Uh oh! This is NOT going to Go over Well at the DNC!
“We need generational change!”
(We elected someone who is the same age Biden was in 2021.)
In my opinion there should be an age limit for public office. I think 70 should be the max. I my even go to 65.
Given the likely advances in science and medicine, this would be the exact wrong time to start imposing arbitrary and capricious age limits for public office.
science and medicine mostly prolong life or save lives. they can (in a very limited manner) help somewhat with tiredness at old age. healthy brain function is not improved that much with the help of health industry.
and we need those who their thinking is not fossilized. I don’t mean that as insult, it is just they way of life.
as I said they can of course be advisers.
are you saying most 110 years old are capable of holding highest offices? like house of representatives? they need to move alot and talk to alot of people. it is very tiring.
if not at 110 then at some age most of us are not really gonna be great at those “jobs”.
and another side to my point is that old people are gonna set in their politics and also is they survive the politics circus (many many terms) then they become like a family so they are not gonna rock the boat, so they usually become THE status quo. look at Bernie and his support for jewish isis.
also they are not really good at fixing new problems (or even old ones) with new tools.
i don’t disagree, but affectually what are we to do?
solving the actual problem at hand here would mean fixing the flow of wealth, power, and capital away from the elderly.
the government is never even going to entertain that notion. that’s why we’re debating age limits instead of something that matters.
most people would emotionally bring up protest or violent revolution at this point, but, i honestly don’t think western populations will meet whatever thresholds must be met to catalyze such an event anytime soon. people don’t like to hear it but the masses are all bark and no bite. that’s why they trample us so publically and flagrantly now, they know there is nothing we could do against it bc 80% of people are too dumb or scared to care.
in such a world, sitting on the internet clamoring for revolution is honestly kind of cringe and i see it all over lemmy and other spaces. people who actually care are thinking strategically, what could realistically affect change in our struggle? knowledge is power. if (rhetorical you, in this context) your internal world model leads to you thinking shitposting is praxis, you’re part of the 80%. spreading the word doesn’t help because the problem isn’t that people are ignorant, they’re just fucking stupid. when we can’t agree what the signs and symbols we use to communicate even mean anymore what are we to do?
Just go with the minimum retirement age. Earliest age to claim retirement benefits in the US is 62. If you wanna be generous, full benefits start at 66 years and 10 months.
on the surface that sounds reasonable, linking the age to run with the age to retire. If you’re going by todays “retirement” age and social security age…
But what will happen in practice is then the politicians will vote to raise the age of retirement, thereby giving them more time in office. Meanwhile, we’re gonna have a lot more Walmart Greeters than we have positions. (assuming your local Wallyworld still has greeters… and that the greeter isn’t AI)
That’s a weird logic in that context - why would politicians link/limit max office age and then look for a way around it?
They could either just abolish it or if there was politicalwillpeople-power keep it bcs they’ve just installed it.You would have too make to many hypothetical 'if’s to get to that scenario making it impractical to debate seriously.
(Also raising retirement age from 62 to eg 65 doesn’t help them all that much, raising it from 62 to 85 is just lol - especially when they can simply vote in expedition for them.)
you make it sound as if politicians do things in a logical well thought out manner. It doesn’t matter anyways, politicians will never vote for something that adds restrictions to themselves. Politics is entirely self-interested, and those who are publicly interested get pushed out.
That’s what I’m saying, yeah :).
(That is the current state in most democratic-ish countries afaik, I’m not saying that is the inevitable state.)
Well it’s this old folks making the laws…
Waits until retirement to make a political statement rather than retiring as a political statement.
Hey,at least someone is kinda sort of listening. I believe he has a referencing the fact they switched candidates may d stride because the right kept saying he was too old. Now, Trump is dying in office, literally, and has long gone senile but the right keeps championing “their guy”?! The Dems are far too reactionary. Let them spew shit. Ignore.
I think it’s pretty fucking easy. If you’re nearly 80 years old you shouldn’t be running for reelection. That’s not ageist, that’s just God damn reality.
How about 60?
Social security deems retirement age at 65.
Let’s go with that .
air traffic controllers must retire at 56…
Why not lower that age too?
Mostly because that’s another fight. I picked SS’s retirement age mostly because it’s already established as a reasonable age- this otherwise basically arbitrary age is already set so it simplifies the convo, that’s all.
Everything is always a fight. You’ll be lucky if the age isn’t boosted to 70 or 75 by the time you retire. It’s already happening as the whole world slides right. Even if you don’t want to fight, other more powerful groups are fighting against you with everything they have.
Because then the billionaires would generate less money.
I want to work hard now, and retire someday.
I don’t want to be working in my 80’s. I don’t want to be working in my 70’s.
I want my representatives to share and promote these values.
Anyone over the age of 65 who is still actively seeking office clearly does not share these values and is unqualified to continue to hold office.
So why not 60?
Even in acknowledging the need for new leadership, he gets it wrong. Biden himself wasn’t the problem, he did a perfectly fine job as president. The problem was you guys in Congress, and the DNC insisting that the Democrats move to the right.
Age may correlate with compromised ethics and standards, but it’s not the cause. If the Democrats in Congress weren’t such fucking pushovers and did good jobs, I wouldn’t give a shit if they held office until they keeled over dead.
Fight - for us - and you can have the job as long as you want it. Refuse to fight? Then get the hell out of the way.
Biden was a decent president with terrible PR due to a fundamentally cowardly position through his entire presidency. The Dems were obviously scared to death of the MAGA Nazis, and spent 4 years trying to appease them.
Biden’s biggest, and most enduring mistake was not ordering the arrest of Trump and his henchmen within minutes of his Inauguration. The entire criminal mob should have been detained in Gitmo as National Security threats, and undergone extensive interrogation regarding their nefarious dealings with Russia and others.
Sure, MAGA would have gone crazy, giving Biden the perfect excuse to put them down HARD, and then use their violence to declare them a violent terrorist hate group. In addition, any of their propagandists, from Fox News to Charlie Kirk and Hannity, would be rounded up for encouraging violence, this destroying the Conservative Propaganda Machine, and leaving the only coordinated messaging to the Democrats to justify the MAGA purge.
And don’t forget, at that point we didn’t know about his scheme to steal hundreds of classified documents yet. So while he was in custody, with the Biden administration saying that he was being investigated for treason, they would have discovered all those stolen documents, and EVERYONE in America would finally understand what traitors they are.
But instead, they did literally NOTHING. They ran a competent administration, which never once tried to promote their accomplishments, preferring to modestly let their successes speak for themselves, which was impossible in the wake of ferocious conservative propaganda.
Just weak, all the way around. Dems need to grow some balls. Dems play like it’s middle school junior varsity softball, while MAGAs play major league football, and they are all on the same field.
People were saying “but if you arrest the Republicans for crimes, they’ll put you in camps when they get power back!”. Now we have camps.
They’re going to be evil no matter what. Might as well try to break their spine while you can.
Well said.
Except he didn’t. His age restricted his messaging. Some decent policy but most people never knew it because he could get out there and talk about it.
I will say that the gerontocracy is deeply frustrating, but as you say, it’s the failure to act that’s the most infuriating part.
Sanders is old as fuck, but he has his head on straighter than almost anyone else in Congress. On the flip side, Jeffries seems to be doing a great job proving to everyone that he’s got the backbone of a wet fucking noodle, in terms of backing effective policy and action that would make a real difference.
Exactly! Jeffries was the exact example I had in mind of a Democrat who simply will not stand up for anyone.
His new nickname “AIPAC Shakur” is honestly hilarious and extremely on point
Yes, the is exactly the kind of comparison that is so very apt. Age is not really the problem, indeed, is likely to become even less of a problem (assuming the likes of Taco and Bobby Brainworms don’t completely disrupt all advances in medicine).
Working beyond a reasonable retirement age indicates the candidate does not share my values on the subject of retirement.
I don’t want my elected representatives representing the idea that We The People should be expected to continue to work into our 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.
Government is serious, important business. There are plenty enough horseshit corporate jobs and needy non-profit charities to meet the perverted workophile needs of these elderly people who still feel compelled to labor.
Representatives of the people, they are not.
There are plenty enough horseshit corporate jobs and needy non-profit charities to meet the perverted workophile needs of these elderly people who still feel compelled to labor.
There are?
If anything ageism is far worse in the private sector, anyway…
The thing is these people aren’t working man. You and I are working, they are going to a meeting from time to time on their way to the gym and free restaurant reservations.
They are basically fucking around getting paid shit loads of bribe money to live the old man’s dream.
yes but the public office, specially the manager, need working brain that can tackle new ideas. I think 80 is too high. I think 70 is too high. maybe set it as the age of retirement.
they can still be as advisors though.
I’m pretty sure the Biden fiasco he was referring to was him trying to hold on to the presidency despite his waning health which ended up with the last minute change that cost them the election.
It’s nice to see someone learning a lesson from that and coming to a good conclusion.
Biden was okay. He was not good. He did not secure our elections and he did not fix enough of what Trump destroyed. He was okay in that he didn’t actively sabotage our country like Trump. He was not good.
well i mean he did, but really there is no comparison.
Biden himself wasn’t the problem, he did a perfectly fine job as president.
History will not be kind to Biden, who threw away all his accomplishments and put America on the path for Trump when he started and refused to budge on his Israel’s genocide. A proud Zionist, licked ice cream while dismissing a ceasefire that he repeatedly vetoed while spending billions on weapons for Israel to shred babies alive. He denied it was happening, he had students beat by police for peacefully protesting, he had reporters dragged out for asking questions, and now you want to whitewash his genocide and give Trump all the credit.
Too bad it’s fully documented, and you’re on the wrong side of history. And nothing will change as long as you celebrate one Nazi just to spite another.
Biden fiasco? Biden?
I don’t know if they’re are enough people like my mom, who voted for Biden but wouldn’t vote for Harris, but it does make me wonder if we’d be living in this nightmare if Biden had stayed in.
The answer is yes. Biden was a guaranteed loss, while Harris threw away the presidency in favor of appeasing neocons and the donor class. Harris did best when she embraced the messaging of her running mate, Tim Walz, but that lasted all of one week maybe.
Well, that’s one.
Good
Enjoy your millions and grand children.
I’ll take you guys on Lemmy saying “no old white men in power!” Seriously, when you stop invoking Bernie sanders
every time I’ve seen anyone on Lemmy mention Sanders, it’s always “someone like” or “if only he were a few decades younger” or “, but he’s too old.”
I take it back. I refreshed the thread and I stand corrected.
Maybe value ideas, causes, actions people promote over their superficial qualities?
💯
Then why complain that Biden and Trump are too old? Or any politician for that matter?
Hey, at least Sanders actually seems to be coherent, despite being the oldest of the three, and when he ran in the primaries he had AOC as his VP. It’s true that it should have been the other way around, though, in a sort of young leader with experienced advisor kinda situation.
Honestly there ought to be a mandatory health exam and you must pass because you pose a huge risk if you have declining mental or physical health. This would’ve disqualified both biden and trump
Maybe, yea, but again that’s a sketchy way to restrict someone. The health exam for both of them should have been done by the citizens of the US in the sense that they were/are both very clearly not full present. People voted for Biden reluctantly and people voted for Trump with fervor and it was ridiculous that either of them were on the ballot but even dumber that they got so many votes.
Trump is completely out to lunch at this point and a medical exam wouldn’t stop anything. Hell, dude got 34 felonies and zero punishment because it would “get in the way” of him running for president. The US doesn’t need dangerous restrictions, it needs a handful of functioning braincells.
I mean, if you’re gonna look at it like that, since Bernie is jewish, I hardly think of him as white.
Eh, the problem isn’t necessarily any given politicians age, per se…
I’d take 500 90 year old Bernies over 1 young piece of shit Vance.
EXACTLY. The problem is not age, it’s the policies.
I’m sure there are many, many young douchebags just aching to be into office and I want nothing to do with them merely because they are young. Same for older politicians that have sound policies - I don’t want them cast aside for something as superficial as…checks notes…the number of times they have been around the sun.
Well, we have one Bernie and about 50 Million vances.
bernie has been a pressure valve for USA political system.
I am not American but I don’t think any significant move has been done by him except support for unions. and with respect to Palestine vs Jewish ISIS, Bernie has been a Biden copy.
Disagree. The old Republicans are ruining a world they won’t have to live in, and the old Democrats are legitimizing the gerontocracy.
I’ve ranked the top contributing factors for the Democrat’s loss in 2025, and chief among them in my view is Biden and his surrounding Yes-Men completely out of touch with the state of politics and tone-deaf to Biden’s obvious senility.
Selfish fuck should’ve committed to being a one-term president, Period.
Not to me. Biden is the best president of my lifetime. Now to be clear this is comparison to sitting presidents. Not possible people who could be president or pie in the sky this is what a president should be stuff. To me the idea that biden is the problem is nuts. Now congress and particular democratic congressmen not overruling citizens united asap I can get or the democratic party leadership in general. I think the hillary/bernie thing was much bigger deal. At leat for me even though when it came down to it I voted for her because im not an idiot. I suspect anyone who jumps on the last thing to blame when it comes to blaming inaction of the better option as a reason of loss to the worse option.
Well put. I didn’t love Biden for a lot of reasons. One of which was not taking the threat of the conservatives spearheaded by the likes of the convicted felon.
But given his one term, and after all the destruction of the felon and the conservative movement…his administration did do an awful lot right and gets nothing but flak from Democrats and liberals anyway.
The calls from this type of thing seems weird and knee jerk and im very suspicious of the source. Going after the closest thing to a republican opponent and it honestly disrupts real discussion around democrat failures. Obama is my second favorite but I have some real problems with him. I would still say the whole hilary/bernie thing which gave us trump one was a bigger problem but again that is old news and there appears to be some who want to complain about everything the democrats do in opposition usually with the line that its not enough or too weak but it feels to me like something that comes out of maga string pullers to discount the dems.
-
75% of the electorate said long before the 2024 election said Biden was too old and wanted someone different.
-
Biden had initially commented (and later admitted to this in a press conference) that he once said he’d be only a transitional one-term President.
-
Biden disastrously fumbled the June debate and wasted precious weeks while many people blindly followed him despite having worse approval-ratings than Jimmy Carter.
This put the Harris campaign in such a tight spot where 3 weeks were dedicated just to transitional logistics and a mere 12 weeks to run a national campaign against a competitor who’s been taking cheap shots from the sidelines for 4 years straight.
Biden was immensely instrumental in setting Democrats up for failure in 2024. My opinion about his actual Presidency is independent of the reality of national optics, perception, and their campaign quality.
In other words, if Biden had announced ahead of 2024, “Having recovered America from the COVID pandemic and set the economy back on the path of success, narrowly dodging both recession and out of control inflation, I am now going to commit to my one-term transitional Presidency and open up my party’s process to a vibrant, organic, Democratic primaries. May a younger generation take this country forward” — that would’ve been SO much better than the incompetence out of an obsession for legacy we got.
I agree with the first bullet point but does not change my stance on biden. I felt both him and trump were to old but once you have a known good quantity vs a known bad I would rather stick with the good. This pretty much applies to the second bullet point. For the third did you see the debate? He handily won if you listened to what they said. Yeah its easier for trump to be energetic and fast in what he says when he does not have to care about accuracy. Biden having to actually think about what he is saying makes for some an appearance that might look bad if you focus on appearance but content wise he was miles ahead. This is something which again causes someone like me to want to go with him. I mean the appearance folks are pretty much maga anyways except for the folks who are like, other people but of course not me vote on appearance and will sink it. Now granted I would be fine with your end scenario. I was not wild about the change to kamala but once it was done I supported her like I voted for hilary. I think a lot of this thinking is all supposition about how other people feel.
-
Best president of your lifetime? Are you still a teenager?
Name the one who did better in their first term and if they would have done better in his situation. I was agog at the stuff he accomplished. No surprise billing was huge, he did not give up and continually pushed for dealing with education debt, the ombudsman bill pushed through that tackled our economy, infrastructure, and the environment was huge. the action on non competes.
Not fully prosecuting Trump and his team made everything he did frosting on a shit sandwich. It doesn’t matter. He failed to rise to the challenge of the moment thinking “Covid & economy” were the issue but the reason they were the issue was because of Trump.
> name the one who did better
Yeah he sucked for sure, I agree with that, but I’m not seeing the answer to their question
and the reason you have to say fully is because he was prosecuting but unlike trump he did not fire people willy nilly who were not doing exactly what he wanted and worked within the system. I hate being stuck between two groups who want facism who both think their type is a benevolent righteous type.
Your feckless do nothing version of the government is why we’re in this position. People of privilege have the ability to delay and stall things they don’t want til they don’t happen. Stalling on court cases, dragging out development on clean energy, bureaucratic procedural nonsense. The governments ability to get anything done is a huge part of the reason people voted for Trump. He doesn’t get good things done but stuff does happen and change, proving that if the government wanted to they could. Wanting an effective government is not a desire for fascism. I hate moderates who promote this kind of tyranny. Sounds like you are more devoted to order than justice.
I already listed several of the good things done. We are increasingly going in the wrong direction but anything that is not democracy within a framework of law and rights is a non starter for me.
