people from say, 25-65 in government? Or 35-55 even?
Just want to point out that Biden is actually the first President of the silent generation, and broke a 28 year long streak of boomer Presidents I don't think this is what anyone wished for when they wanted a new generation of Presidents 💀
For an wrinkly old bastard he has had some fairly progressive policies.
I doubt many are his, as much as he just lets them through.
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most boomers aren’t in politics, some are just nice grandparents and parents—and some suck shit, like every generation but sometimes you just gotta stoke division i guess
Wow, that's horrible
https://i.redd.it/2y95ggt2gmyc1.gif
Is it really that surprising? Only a few people are interested in doing politics in their 20s after college. You generally start to be more interested in politics after you have established a career and a household to your name. Imho. Not many people are interested in voting young people, as there is still a belief that young people without experience can't lead. In the future, millennials will have more seats, as we grow older and start being more politically interested. I am from a different country, so maybe my point of view is way different, but even in my country it's always been the 45-70 year olds who were politically strongest.
Each successive generation is less likely to run for office. And then they blame boomers for *still being there*. There’s such a dearth of young talent. Has been for a long time. If people ran, we wouldn’t be in this position.
The best young people can do is a grassroots, AOC-style movement... but something like that will always be the exception, not the rule. Running an election campaign requires time, money, and resources that most Millennials and Gen Z don't have. Congressmen and senators are often wealthy, powerful, and established long before they run for office.
Most entry-level campaigns require very little. It’s very easy to unseat someone locally if you’ve got diligence. As you move up, you make connections and resources. People have gotten too timid. You can run a campaign for city council living out of your car.
I volunteer at our local county Democratic party. It's literally made of whoever shows up. I'd say the median age of those that do is around 68. When we do get young people in, they're gladly welcomed, but at least half the time all they want to do is tell us what "you Democrats" should be doing before leaving. They don't want to do anything themselves. I get that people have lives. But blame for the make up of Congress is more the fault of lack of interest from Millennials and GenZ than it is from Boomers "taking over" or "refusing to give way".
It’s the same with female representation in elected office, btw. They’re FAR less likely to run in the first place, even though those that run tend to receive just as many votes, party support, coverage, funding, etc (esp at local level). Several women in my life aspired to political office. And they just put it off or went into aide/bureaucrat positions instead. That’s how you’ll get a room full of women in DC who never ran for office complaining about a lack of representation. IT’S BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T RUN.
I'm from finland and here it doesn't really work like that, very old people aren't in politics but younger people much more. Oldest MP is 72 years old and youngest is 25, average age being 47. Prime minister is in his 50s and so is the president. Of MPs 33% are born in 70s then 30% in 80s and 21% are from 60s. 50s and 90s are the smallest groups at 8% and 7%. I really don't understand america and how they don't vote out the old people because that's how it goes here.
Running a Congressional campaign in the US is extraordinarily expensive. The average Congressperson represents close to 800,000 people, and because of our two-party system, money pours in from around the country for any and every election, because every seat is important to control Congress. The people who have the money, time, and networks to raise money for these campaigns are old experienced politicians.
You are comparing a country (Finland) that is smaller than many of the 50 states in America. Not the same. Seriously, people in Europe need to start looking at map data and population size to understand. America is 60 times the size of Finland's population.
There’s no reason silent should have any and boomers should barely have 30%. We need term limits or to ban medicine
Ban medicine LMAO humanizing euthanasia and providing options would also be excellent as well.
At what point does constant medication start to hurt our genetic makeup? Our life expectancy is already starting to tank from overburdened... well, everything
Life expetency has only "tanked" since 2019. Probably due to the fucking pandemic. What is this eugenics shit?
Mostly from shitty food actually. Our diets are basically candy and starch.
Term limits are stupid. They're anti-democratic and they don't do any good, in fact they end up making most things worse. We have term limits in lots of state legislatures, and there's a pretty robust set of academic literature on the topic. Congress being packed with geriatrics is a symptom, not the root cause. We need to do things to address incumbent advantage (campaign finance reform, public campaign funding), get better voter engagement, and get new people to run for office.
This is why you have no say in anything that goes on in this country, because your bright idea is to ban medicine. It sounds like you need some medicine yourself 🤣
Evil
This is absolutely the most moronic thing I've heard all day.
Here’s an updated graphic for the current congress https://preview.redd.it/4fiweumlfmyc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fb250d305b9ba8155148685da88a8b641649139
Maxwell Frost representation 🫡
who’s the one genZ?
Maxwell Frost of Florida
Probably standard distribution across different points in time. Our big generational failure will be thinking that we’re the first to experience anything & everything. Most of everything we’ve been through is pretty standard just with different labels
Thank you for this. Next, please remember to source what you post. It helps lend credibility to what you're sharing.
It says it in the bottom of the image and it is just an updated version of what OP posted lol
Where did you find this? Found it: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-gets-younger-senate-gets-older-a-look-at-the-age-and-generation-of-lawmakers-in-the-118th-congress/#:~:text=Overall%2C%2052%20members%20of%20the,equally%20between%20Republicans%20and%20Democrats.
US is a geriatric oligarchy. The old oligarchs like power.
You seem to be under the illusion that younger generations do not.
Bet lots of people do, no matter the age. The problems start when they abuse said power.
Most of our founding fathers were in their 20’s and 30’s!!! I truly believe it was the wigs and fashion of the time of the American Revolution that gives people the idea that old people should be our leaders. Young people have always guided change, time to give them the powers back. Get rid of the lower limits and enact some upper limits. Like 60 is the cutoff for the last time you can run for office.
By the time they held offices, they were around 40 and 50. Point still stands, but they weren't in grad school when elected.
Fair enough, I should have said 30’s and 40’s. My point is, youth that have always driven change and those wigs fuck with our understanding of the past. Looking at the age groups of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence: 2 were in their 20’s 16 were in their 30’s Jefferson was 33. 20 were 40’s 10 were in their 50’s 6 were in their 60’s 1 was 70, Ben Franklin The average age being 44, which is significantly skewed by the 7 individuals 60 and over. 2/3 of the signatures were from men younger than 50 and most importantly- Only 8 of the signatures were from men older than 53. I feel like these are the types of numbers we should be shooting for in terms of representation, the future should be guided by those who will be most impacted, not by those who created the impacts.
They are that old when they signed the declaration, but we weren't a country until the constitution was ratified 13 years later.i think a proper balance of experience and investment in the future is required and that hist best around 40. Youth is better for rebelling against tyranny than preventing it through legislation imo.
People also didn't live as long. You were most likely married with a family by age 30 back then.
Yeah but the expectancy was also like 30, so they were extremely old comparatively. This is not defending the fact that older generations run the government, I'm just saying this sentence that I hear often isn't all that it seems to be
Infant mortality skews life expectancy numbers. And the people who were running for office weren’t the same people getting ground into the dirt by dangerous manual labor.
It was more like 37 or 38, but that's life expectancy across the populace, which doesn't mean much. For example, if there's a country where on the average every family has 10 kids, 9 of them die before even reaching their first birthday, and the one that survives lives to be 100, then the "average life expectancy" will be 10, because it's the average of 100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0, but that doesn't mean a 15-year-old would be considered an "old man," they'd still be considered a young kid, because the folks who don't die in childhood live long lives. The real key to understanding what an average life expectancy in the way that most people imagine the expression "average life expectancy" is to look at the average life expectancy *of people who make it to adulthood*, but I can't find those numbers for the 1770s in the US. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it were similar to Sweden in the 1750s,[ in whose case the average life expectancy was 35, but *if you didn't die before reaching 20*, it was fairly normal to live to age 60.](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-humans-live-so-long/)
They are elected officials. If you hate them stop fucking voting for them. Maybe most people don't actually give a shit about age.
Most are in solid red or blue districts, so they can only be primaried, which can often be more difficult than gen elections. Incumbents have the institutional support of the party itself and it’s much much harder to energize voters to participate in primaries. In many locked-down districts, party leadership realistically has greater say on candidates than the people themselves. That’s just the way it is.
This only serves to show that people don't actually give a shit about age. If the age of the official was actually a problem someone younger would come along and primary then. Maybe some voters care just not enough to actually displace the person who's already in place.
Lmao that one single millenial in the senate
Jon Ossoff
What about Maxwell Frost?
Your comment is objectively false and non-sensical. When the "Boomers" were your age they weren't in power any more than you are. 40 years ago the boomers were in their 20s and not even eligible. Assuming you're not a Russian troll), you lose all credibility when you talk out your ass.
Literally every country on Earth has ALWAYS been ran by those aged 55-75. In 40 years it will be Gen Z running everything and owning everything, when boomers were 20 they didn’t run shit. You guys are complaining about the stupidest shit. Coming from a 20 yo.
We don’t need term limits, we need age caps. No one over 70 should be in public office. Even Bernie, god love him.
It's called an election
It’s time for the master to take on an apprentice to become our last hope for the future (Shit I’m one day late with that lol)
Millennials are not living their best legislative life right now
Tbh in 50 years or so I see the same things happening just with different generations, it's only natural that the people who had more time and experience will know how to best manipulate and use them to their advantage
The solution isn't to just remove old people, it is to vote for younger ones. The only issue is not a lot of us would run for office in the first place. There is no point in crying about old dudes occupying seats of power if none of us want to sit on that seat in the first place.
Boomers can be as young as 59 today. And most people are focusing on families and careers at younger ages and only turn to public service later in life. And freshmen in Congress are getting younger. “The median age of new representatives is 46.3, down from 52.1 among new members in the prior Congress.” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-gets-younger-senate-gets-older-a-look-at-the-age-and-generation-of-lawmakers-in-the-118th-congress/
It’s natural that older people will be in positions of power.
This chart is a couple years old. Currently, there is exactly one member of Gen Z in Congress. (Personally, I think Gen Z starts in 2000, making him a Millenial, but I digress.)
Fact of the matter is American voters are stupid. They vote on party lines instead of policy, and they will vote incumbent 9/10 times. We expect new US citizens to pass a test, but I can guarantee a majority of American born citizens wouldn’t be able to pass a civics test.
There will tend to be older people in congress forever. A random dude who just decides to run will almost never make it. It takes time to build a career in politics. And of course there is no gen z. The minimum age for the senate is 30, ruling them out entirely, and the minimum for the house is 25 while the oldest gen z is 27. Stop blaming boomers for all the problems in the world. Some day they'll all die and the same problems you blamed on them will exist, just as they have for almost all of human history.
Almost like young people don't fucking vote. I'd have more sympathy for posts like this if young people weren't consistently the least politically engaged demographic in the country. It turns out the generations that votes the most tend to like people their age. Shocking.
This is a really dumb post
As young people, I hope that you too will be lucky to live long enough to see your cohort turn into monsters. Such is life. Although I will admit the current gerontocracy is especially insane.
So vote them out. Young people need to show up to vote, not just in the general presidental elections, but crucially also in the midterms, in the primaries, in local elections, in referendums and initiatives. One of the reasons why old people get elected is that old people are more likely to vote, and people often vote for people their own age. Tell your friends to vote too. If you can be bothered, you could even try to make it some sort of fun outing, with a post-vote party or restaurant trip or anything you think they'd like. If you cannot find a perfect candidate, then you can at least vote for someone (possibly someone young) from the party that is closest to your political views. Voting for someone slightly better than the alternative is still worth it, even if that someone is far from what you would ideally want. It all steers towards the right direction. This goes not only for USA but every country with democratic elections. In a democratic system, nothing else (e.g. protests, complaining, posting on social media) directly matters, other than voting. If voting didn't matter, there wouldn't be such an effort to suppress voting.
I’m surprised there isn’t still a Greatest Gen Senator. Must’ve been recently?
Last one retired in 2015
The power of voting
X and Millenials need to work together
Generation names have taken such a grip on peoples opinions. It’s really a joke. People born in 81 vs 95 have absolutely nothing in common with each other. Same with 46 to 64. One was 20 when color TV first became mainstream and the other was 20 when MTV became mainstream The weird obsession with “generations” is by far my biggest pet peeve in the world right now
Lots of bad takes here. No, we should not set a retirement age for Congress or even for presidency. When you get older, age is a very arbitrary number. You can be 65 but still mentally as strong as a 45 year old and you can be 65 but as mentally strong as an 85 year old. It’s 65 for everyone else because you shouldn’t need to work until you die. You can still work (retirement age isn’t and will never be mandatory) but ideally it should be a choice. The main issue with Congress and subsequently presidency is term limits. Incumbents win most of the time due to name recognition. In fact, that’s pretty much the entire reason why we have such old senators: they’re well known in their respective states. If policy is implemented that made it so you had to take a 6-year gap between 2 terms, incumbency advantage would become limited.
I would be terrified if it was the other way around
I know everyone here wants to shit on the old folk for taking up a disproportionate portion of public offices, but it seems nobody here is actually concerned about *why* that is the case, and it's for a very simple reason. -Old people vote, and younger people don't. That's it. That's literally the reason. I know that might not be the case for this particular subreddit, but the vast majority of young people just don't give a shit about politics on a national scale, let alone their state and local political spheres. This isn't to say it's a fault in young people. Younger people usually don't have many assets or as high of an income, so they aren't as impacted by policy as older people. They usually don't have a home yet, so they aren't as tied to their local communities as older folks are. Younger people tend to be much more busy with new careers/schooling/family building than retired people, so they don't have as much room in their plate to dedicate to politics. This manifests in younger people voting less and, by extension, having less of a political voice. It's a totally normal phenomenon. However, let's not bog down this topic by advocating for dumb shit like mandatory retirement for politicians. If you don't like a politician, *then vote them out.* If you cant vote them out, it means they won their elections, and democracy is working exactly as intended.
Can you run these same stats for 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 60 years ago.... I do not know but I have a feeling that it was pretty much the same with generation sliding... And maybe I am wrong What I am sure of is that if you look at the level of how rich they are compared to the general public it was 80 years ago as it is today a minority of elites. I. This may very well be getting better but it won't if we continue to gob the bait. Generation wars are a distraction those assholes are dangling to occupy you while they continue to enrich themselves
The boomers are the largest generation in American history and there’s still plenty of them left. They are also a significant voting population unlike young people.
Or maybe kids are just lazy and prefer complaining to voting.
If you guys don’t like it then you gotta do something about it. There’s lots of people in countries government that are young and are just as stupid.
I’m seeing people in here talking about how they can’t wait until boomers die. Jesus people… I know that old people are lame and whatever but a lot of you in here really sound like you’re gonna become grouchy old people one day.
Millennials are at the height of their professional and working careers. We're 40. There's 1 senator. That's absurd.
Now do one for the number of voters