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.
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).
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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)
Two term limits for everyone in government.
Term limits make sense for the highest positions that have little oversight, but implementing term limits for minor positions encourages political cronyism over technocratic experience
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.
The likely advances now that the NIH was shut down?
The morons in charge are doing a lot to kneecap everything including this, true. But this is not the only country doing such work, thankfully, so some of it is far beyond the grubby paws of right-wing assholes like Taco, fElon, and Bobby Brainworm, thankfully.
No. Once they achieve longevity, THEN look at it again maybe, but as of TODAY, many of the reps are too fucking old!
I thought Charles Darwin was smart, smh.
It’s not likely to happen overnight, in my view. And the thing is, it takes so long to change rules like this to adapt to new realities. I think if we put some arbitrary cutoff into place just before people start living longer, it will take a long time to roll it back.
I happen to think the age thing is a gigantic distraction, just like term limits are. I think people falling for either of these or both are missing what the real problems are.
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’m saying that all these things are not immutable laws in how humans will age, forever. Most especially related to things like both cognitive function, which is mostly what we are talking about, although the physical may have dramatic changes in the near horizon, too.
Just knowing how slow government tends to react to drastic changes in tech, I think putting an arbitrary age limit in right now is foolhardy, and besides, I think age is largely a gigantic distraction that has very very little to do with our current problems.
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?
Yeah, I might sound a bit nutty to some that are not paying attention to such things, but I also came off like a complete loon to people that knew nothing about what AI might mean, and even though we are only at the “LLM phase” right now and at least some of the people I’ve talked to pre-2022 or so no longer snicker at some of the things I say any more. Well, at least not in regards to automation…
I don’t know that setting term limits or arbitrary age restrictions is going to solve any wealth redistribution, whatsoever. If we start seeing people, especially the rich, starting to have longer and longer average health-spans with full cognitive function, I do know it can take a long time for government to catch up to realities and course-correct.
Finding ways to remove dark money and the legalized bribery system in general would be something much more useful, in my view. I’m not sure why we’d want to direct the flow of money and power away from people based on the number of times they’ve been around the sun, though. If anything, if people start making the leap to much longer lives and maintaining full cognitive function, it would make sense that the older someone is, the more qualified they actually are.
Well it’s this old folks making the laws…
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 .
they already increased it to 68.
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.
So? What’s your point?
I fail to see how any of that is relevant to an upper age limits in congress.
Sorry, that’s an entirely separate conversation.
Again, the only reason I put it there is because it’s already an accepted age for retirement. That’s it. Which simplifies things by preempting the whole debate about where to put it.
Because that debate derails the conversation- every damn time. Currently, in point of fact… by you.
Not if you conceded that 60 would be better than 65
Because then the billionaires would generate less money.
“We need generational change!”
(We elected someone who is the same age Biden was in 2021.)
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.
Well, that’s one.
Biden fiasco? Biden?
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.
I mean, if you’re gonna look at it like that, since Bernie is jewish, I hardly think of him as white.
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.
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.
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.
I apologize for my ignorance of American politics. Would you mind expanding on this? “Yes” is the answer to what exactly? How did Harris through away the presidency in favour of appeasing neocons and the donor class? How is it measured that Harris did best when she embraces Walz’s message? How do we know Biden was a guaranteed loss when he beat Trump once already?
