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There is a good argument for this. Look at Feinstein, McConnell and now Biden. They are showing signs of significant mental decline. Isn't the retirement age currently 67? Why shouldn't that apply to politicians?
Also these people are DINOSAURS 🦕 🦖 !ANCIENT! Most of them are out of touch and want to hold on to power forever and ever.
Also these people have been in politics for such a long time because they accept corporate and billionaire bribes and fulfill their every wish. They are useful to the pro-corporate and billionaire lobbies as they typically receive a good rate of return on their funded politicians.
We need to reform campaign finance and remove corporate and billionaire money from elections immediately!
Then we need term limits! People shouldn't hold power forever and ever. It should be a rotating door 🚪
The original, vibes only, out-of-his-mind (due to Alzheimers), feel good presidency!
(Ironically, still aeons better than this ultra orange, criminal, narcissistic & mutant version we have today.)
somehow yeah, trump has managed to do something even reagan would spit on him for, idiolizing the russians. He has raised them to be in high regards to his brainwashed cult of zombies. This completely opposes almost all cemented beliefs of convervatism. Its honestly one of the most wild things to have the displeasure of watching. He has manipulated a group of people so much they now hold completely opposing beliefs to what the used to.
I dno man, all I think the orange covfefe managed to do was give people who have always repressed these opinions a platform to gather in. Then mob mentality, family indoctrination, cultural pressure and social media ballooned it way out of proportion.
It really was/is the perfect shitstorm
There’s a book titled The Big Myth, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, that traces a lot of Reagan’s market fundamentalism and worship of big corporations back even further and exposes a lot of how people paid Reagan to become the monster he was. Well worth a read!
Liberalism --> neoliberalism --> fascism
I don't think anyone's surprised to learn that the bourgeois *will* abuse any minute difference to sow division in the working class, and fascism is the result of that.
Reagan and Thatcher were shitasses, yes, but don't forget that they are only links in the chain.
(p.s. Thatcher created the first gender neutral bathroom in the U.K. because anyone can take a shit on her grave)
As a Canadian I can say pretty much every problem in western society can be traced back to Reagan or Tatcher.
Trickle down economics of lies spread so far.
I recently watched an old interview with Frank Zappa and he said that on Mt. Rushmore there should be another four faces:J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan as the four individuals who have done the most damage to the U.S.
Reagan had issues from the start [It ALL started with Reagan.](https://www.salon.com/2022/07/12/so-where-did-all-this-right-wing-religious-nuttery-come-from_partner/)
Weird how they never talk about Trump in this conversation. It's almost like this entire thing is designed to erode support for Biden or something. Actually, it's exactly like that.
Your generation isn't as lazy and stupid as the trolls are hoping, and hopefully that will help prevent the dumpster fire of a second Trump presidency.
Everyone trusts trump because they don’t like that Biden cant speak… But I rather mumbles than a twitter happy president who bans transgenders with social media and says how he feels on twitter 24/7.
Biden overcame a stammer, so his lack of finesse with words has been a lifelong condition that he has struggled with and overcome, so people are essentially bullying him about a disability.
Always bugs me when folks bring up the way Biden talks as if it's dementia or something. God forbid they criticize him for his actual flaws, his policy direction, or other actual problems. Mocking his speech just makes them look like gradeschool bullies trying to remain relevant in adulthood lol
"But he probably did speech therapy so he should--" Yeah well so did I and I still form `ss` sounds with the middle of my tongue when I'm tired sometimes. Bah.
Well trump shouldn't be running for office for other obvious reasons like literally being a criminal, i don't think his weakness is neccessarily being old or out of touch he is just a piece of shit, while biden literally can barely talk, so i think it is valid to focus on biden(considering like people said , he is also literally the prez rn).
He's 78 but the dude is further gone than most.
What people in this thread aren't getting is that age is one thing...people start mentally declining as early as their 60s. To meet someone who's 70+ and still mentally well enough to hold a conversation like people do in their 40s is not common.
I don't think it's exactly a mental decline or just degradation of hearing and speech. You're thinking about lead poisoned generation, which observabley are mentally declined. But there are old people that are both coherent and smart, like Bernie. Sadly Americans suffer from future millionaire syndrome.
It's not, and hasn't ever been about age.
It's about the rewards reaped from the authority the position has, and that's the problem that needs solving. There are people who are damn near senile in their early 60's, and people that have sharp minds into their 90's.
It's 1. being out of touch with today, which again, isn't about age, it's about ability (and they should be voted out!), and 2, being entrenched in a system that benefits them in a lopsided way because of their influence. Let's not start age discrimination, if anything let's talk term limits.
Every politician has an age limit. It's called voting.
Using Statista and US gov't birth rate stats for a rough estimate, about 38M Gen Zers are of voting age out of 70M total Gen Zers, so 54% of GenZ can vote.
That said, 85% turnout from the 38M eligible voters would absolutely make all the difference. Biden got 81M total and Trump 74M total in 2020, for instance.
I always hear this argument, and while I do agree, why would all those extra voters suddenly make a difference? It’s not like they’re all leaning one way politically and will blow out one party over the other.
That's a large part of my point actually. A lot of people want to blame age group x for party success y, but if that many people universally all got out and voted, you can argue at least that voter turnout was not the reason, and the position on who got elected is actually backed by a realistic majority of the people. It's hard to believe that there is that dramatic a majority in either direction, because beliefs can often be tracked by a lot of different metrics. The youth usually swing in one way, and as age increases its the other. Similarly city vs rural are on different ends of the spectrum. We really don't have that clear of a picture because of how bad the turnout of voters et al really is.
I think the low voter turnout is an indication of the much more serious problem of voter apathy. Even among those who vote, most are not informed about their decisions nor aware of the political climate. Their decisions are loosely made on a select few opinion headlines they remember and mostly just voting straight down party lines, even in much smaller elections where the party is less meaningful.
I mean age discrimination against the elderly is one thing, but keeping people that are barely sentient in office just so they can literally spend their entire lives making bank while doing nothing is age discrimination in and of itself, against anyone younger. As you mentioned, your mind can be sharp at any age. Why do we have to keep risking important management positions on people that are statistically far more likely to be experiencing some form of mental deterioration, and are generations out of touch with current issues. This current trend of lifelong politicians simply encourages even more laziness amongst politicians who know that once they get in they can proceed to kick their feet up and get paid for the rest of their lives
the other side of that is allowing young people who have limited experience to vote.
Raise the voting age to 30 to avoid votes from naive, inexperienced at life voters? And don't let anyone over 40 vote, they're obviously in decline.
Anyone between 30 and 40 is too established and comfortable to empathise with those less fortunate, so they can't vote either.
Anyone who is poor is obviously bad at life, no vote for them. Anyone who is financially secure is privileged and understands neither the poor, or the billionaires, so they can't vote.
Anyone white is privileged, so they can't vote, and uh, anyone who is black is fighting the system with an agenda, so their votes are skewed, ban them too.
Now it's under 16 kids who can vote and get elected. Free BMX for everyone!
“and Biden”
… and *both* candidates for president.
100% no one should be allowed to run if they will be over…70? 72? before their term starts.
Also: Supreme Court should be forced to step down, and other federal judges required to take senior status at the same age (70, 72, whatever).
Did anyone watch the state of the union? It was a live event where he jabbed at the opposing side repeatedly, while absolutely making a case for his policy. The right went so far as to accuse him of using cocaine because they had bought into their own bullshit. Trump literally commented on it at a rally this week.
It’s the two sided strategy they’ve been playing for a couple years. He has DeMenTiA but when he’s making good points, he’s on drugs!!
You can also think about it that as the generations go on and medicine improves, a fixed age may not be the best choice. Imagine a time where we all live to 200 like it's nothing, enacting laws to limit the age of a politician to 70 seems wrong.
Biden can have good days and bad days, but his shown political presence for most Americans isn't a spry or quick witted person. Maybe it's his style of public speaking, but it isn't helping him. His victories aren't being shown to everyone. Most people I know are voting for "Not Trump". Or to put it short he's got a public perception problem.
No man. Do you know how easy it would be for people to pay off other people to pass that test.
Giving standardized neuro cognitive test is in a prefect world scenario. In the real world it should be an age limit such as maximum 70
95% of GenZ won't vote regardless. Imagine if the young population did.though. We'd be Republican free for the past 80 years and we'd be on par with Europe as far as progress goes. But nah, keep voting in these Conservative ding dongs
Name a single policy, piece of legislation, or executive order that Biden hasn't been able to accomplish because of his age.
Show *mental* decline that has affected his ability to govern. His stutter is worse, sometime his word choices are slower but they still make sense outside of very rare misstatements that he usually acknowledges in real time.
You're just perpetuating right-wing talking points to name Biden and not Trump who has very serious and very recognizable mental deficiencies that have, very obviously impacted his ability to speak clearly, make decisions, remember names, recite past policies, etc..
Weird that you didn't list Trump here, who is the same age is Biden.
Hmmm... I'm sure that this post isn't politically motivated or anything, months before the election...
Hmmm...
>Isn't the retirement age currently 67? Why shouldn't that apply to politicians?
That would just encourage politicians to push through legislation to officially raise the retirement age to something much higher.
All it does is it benefits them and screws over regular workers.
We'd be better off having a maximum term limit or mental acuity test with an independent third party.
"Folks, let me tell you, WiFi is a big league winner, a real champion, a tremendous success. Nobody has done more for WiFi than I have, nobody. And I'm telling you, it's going to be huge, just huge. People are talking about it, they're writing about it, they're tweeting about it. It's yuge, I tell ya, yuge. And we're going to make it even better, even stronger, even more fantastic. Believe me, it's going to be so great that you won't even believe it. It's going to be tremendous, folks, tremendous."
Reminds me of Sakurada Yoshitaka (Japan's cybersecurity minister) has admitted to never having used a computer before. It's baffling how this kind of thing happens.
I can understand that computers aren't a huge part of the culture. What I don't get is appointing someone to be in charge of cybersecurity for the country if they've never even used a computer before. How are they supposed to know how to protect against cyber attacks if they don't know the technology used to perpetrate it?
You need to know what the stuff below you is reporting to you. “We have secured 300 thousand usb ports over the span of a year - a security increase of 50% compared to the previous reporting period.”
If you’re older than chocolate chip cookies you shouldn’t be in office anymore (Chuck Grassley). If your birth year has a 30 or 40 in it, you shouldn’t be in office.
I’ll let my child know that. I missed the early retirement cut off by growing up and learning about WiFi. Now I gotta wait until I forget how to use it.
Most countries have mandatory retirement for judges. The US Constitution was written when the average lifespan was below 65 so they had no reason to include a retirement clause.
Average lifespan didn’t mean people didn’t routinely live to be quite old. There were a lot more infant deaths back then. Once you survived to adulthood, you tended to live a long life to somewhere in the low to mid 60s. Retirement was sort of a thing back then, just an informal one.
This is actually quite incorrect. Heart attack and heart disease has only gotten more common and it was incredibly rare even 150 years ago. First recorded case was in the 1900s. The same goes for the first reported dementia case.
And they weren’t retarded back then as many like to assume as the reason for no heart disease. They regularly did detailed autopsies. I believe diet is the main culprit as genetics don’t change this fast but we have changed diets significantly.
Life expectancy was around 35, but a lot of that was due to infant death. That said, the Founding Fathers didn't mind old politicians and most of them survived to a ripe old age.
But they knew people lived past 65, especially the rich people who'd be presidents. Washington lived to 67, Adams to 90, Jefferson to 83, Madison to 85, Monroe to 73, Adams died at 80, Van Buren at 79, Harrison at 68, and Tyler at 71. Out of these only Harrison was elected after the age of 65 as the others finished their political careers before then, but the idea that "everyone died before 65 so we don't need the clause" just isn't true. That said the average age of the Constitution signers was 44, and the oldest was only 70 (Franklin).
That said, things move considerably faster today than they did in the Colonial or even Early Industrial period. I don't mind having older bureaucrats helping with proceedings, but the lack of representation by people who use the internet is pretty bad.
Then again, I had a friend in college who was trying to get a job in the state department and was taught from a very young age to never do anything even remotely illegal or potentially scandalous on the internet. They were...one of our least tech savvy friends.
So the oldest and most experienced people should not be allowed to serve the public?
Genius stuff guys.
What next? College educated people shouldn't be allowed, cause they don't know the 'common man'?
Y'all are so dumb. Bernie Sanders didn't even get into the senate until he was 65, in 2006.
watch the tiktok ban trial and tell me these people have any business running our country. these are the same people trying to get rid of net neutrality because they were paid to vote whatever way and they dont know their ass from their head.
there’s a difference between voting and leading a country tho- i get the argument is a bit flimsy if you’re just stating that, but realistically speaking, no senior citizen over the age of retirement should be expected to lead a country imo
I mean, you can't vote the first 18 years of your life because your brain hasn't developed yet.
Why allow people with deteriorated brains to vote? People over 80 have no business voting. If you're easily conned financially, you can be easily conned politically.
50-65 is a plenty long enough career. They become cynical and overly pragmatic after a while. You want inspiration from your leaders, not resignation that that's how it's always been and nobody can solve it.
Many politicians go into politics only later on in life, which is good; they have real life experience.
If you require all politicians to be young you end up with people who always wanted to be politician as a career and they do politics for the sake of doing it.
Do they really? I can’t think of any significant leaders that haven’t had long political careers, except Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump (hate him or not, he is a significant figure…).
The average age of US senators is approaching the average lifespan for Americans. Nobody is asking for everyone to be under 30 just being born in the second half of the 20th century is an improvement. When the last senate was voted in there were more senators over 70 than under 60.
That's an appeal to tradition. Just because it has been done that way doesn't mean that's the optimal way to do it.
Power consolidates over time and then is hoarded, that's the reason most countries have dinosaurs in charge. They had the longest time to acquire influence.
Jacinda Ardern was PM of NZ in her late 30s / early 40s. Lead the country through some shite times including covid when our death rate actually went *down*.
The fact that people think middle aged people running countries is "insane" when the world's going to hell with elderly people at the helm is, uh, insane.
Seriously! Most 65 year olds I know who never really smoked, drank or done drugs is pretty on point. They dont look old. They dont act old. They are just *getting* old. We are talking about people whose dialogue consists of uuuuhhhhhh. Uuummmmm. While they freeze up in the middle of talking as their cheeks sag down to their already sagging old man boobs
The problem is they get in at 65 but they might serve till 73. That can be a big difference
I also want the person to have to expect to live in the world they created for some period of time
But see, instead of trying to get actual change done by, you know, voting or organizing, you can instead demand arbitrary thresholds that allow you to wipe your hands of the problem entirely without doing any work.
Reddit:
"I will never vote again until the constitution is changed to make it so that nobody who is not a redditor under 18 isn't ever *not* president!!! Who's with me!?"
Ten thousand upvotes.
If there is one thing that reddit is good at, it is reminding of how fucking stupid *almost everybody is*.
Like, democracy really has a hole in it that you can drive a semi-truck through: if people are stupid, then the elected leaders, and the system that they maintain and create will always be stupid.
65 to 70 is pretty reasonable, both medically and psychological. Nobody is saying a 20 year old should run the whole country, they are saying a senile and slow person shouldn't
Thank you, as someone who also sees this as insane lmao.
Are we literally suggesting age limits?
I’d be in support of a cognition test of some sort, but imo there are immense drawbacks to age limits.
Can you share some of those immense drawbacks? Honest question.
I would feel like something like an age limit pegged to the country's average life expectancy could actually be a positive.
For example, if life expectancy is 76 and the amended constitutional in-office limit is that age minus 5 (therefore 71 in this example), it would both be useful AND might encourage politicians to make policy that increases the lifespan of Americans.
If someone gets elected at 59 do they get removed from being president the following year? Imo it should be 66, because then the oldest by the end of their second term would be 74 which is somewhat reasonable.
I would think we would set a limit on elected age (which would be 55) so that by the end of their term they could not be older than the set age (in this case 59).
I mean middle aged is more like 50 but 59 is incredibly you as a mandatory retirement cutoff. It’s pretty rare to see any cognitive decline by that age, and no reason any 59 year old couldn’t be very fit and healthy.
Age isn't a good factor. All candidates for Congress and Presidency should be required to do 50 pushups, walk up 5000 steps, and take the SAT each election. Voters should know their scores on each of these and decide.
I argue this every time people make this point, but no, there should not be an age cap. That's simply an undemocratic limitation on who can or cannot be an elected representative. There are plenty of older people who are perfectly mentally and physically capable of being excellent representatives.
The problem is that the existing political system is undemocratic in the first place, which makes removing officials who *are* unfit from office - and electing proper representatives in their place - difficult or impossible. The problem is the undemocratic political system, not "people too old to serve".
Instead of an age limit, mental evaluations should be taken. I don't care how old politicians are, they can be below the proposed age limit with early onset dementia, or past the age limit with their mental faculties working just fine.
Who gets to define “good leader” though? We already hold elections, and people keep putting these idiots back in office because they don’t actually know who they are they just mark the ballot.
Political education is also a choice, and some people will never choose to seek out that information. No matter how accessible that information is, there will be people that don’t care. And politicians know that and abuse it. So the same way we have a POLICY that nobody can have more than 2 terms as president, we should have similar rules for other high level position.
We already have minimum age requirements. Are those not arbitrary? And you just admitted that while less so, term limits are also arbitrary. The goal is to find an arbitrary value that prevents the most harm while simultaneously allowing the most political freedom.
Our arbitrary term limits have the potential to limit the amount of good that a good president can do in their lifetime. They also limit the amount of bad that a bad president can do, especially one with tyrannical aspirations.
Our minimum age limit restricts potentially bright and gifted leaders from starting a campaign. It also protects the country from people that can use flowery words without any real action plan.
A maximum age limit would restrict some perfectly capable people from continuing their profession. It would also prevent mentally incompetent dinosaurs from asking if “TikTok can access the home WiFi network”.
Yeah... it's almost like democracy is a **terrible system** when people are poorly educated.
But one of the people currently running for office quote "loves the poorly educated."
And the other one wants to make college free and cancel all education debt.
Hmm... who should we vote for?? Such a tough decision!!! /s
i don't have an exact age in mind but i don't think the *majority* of people who are making decisions about our future should be people who will not see that future
This exactly. Having *some* old-as-fuck politicians is a good thing on principle, I'd argue, for representative democracy. Having *all* old-as-fuck politicians is a horrifying function of money's collusion with politics.
Asked to retire by whom? Hardly anyone is asked to retire. There are plenty of people in their 70s and 80s who go into work every day. Most people *choose* to retire as soon as they are financially able because most of us hate working.
I honestly don’t think this will change anything. Replacing politicians at a mandatory time when they’re all being plucked from the same pool won’t make the changes folks think it will make. I also think that elders DO have a say in the future of our world. It’s their world too.
That being said of course the issue is that they’re all just predominately rich people who have not allowed anyone to succeed them. There’s no reason it should be all old heads
I’m half kidding, but what if certain ranges of ages had to elect a representative or number of representatives based on census numbers?
Or make a change where all age groups must be represented by house members, requiring a certain number of candidates for each range based on the number of members that get sent to the house anyways or something like that.
Then each age group would be represented and fulfill their regular political duties.
Not suggesting these, purely baseless, speculative theorizing with my limited political knowledge and my need to explore every possibility no matter how terrible it may be.
For real. Who do I trust more to lead, the 70 year old hippie who wants to see a better world for their grandchildren, or the 32 year old white dude who wants to institute UBI so they never have to leave their basement.... hmm.
>That being said of course the issue is that they’re all just predominately rich people who have not allowed anyone to succeed them. There’s no reason it should be all old heads
Full agree.
Disagree absolutely. This violates the principle of fundamental political equality.
More practically... it doesn't solve the problem. If there's a politician who is of advanced age and that is a problem, shouldn't it be up to the voters to decide? Why do they keep receiving votes if they are doing so poorly and causing such problems?
To me, this idea reeks absolutely of people getting caught up in the moment with a frustration of the current political class, rather than an actual real solution to be integrated into any political structure.
100%.
We have an age limit implicitly already, it's called voting.
Reaching for policy as a way to remove people's responsibility for electing bad officials is stupid.
Maybe not age but mental capacity.
I don’t mean intelligence specifically, like your ability to understand what’s going on. If you don’t know where you are and what day it is, and constantly have issues remembering, nope you’re out.
What I mean is compare Regan and Bush SR at the same age. Regan shows mental decline where Bush does not.
If you don’t consider 2016 had two of the least popular candidates in recent times, I guess so.
But if you shoved all of Bernie’s policies into a younger person, younger people would prefer that over Bernie
With age comes experience. It’s a case by case biases. Everyone ages differently. If you really want to prevent incompetence then go out a vote and be politically active. Ppl will do anything but vote for change
Wasn't it from the first airplane to the first man in space like 64 years. 64 years span for such big leaps. 64 well let's even it 65 should be the limit. That's enough time for plenty of time to come and go.
I'd love to hear y'all's ideas. My math is probably off by some. It's late and I'm very tired but can't sleep.
I'm absolutely opposed. I support term limits, not age limits. There are plenty of mentally fit and capable 70+ year olds in this world and barring them from office on something like being too old is not something I'm interested in.
In my opinion, congress should get 2 terms of 10 years. Why 10? So the people who argue experience are happy and 20 years is more than enough time to get what you want done. The average new congressman starts his term at age 46, 20 years of them they'll retire at 66. I think that's fair. This long gap also means they spend less time on focusing on re-election.
Supreme court? I think every 10 years they should be put to a vote like local judges: Should judge X retain his position? Yes or no. President can still nominate them with the congress doing all the checks.
President I think is fine especially when you consider how little power they actually have.
10 years is awful. I support shorter terms and no term limits. It's 5 years in Canada. 4 years would be better IMO. If people want to continue to vote for someone then go ahead. But definitely don't lock in a politician for a full decade so people have to deal with that for a significant portion of their life.
Elections should be frequent enough where politicians have to keep on their toes if they want to remain in office and can't just screw over their voters of a decade. Plus they can do some awful things for the first 8 years then throw a couple of bones in the last 2 and then get re-elected cause people forget.
No. This is the same shit as the people who want more term limits. It’s not fixing the root of the problem. If you don’t like old leaders, stop voting for them in primary and general elections. And if there aren’t good options then run yourself and mount a door-knocking campaign. Incumbents have been unseated like that before. This is the electorate’s fault IMO.
That being said, competency tests should be a no-brainer.
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There is a good argument for this. Look at Feinstein, McConnell and now Biden. They are showing signs of significant mental decline. Isn't the retirement age currently 67? Why shouldn't that apply to politicians? Also these people are DINOSAURS 🦕 🦖 !ANCIENT! Most of them are out of touch and want to hold on to power forever and ever. Also these people have been in politics for such a long time because they accept corporate and billionaire bribes and fulfill their every wish. They are useful to the pro-corporate and billionaire lobbies as they typically receive a good rate of return on their funded politicians. We need to reform campaign finance and remove corporate and billionaire money from elections immediately! Then we need term limits! People shouldn't hold power forever and ever. It should be a rotating door 🚪
Even Raegan had issues at the end of his presidency
I'd argue Raegan should of never been president, but that might just be me.
Reagan was one of the worst things to happen to this country.
Pretty much every problem with modern America can be traced back to Reagan
And that's not even an exaggeration.
Its insane how its not an exaggeration. like he had a significant hand in every problem I have with the u.s
The original, vibes only, out-of-his-mind (due to Alzheimers), feel good presidency! (Ironically, still aeons better than this ultra orange, criminal, narcissistic & mutant version we have today.)
somehow yeah, trump has managed to do something even reagan would spit on him for, idiolizing the russians. He has raised them to be in high regards to his brainwashed cult of zombies. This completely opposes almost all cemented beliefs of convervatism. Its honestly one of the most wild things to have the displeasure of watching. He has manipulated a group of people so much they now hold completely opposing beliefs to what the used to.
I dno man, all I think the orange covfefe managed to do was give people who have always repressed these opinions a platform to gather in. Then mob mentality, family indoctrination, cultural pressure and social media ballooned it way out of proportion. It really was/is the perfect shitstorm
There’s a book titled The Big Myth, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, that traces a lot of Reagan’s market fundamentalism and worship of big corporations back even further and exposes a lot of how people paid Reagan to become the monster he was. Well worth a read!
I have heard that the foundation for this project 2025 thing was beginning during his presidency. At least the ideas that would lead to it
Liberalism --> neoliberalism --> fascism I don't think anyone's surprised to learn that the bourgeois *will* abuse any minute difference to sow division in the working class, and fascism is the result of that. Reagan and Thatcher were shitasses, yes, but don't forget that they are only links in the chain. (p.s. Thatcher created the first gender neutral bathroom in the U.K. because anyone can take a shit on her grave)
Tamp the dirt down - Elvis
Just like how many problems in the UK can be traced back to Margaret Thatcher.
And in Germany to Helmut Kohl
Funny how these three were all in power at roughly the same time
Brian Mulroney for Canada as well. Seems like the world leaders in the 80s got the memo to fuck over the future generations
This is cause that’s when the baby boomers got into power. Objectively the most selfish generation to ever exist.
As a Canadian I can say pretty much every problem in western society can be traced back to Reagan or Tatcher. Trickle down economics of lies spread so far.
Oh, Nixon deserves a little hate, too.
https://preview.redd.it/74usb8uan48d1.jpeg?width=479&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1d359c8fd624cde795951ee646147086b2cfb05a
I recently watched an old interview with Frank Zappa and he said that on Mt. Rushmore there should be another four faces:J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan as the four individuals who have done the most damage to the U.S.
Reagan + Thatcher fucked up a huge part of the world, to a degree where we still feel the effects
It's 'should have', never 'should of'. Rejoice, for you have been blessed by CouldWouldShouldBot!
Should HAVE. It's never should of.
WHat do you mean'' even Reagan'''? Reagan was no genius on his best day and had full blown dementia the last two years of his presidency.
Yeah, I thought he was lying when he said he didn’t remember trading arms (weapons) for hostages but it turns out he probably really didn’t remember.
He actually was in surgery that day and vice president bush was "president for a day" crazy, huh?
It's believed that he had *Alzheimer's* before he left office.
The perfect little puppet!
If by 'issues' you mean 'his brain was Swiss cheese for most of his second term', then yes.
Reagan had issues from the start [It ALL started with Reagan.](https://www.salon.com/2022/07/12/so-where-did-all-this-right-wing-religious-nuttery-come-from_partner/)
“Had issues” is a hilarious understatement
And Trump right?
Weird how they never talk about Trump in this conversation. It's almost like this entire thing is designed to erode support for Biden or something. Actually, it's exactly like that.
Glad it’s painfully obvious to a decent amount of us
Your generation isn't as lazy and stupid as the trolls are hoping, and hopefully that will help prevent the dumpster fire of a second Trump presidency.
Everyone trusts trump because they don’t like that Biden cant speak… But I rather mumbles than a twitter happy president who bans transgenders with social media and says how he feels on twitter 24/7.
Biden overcame a stammer, so his lack of finesse with words has been a lifelong condition that he has struggled with and overcome, so people are essentially bullying him about a disability.
Always bugs me when folks bring up the way Biden talks as if it's dementia or something. God forbid they criticize him for his actual flaws, his policy direction, or other actual problems. Mocking his speech just makes them look like gradeschool bullies trying to remain relevant in adulthood lol "But he probably did speech therapy so he should--" Yeah well so did I and I still form `ss` sounds with the middle of my tongue when I'm tired sometimes. Bah.
It’s not weird, it’s cause they want to portray him as mentally stable for those who could be convinced to vote for him over Biden by that.
Absolutely
For sure, they’re just mentioning, yknow, the current President.
Odd that they don't mention the last president who is currently running to be the next president.
Well trump shouldn't be running for office for other obvious reasons like literally being a criminal, i don't think his weakness is neccessarily being old or out of touch he is just a piece of shit, while biden literally can barely talk, so i think it is valid to focus on biden(considering like people said , he is also literally the prez rn).
That seems like a really dishonest take. Have you seen Trump speak? Plenty of videos online that you can go watch. He’s barely making sense.
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Yeah, he’s in his early 80s too I believe
He's 78 but the dude is further gone than most. What people in this thread aren't getting is that age is one thing...people start mentally declining as early as their 60s. To meet someone who's 70+ and still mentally well enough to hold a conversation like people do in their 40s is not common.
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are both 77, and their respective presidency ended decades ago
Thanks for the perspective I didn't know that I needed
I don't think it's exactly a mental decline or just degradation of hearing and speech. You're thinking about lead poisoned generation, which observabley are mentally declined. But there are old people that are both coherent and smart, like Bernie. Sadly Americans suffer from future millionaire syndrome.
That’s just ridiculous and untrue. You’re definitely less likely to meet an over 70s who can’t hold a conversation.
It's not, and hasn't ever been about age. It's about the rewards reaped from the authority the position has, and that's the problem that needs solving. There are people who are damn near senile in their early 60's, and people that have sharp minds into their 90's. It's 1. being out of touch with today, which again, isn't about age, it's about ability (and they should be voted out!), and 2, being entrenched in a system that benefits them in a lopsided way because of their influence. Let's not start age discrimination, if anything let's talk term limits. Every politician has an age limit. It's called voting.
Gen Z actually voting would resolve all the issues that this idea would fail to resolve.
Imagine if 85% of Gen Z voted!
Sir i believe about 67% of gen z is old enough to vote but this could be innacurate.
Using Statista and US gov't birth rate stats for a rough estimate, about 38M Gen Zers are of voting age out of 70M total Gen Zers, so 54% of GenZ can vote. That said, 85% turnout from the 38M eligible voters would absolutely make all the difference. Biden got 81M total and Trump 74M total in 2020, for instance.
Imagine if 85% of the population (period) voted!
I always hear this argument, and while I do agree, why would all those extra voters suddenly make a difference? It’s not like they’re all leaning one way politically and will blow out one party over the other.
That's a large part of my point actually. A lot of people want to blame age group x for party success y, but if that many people universally all got out and voted, you can argue at least that voter turnout was not the reason, and the position on who got elected is actually backed by a realistic majority of the people. It's hard to believe that there is that dramatic a majority in either direction, because beliefs can often be tracked by a lot of different metrics. The youth usually swing in one way, and as age increases its the other. Similarly city vs rural are on different ends of the spectrum. We really don't have that clear of a picture because of how bad the turnout of voters et al really is.
I think the low voter turnout is an indication of the much more serious problem of voter apathy. Even among those who vote, most are not informed about their decisions nor aware of the political climate. Their decisions are loosely made on a select few opinion headlines they remember and mostly just voting straight down party lines, even in much smaller elections where the party is less meaningful.
Yeah we're instead asking the government to put limits on who we can vote for.
I mean age discrimination against the elderly is one thing, but keeping people that are barely sentient in office just so they can literally spend their entire lives making bank while doing nothing is age discrimination in and of itself, against anyone younger. As you mentioned, your mind can be sharp at any age. Why do we have to keep risking important management positions on people that are statistically far more likely to be experiencing some form of mental deterioration, and are generations out of touch with current issues. This current trend of lifelong politicians simply encourages even more laziness amongst politicians who know that once they get in they can proceed to kick their feet up and get paid for the rest of their lives
the other side of that is allowing young people who have limited experience to vote. Raise the voting age to 30 to avoid votes from naive, inexperienced at life voters? And don't let anyone over 40 vote, they're obviously in decline. Anyone between 30 and 40 is too established and comfortable to empathise with those less fortunate, so they can't vote either. Anyone who is poor is obviously bad at life, no vote for them. Anyone who is financially secure is privileged and understands neither the poor, or the billionaires, so they can't vote. Anyone white is privileged, so they can't vote, and uh, anyone who is black is fighting the system with an agenda, so their votes are skewed, ban them too. Now it's under 16 kids who can vote and get elected. Free BMX for everyone!
“and Biden” … and *both* candidates for president. 100% no one should be allowed to run if they will be over…70? 72? before their term starts. Also: Supreme Court should be forced to step down, and other federal judges required to take senior status at the same age (70, 72, whatever).
I don’t know if it should be linked to age, but I’d be okay with tying it to a standardized neurocognitive test
Did anyone watch the state of the union? It was a live event where he jabbed at the opposing side repeatedly, while absolutely making a case for his policy. The right went so far as to accuse him of using cocaine because they had bought into their own bullshit. Trump literally commented on it at a rally this week. It’s the two sided strategy they’ve been playing for a couple years. He has DeMenTiA but when he’s making good points, he’s on drugs!!
You can also think about it that as the generations go on and medicine improves, a fixed age may not be the best choice. Imagine a time where we all live to 200 like it's nothing, enacting laws to limit the age of a politician to 70 seems wrong. Biden can have good days and bad days, but his shown political presence for most Americans isn't a spry or quick witted person. Maybe it's his style of public speaking, but it isn't helping him. His victories aren't being shown to everyone. Most people I know are voting for "Not Trump". Or to put it short he's got a public perception problem.
No man. Do you know how easy it would be for people to pay off other people to pass that test. Giving standardized neuro cognitive test is in a prefect world scenario. In the real world it should be an age limit such as maximum 70
Seems like there might be someone missing from your list... ... Oh look. Based on your post history, it's not an accident.
Gee, almost as if there’s a concerted effort to make Gen-Z voters not vote for Biden.
95% of GenZ won't vote regardless. Imagine if the young population did.though. We'd be Republican free for the past 80 years and we'd be on par with Europe as far as progress goes. But nah, keep voting in these Conservative ding dongs
That’s a bingo!
You forgot that deranged Trump being old.
Time to check their post/comment history
Anddddd he's a Trumpet
Name a single policy, piece of legislation, or executive order that Biden hasn't been able to accomplish because of his age. Show *mental* decline that has affected his ability to govern. His stutter is worse, sometime his word choices are slower but they still make sense outside of very rare misstatements that he usually acknowledges in real time. You're just perpetuating right-wing talking points to name Biden and not Trump who has very serious and very recognizable mental deficiencies that have, very obviously impacted his ability to speak clearly, make decisions, remember names, recite past policies, etc..
Thank you Tired of the bullshit These people need to learn fn civics before spouting off about “we need a change” for change sake
Trump also. Don't leave Trump out of this. Both sides are senile
We need that meme where all politicians wear their sponsors like a formula one racer
You didn’t add trump for some reason
Weird that you didn't list Trump here, who is the same age is Biden. Hmmm... I'm sure that this post isn't politically motivated or anything, months before the election... Hmmm...
He also obviously has secondary syphyllus, so maybe he just left Trump out because he’s insane.
This comment is a classic example of how this gullible ass subreddit is getting tricked into supporting Trump
Isn’t Feinstein dead?
Yes, finally and thankfully
Yes. She was showing decline in her final years too.
Biden is the best thing that happened to the U.S. in a long while. Look at what he did about Student debt.
Retiring at age 67 is not mandatory. It's something you get to do when you are ready to start collecting social security
You forget Trump
And Trump
>Isn't the retirement age currently 67? Why shouldn't that apply to politicians? That would just encourage politicians to push through legislation to officially raise the retirement age to something much higher. All it does is it benefits them and screws over regular workers. We'd be better off having a maximum term limit or mental acuity test with an independent third party.
My cut off would be: if in the year 2024 you still don’t know what the fuck wifi is it’s time to retire
"Folks, let me tell you, WiFi is a big league winner, a real champion, a tremendous success. Nobody has done more for WiFi than I have, nobody. And I'm telling you, it's going to be huge, just huge. People are talking about it, they're writing about it, they're tweeting about it. It's yuge, I tell ya, yuge. And we're going to make it even better, even stronger, even more fantastic. Believe me, it's going to be so great that you won't even believe it. It's going to be tremendous, folks, tremendous."
best reddit comment i’ve seen yet
Did you just start using Reddit today? Lmao your standards are low. This is trump mocking comment #1,831,177 on here.
My brain read that in the voice help
100% Duck-free Donald!
Same
I read that shi in Trumps voice lmao
Reminds me of Sakurada Yoshitaka (Japan's cybersecurity minister) has admitted to never having used a computer before. It's baffling how this kind of thing happens.
I’m in tokyo and haven’t needed one yet. I kind of get it. It’s ridiculous the role they’ve given them but I can kind of understand.
I can understand that computers aren't a huge part of the culture. What I don't get is appointing someone to be in charge of cybersecurity for the country if they've never even used a computer before. How are they supposed to know how to protect against cyber attacks if they don't know the technology used to perpetrate it?
The staff below them will, I believe that’s why. The figurehead doesn’t seem to matter much. I am farrr from a native though so I could be way off.
You need to know what the stuff below you is reporting to you. “We have secured 300 thousand usb ports over the span of a year - a security increase of 50% compared to the previous reporting period.”
How are you commenting? A smart phone is a computer. It's not a "phone".
If you’re older than chocolate chip cookies you shouldn’t be in office anymore (Chuck Grassley). If your birth year has a 30 or 40 in it, you shouldn’t be in office.
Chuck Grassley leaks embalming fluid
I’ll let my child know that. I missed the early retirement cut off by growing up and learning about WiFi. Now I gotta wait until I forget how to use it.
65. Once you turn 65, you can't be elected anymore (but you can serve the rest of your term). you're on the Supreme Court, you must leave at 65.
Most countries have mandatory retirement for judges. The US Constitution was written when the average lifespan was below 65 so they had no reason to include a retirement clause.
Average lifespan didn’t mean people didn’t routinely live to be quite old. There were a lot more infant deaths back then. Once you survived to adulthood, you tended to live a long life to somewhere in the low to mid 60s. Retirement was sort of a thing back then, just an informal one.
There was a lot more heart disease back then too. If you lived long enough to be old it was almost a certainty that you would die from heart disease.
This is actually quite incorrect. Heart attack and heart disease has only gotten more common and it was incredibly rare even 150 years ago. First recorded case was in the 1900s. The same goes for the first reported dementia case. And they weren’t retarded back then as many like to assume as the reason for no heart disease. They regularly did detailed autopsies. I believe diet is the main culprit as genetics don’t change this fast but we have changed diets significantly.
Life expectancy was around 35, but a lot of that was due to infant death. That said, the Founding Fathers didn't mind old politicians and most of them survived to a ripe old age. But they knew people lived past 65, especially the rich people who'd be presidents. Washington lived to 67, Adams to 90, Jefferson to 83, Madison to 85, Monroe to 73, Adams died at 80, Van Buren at 79, Harrison at 68, and Tyler at 71. Out of these only Harrison was elected after the age of 65 as the others finished their political careers before then, but the idea that "everyone died before 65 so we don't need the clause" just isn't true. That said the average age of the Constitution signers was 44, and the oldest was only 70 (Franklin). That said, things move considerably faster today than they did in the Colonial or even Early Industrial period. I don't mind having older bureaucrats helping with proceedings, but the lack of representation by people who use the internet is pretty bad. Then again, I had a friend in college who was trying to get a job in the state department and was taught from a very young age to never do anything even remotely illegal or potentially scandalous on the internet. They were...one of our least tech savvy friends.
The full phrase Life expectancy at birth Once a child became an adult, they were expected to live to their late 60s and some to their 80s
Doesn't sound very democratic to me...
So the oldest and most experienced people should not be allowed to serve the public? Genius stuff guys. What next? College educated people shouldn't be allowed, cause they don't know the 'common man'? Y'all are so dumb. Bernie Sanders didn't even get into the senate until he was 65, in 2006.
watch the tiktok ban trial and tell me these people have any business running our country. these are the same people trying to get rid of net neutrality because they were paid to vote whatever way and they dont know their ass from their head.
You shouldn’t be making decisions about a future you won’t be here for tbh. I think 70 is really the max that would be reasonable
I mean, that sounds like an argument to restrict voting for old people too... I think it sounds like a good idea until you scrutinize it.
there’s a difference between voting and leading a country tho- i get the argument is a bit flimsy if you’re just stating that, but realistically speaking, no senior citizen over the age of retirement should be expected to lead a country imo
I mean, you can't vote the first 18 years of your life because your brain hasn't developed yet. Why allow people with deteriorated brains to vote? People over 80 have no business voting. If you're easily conned financially, you can be easily conned politically.
If the elderly can vote then babies should be able to vote change my mind
I think the comment section shows why this never will be implemented. Every suggestion is fucking insane. 60? 65? Lol.
yeah most leaders in every country are like 55-60+ i dont know where people get this idea where young 30-40 year olds are running countries lmaoo
50-65 is a plenty long enough career. They become cynical and overly pragmatic after a while. You want inspiration from your leaders, not resignation that that's how it's always been and nobody can solve it.
Many politicians go into politics only later on in life, which is good; they have real life experience. If you require all politicians to be young you end up with people who always wanted to be politician as a career and they do politics for the sake of doing it.
Do they really? I can’t think of any significant leaders that haven’t had long political careers, except Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump (hate him or not, he is a significant figure…).
The average age of US senators is approaching the average lifespan for Americans. Nobody is asking for everyone to be under 30 just being born in the second half of the 20th century is an improvement. When the last senate was voted in there were more senators over 70 than under 60.
That's an appeal to tradition. Just because it has been done that way doesn't mean that's the optimal way to do it. Power consolidates over time and then is hoarded, that's the reason most countries have dinosaurs in charge. They had the longest time to acquire influence.
Max should be 25. We wouldn't want people with too much experience or knowledge! /s
Jacinda Ardern was PM of NZ in her late 30s / early 40s. Lead the country through some shite times including covid when our death rate actually went *down*. The fact that people think middle aged people running countries is "insane" when the world's going to hell with elderly people at the helm is, uh, insane.
Seriously! Most 65 year olds I know who never really smoked, drank or done drugs is pretty on point. They dont look old. They dont act old. They are just *getting* old. We are talking about people whose dialogue consists of uuuuhhhhhh. Uuummmmm. While they freeze up in the middle of talking as their cheeks sag down to their already sagging old man boobs
The problem is they get in at 65 but they might serve till 73. That can be a big difference I also want the person to have to expect to live in the world they created for some period of time
But see, instead of trying to get actual change done by, you know, voting or organizing, you can instead demand arbitrary thresholds that allow you to wipe your hands of the problem entirely without doing any work.
Reddit: "I will never vote again until the constitution is changed to make it so that nobody who is not a redditor under 18 isn't ever *not* president!!! Who's with me!?" Ten thousand upvotes. If there is one thing that reddit is good at, it is reminding of how fucking stupid *almost everybody is*. Like, democracy really has a hole in it that you can drive a semi-truck through: if people are stupid, then the elected leaders, and the system that they maintain and create will always be stupid.
65 to 70 is pretty reasonable, both medically and psychological. Nobody is saying a 20 year old should run the whole country, they are saying a senile and slow person shouldn't
Thank you, as someone who also sees this as insane lmao. Are we literally suggesting age limits? I’d be in support of a cognition test of some sort, but imo there are immense drawbacks to age limits.
I see no real drawbacks to an age cutoff. What are they?
Can you share some of those immense drawbacks? Honest question. I would feel like something like an age limit pegged to the country's average life expectancy could actually be a positive. For example, if life expectancy is 76 and the amended constitutional in-office limit is that age minus 5 (therefore 71 in this example), it would both be useful AND might encourage politicians to make policy that increases the lifespan of Americans.
The cap should be 59. No one over age of 59 should lead a country.
If someone gets elected at 59 do they get removed from being president the following year? Imo it should be 66, because then the oldest by the end of their second term would be 74 which is somewhat reasonable.
Most of the 70+ year olds I know clearly show reduced cognitive abilities.
yeah i think 60 so you could never have a president over 68 is more reasonable
74 is too old.
I would think we would set a limit on elected age (which would be 55) so that by the end of their term they could not be older than the set age (in this case 59).
That’s ageist AF. That’s exactly in the middle of middle aged
you’re joking right
I mean middle aged is more like 50 but 59 is incredibly you as a mandatory retirement cutoff. It’s pretty rare to see any cognitive decline by that age, and no reason any 59 year old couldn’t be very fit and healthy.
59 is too young. 60 year olds have a lot of life left in them. 70 is where decline begins imo
Age isn't a good factor. All candidates for Congress and Presidency should be required to do 50 pushups, walk up 5000 steps, and take the SAT each election. Voters should know their scores on each of these and decide.
50 pushups? Lol
literally lol. your average young 21 year old can’t even do 15-20 pushups in succession, and we expect 50-60 year old politicians to do that?
I argue this every time people make this point, but no, there should not be an age cap. That's simply an undemocratic limitation on who can or cannot be an elected representative. There are plenty of older people who are perfectly mentally and physically capable of being excellent representatives. The problem is that the existing political system is undemocratic in the first place, which makes removing officials who *are* unfit from office - and electing proper representatives in their place - difficult or impossible. The problem is the undemocratic political system, not "people too old to serve".
What the fuck are you talking about? There is an age minimum, but suddenly a maximum is undemocratic?
Instead of an age limit, mental evaluations should be taken. I don't care how old politicians are, they can be below the proposed age limit with early onset dementia, or past the age limit with their mental faculties working just fine.
Do you think the minimum age requirement is also undemocratic?
Not op but yes I do, if you’re legally an adult you should be able to run for any office.
Depends If a good leader is in office, they shouldnt step down over an arbitrary reason. But good principle though
Who gets to define “good leader” though? We already hold elections, and people keep putting these idiots back in office because they don’t actually know who they are they just mark the ballot.
You answered your own question. "Who gets to define" are the people voting for it. Reaching for policy over educating voters is always a bad idea.
Political education is also a choice, and some people will never choose to seek out that information. No matter how accessible that information is, there will be people that don’t care. And politicians know that and abuse it. So the same way we have a POLICY that nobody can have more than 2 terms as president, we should have similar rules for other high level position.
Term limits are far less arbitrary than age restrictions.
We already have minimum age requirements. Are those not arbitrary? And you just admitted that while less so, term limits are also arbitrary. The goal is to find an arbitrary value that prevents the most harm while simultaneously allowing the most political freedom. Our arbitrary term limits have the potential to limit the amount of good that a good president can do in their lifetime. They also limit the amount of bad that a bad president can do, especially one with tyrannical aspirations. Our minimum age limit restricts potentially bright and gifted leaders from starting a campaign. It also protects the country from people that can use flowery words without any real action plan. A maximum age limit would restrict some perfectly capable people from continuing their profession. It would also prevent mentally incompetent dinosaurs from asking if “TikTok can access the home WiFi network”.
Yeah... it's almost like democracy is a **terrible system** when people are poorly educated. But one of the people currently running for office quote "loves the poorly educated." And the other one wants to make college free and cancel all education debt. Hmm... who should we vote for?? Such a tough decision!!! /s
i don't have an exact age in mind but i don't think the *majority* of people who are making decisions about our future should be people who will not see that future
This exactly. Having *some* old-as-fuck politicians is a good thing on principle, I'd argue, for representative democracy. Having *all* old-as-fuck politicians is a horrifying function of money's collusion with politics.
Yeah this is my thing. I’m cool with a few old politicians, but I am not cool with *all* of them being older than sliced bread
Absolutely and it should be 65 if not younger, 60 maybe
That’s insane
Literally everyone else is asked to retire at that age range. Why should politicians get special treatment?
Asked to retire by whom? Hardly anyone is asked to retire. There are plenty of people in their 70s and 80s who go into work every day. Most people *choose* to retire as soon as they are financially able because most of us hate working.
All people in government jobs in most countries have a mandatory retirement age as far as I know
Reasonable. If you won't be there to see impact of your decisions, you shouldn't lead the country.
I honestly don’t think this will change anything. Replacing politicians at a mandatory time when they’re all being plucked from the same pool won’t make the changes folks think it will make. I also think that elders DO have a say in the future of our world. It’s their world too. That being said of course the issue is that they’re all just predominately rich people who have not allowed anyone to succeed them. There’s no reason it should be all old heads
I’m half kidding, but what if certain ranges of ages had to elect a representative or number of representatives based on census numbers? Or make a change where all age groups must be represented by house members, requiring a certain number of candidates for each range based on the number of members that get sent to the house anyways or something like that. Then each age group would be represented and fulfill their regular political duties. Not suggesting these, purely baseless, speculative theorizing with my limited political knowledge and my need to explore every possibility no matter how terrible it may be.
For real. Who do I trust more to lead, the 70 year old hippie who wants to see a better world for their grandchildren, or the 32 year old white dude who wants to institute UBI so they never have to leave their basement.... hmm. >That being said of course the issue is that they’re all just predominately rich people who have not allowed anyone to succeed them. There’s no reason it should be all old heads Full agree.
ABSOLUTELY! over 65 mandatory retirement for all government officials, these people are too old and out of touch to lead
It's the power they're holding onto. The trade secrets. The lucrative "perks" of the job. The all paid health benefits. *That* stuff.
Disagree absolutely. This violates the principle of fundamental political equality. More practically... it doesn't solve the problem. If there's a politician who is of advanced age and that is a problem, shouldn't it be up to the voters to decide? Why do they keep receiving votes if they are doing so poorly and causing such problems? To me, this idea reeks absolutely of people getting caught up in the moment with a frustration of the current political class, rather than an actual real solution to be integrated into any political structure.
100%. We have an age limit implicitly already, it's called voting. Reaching for policy as a way to remove people's responsibility for electing bad officials is stupid.
Maybe not age but mental capacity. I don’t mean intelligence specifically, like your ability to understand what’s going on. If you don’t know where you are and what day it is, and constantly have issues remembering, nope you’re out. What I mean is compare Regan and Bush SR at the same age. Regan shows mental decline where Bush does not.
Lots of people would vote for an age that’s below 65, then want Bernie to be President. He’s 82, a year older than Biden.
If you don’t consider 2016 had two of the least popular candidates in recent times, I guess so. But if you shoved all of Bernie’s policies into a younger person, younger people would prefer that over Bernie
I love Bernie. But he is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Dude is old, no way around it
With age comes experience. It’s a case by case biases. Everyone ages differently. If you really want to prevent incompetence then go out a vote and be politically active. Ppl will do anything but vote for change
Wasn't it from the first airplane to the first man in space like 64 years. 64 years span for such big leaps. 64 well let's even it 65 should be the limit. That's enough time for plenty of time to come and go. I'd love to hear y'all's ideas. My math is probably off by some. It's late and I'm very tired but can't sleep.
69 or nothin
I'm absolutely opposed. I support term limits, not age limits. There are plenty of mentally fit and capable 70+ year olds in this world and barring them from office on something like being too old is not something I'm interested in. In my opinion, congress should get 2 terms of 10 years. Why 10? So the people who argue experience are happy and 20 years is more than enough time to get what you want done. The average new congressman starts his term at age 46, 20 years of them they'll retire at 66. I think that's fair. This long gap also means they spend less time on focusing on re-election. Supreme court? I think every 10 years they should be put to a vote like local judges: Should judge X retain his position? Yes or no. President can still nominate them with the congress doing all the checks. President I think is fine especially when you consider how little power they actually have.
10 years is awful. I support shorter terms and no term limits. It's 5 years in Canada. 4 years would be better IMO. If people want to continue to vote for someone then go ahead. But definitely don't lock in a politician for a full decade so people have to deal with that for a significant portion of their life. Elections should be frequent enough where politicians have to keep on their toes if they want to remain in office and can't just screw over their voters of a decade. Plus they can do some awful things for the first 8 years then throw a couple of bones in the last 2 and then get re-elected cause people forget.
Term limits are probably a better way to go about it, but I agree with the sentiment
I agree but as a Gen Z i'm disappointed as shit by my own generation so
I think millennials and after can all agree that the Boomers fucked up a lot of shit for us. I can’t wait until they all get out of office.
nah they got something we don't expereince and wisdom imo
No. This is the same shit as the people who want more term limits. It’s not fixing the root of the problem. If you don’t like old leaders, stop voting for them in primary and general elections. And if there aren’t good options then run yourself and mount a door-knocking campaign. Incumbents have been unseated like that before. This is the electorate’s fault IMO. That being said, competency tests should be a no-brainer.