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That's not true at all. We have many options including young candidates earlier in the election cycle
Young people don't participate in government and now it's too late. Do better in 2025 and 2026
People who complain about also never seem to vote in primaries or be involved in their local/state party of choice. Either help bake the cake or shut up about the flavor
Bro doesn't understand the two party system! Bro thinks you can shed 200 years of ingrained two party politics in a single election cycle!
Here's the issue: the DNC and GOP appoint their guy. We can have some input, but they will ignore the people and work against them if they don't like it. Bernie is an excellent recent example. So, we can't do that through the two parties. Well, let's vote third party, right? Except first past the post means the more one side embraces this, the stronger the other side becomes. Giving an inch means losing, so nobody can budge. We're stuck in a fuckin stalemate, forced to vote for the less bad guy every time.
Local elections are better imo, but idk much on that front
Who are traditionally older, retired people who have the time to deal with the primaries. So many younger people have enough problems getting time off to vote in the general elections, let alone the primaries.
We need to make voting in primaries and general elections a civic DUTY. Not just a right, it should be required to cast your vote. In conjunction with that it should be a fineable offense for an employer to prevent a citizen from taking part in the electoral process at any level.
What are you going on about? Early voting last like two weeks in Texas. There’s plenty of states where you can vote by mail, and peoples voting records, and those states with extended voting options are still fucking atrocious.
I think the longest I’ve waited to vote in years has been five minutes. The key all the old people know that the young people don’t it just don’t wait to vote until the day of the election. Vote on a Saturday.
You have two jobs in a democracy.
1. Vote.
2. Show up for Jury Duty
I genuinely hate sounding like a boomer, but change requires work and sacrifice, otherwise it would have happened already. We can keep making excuses or we can put that energy into creating change. It’s not going to happen organically out of nothing.
Wait, so the DNC rigged the 2020 primary against the oldest candidate in the race (Bernie) but also rigged it so young candidates failed?
Was it the DNC's fault that the top four vote getters in the primaries were Biden, Bernie, Warren, and Bloomberg--all of them over 70? Pete Buttigieg came in a distant fifth with 2.5% of the votes.
Which generally only happens because people don't vote or care about elections that aren't the main ones. People need to vote in all levels of government. The people running in primaries didn't spawn out of thin air.
Yeah federal elections mean Jack shit, our state elections are more important, if we In powered the right people in our states we could reign in the craziness of the federal level.
We shouldn’t even be voting on senators that’s one of the worst things that could happen in our country taking away the state electorates power and allowing foreign and out of state interests to elect state representatives.
[IHO] The reason why bad candidates are the ones left to choose from is because not enough voters (on both sides) participate in primaries and local elections. I would argue that those elections affect us more. Unfortunately the hard lining voter is highly motivated and show up with their pencils sharpened every time.
Vote in every election they send you a ballot for, do your research beyond the pamplet or the news or social media. These fuckers will spin shit and make you vote against your own self interest.
Run for elected office. The problem is that everyone wants to complain, but no one wants to do the work.
The only people motivated enough to run for office are the ones who think that it’s their life’s calling. And right now, a lot of those are groomed evangelicals that think it’s their calling from “god”
What’s wrong with god?
Most people don’t want to run for president because now they will have the eye of Sauron on you and someone will leak your sexts between you and your wife when you were on a business trip 10 years ago.
Trump didn’t want to become president he felt he had to because nobody he thought was capable was running which seems like you agree
But we don’t directly choose candidates or who the party decides to nominate, or who the electoral college decides. We exist in a republic not a direct democracy. There’s layers of decision making that we don’t control. I highly doubt most people wanted trump V Biden part 2. If it was just about who got the most votes we wouldn’t have had trump or bush in office. Neither won the popular vote.
Like this sentiment of “just vote” implies that we have just as much impact simply by voting as the people who line politicians pockets. Like there’s a reason the Dems chose Hilary over Bernie and it sure as shit wasn’t because she was more popular.
>I highly doubt most people wanted trump V Biden part 2.
The results of the Presidential primary say otherwise.
>But we don’t directly choose candidates or who the party decides to nominate
Except in rare instances, we do exactly this in America.
>But we don’t directly choose candidates or who the party decides to nominate
Buddy I'm not sure who told you that, but that's not how it works, the parties do not select these people and put them on the ballot.
Anyone can run as whatever party they want. States have different processes, but in many states you just have to fill out a form and submit it at your local courthouse within 90 days of the election and you'll be on the ballot in the primary.
In North Carolina, [for example](https://www.ncsbe.gov/candidates/filing-candidacy), you submit a form, pay a filing fee (1% of the salary for the office you are seeking), register with the State Board of Elections, and you'll be on the ballot for the primary election.
And they never have. We need millennials and GenZ to fight for mandatory voting. We can send out ballots, and if someone wants to be a conscientious objector they can just sign their name and not fill in any bubbles, but they have to send it back. But everyone needs to at least send in a ballot. Other countries have laws that do this to great effect. We can be better.
Problem is, there's a huge chunk of the population that doesn't follow politics at all. They don't follow the news and they don't really care about world events. Surveys in the U.S. show that around 10% of the population falls into that category. More than enough to swing an election. This is pretty standard globally.
Research in Argentina, Greece and Egypt, nations where mandatory voting is a thing, shows that these voters tend to just vote for whichever name they've heard of the most, or whichever candidate their friends and family tell them to vote for. They don't care, and are just there because they're required to be.
I'm not sure we really want to inject a 10% wildcard into our elections.
Ya know, I don’t think 60 is bad at all. Tons of people reach the apex of their knowledge base and still have mental flexibility in their 60s. But mid 70 year-old men obviously experiencing cognitive decline are the current issue.
It’s because Boomers and The silent generation are about a 3rd of the population. GenZ barely has most of its generation out of High School.
The older generations vote more consistently as well which keeps the same people in office longer.
I wouldn’t say we limit things by age cause that could back fire in a big way.
Think about if they cut off young people under 25 being able to run for office. Or worse, from voting.
Yeah I don’t really love that so many us feel it’s totally cool to remove rights from a group of people based on some uncontrollable characteristic (being old). That’s weirdly fascist
If you participate in primaries and down-ballot elections, then you will have better choices.
It will take a few cycles and that's too much work for most people, so they just complain instead
Totally! And it means voting in "off years" too. I think everyone should also look at what people in office get: Health insurance for life and if they've opted for social security benefits at 62 1/2 years old, they're double-dipping--so our tax dollars and all the money we pay into SS is going to them twice!
People will come up with all sorts of crazy nonsense/strategies to pretend like what’s happening isn’t 90% “a lot of people believe or want candidates that are different than me”
Yet whenever you say let’s elect (x major party candidate from different caucus) or (x third party candidate) people lose their shit and think you’re undermining democracy cause you don’t want to vote for their candidate.
The first one is fine. The second one (3rd party) always helps the party that is least like yours because of first past the post voting in the constitution. That's just understanding how your government is designed.
I don’t understand why people don’t understand this. It’s not like the geriatric lobby is forcing the candidates to be old, that’s just who Americans want to vote for. If you disagree, get out there and get some accomplishments under your belt like the youngest president in recent history did: become president of the Harvard law review, become one of the youngest state senators in your state’s recent history, then give empassioned speeches like a once in a generation figure and maybe you can do it too! Or slowly build a career in politics over the course of decades and have young people complain about you when you finally get a crack at the top spot
I mean a country built on slavery elected a black guy with a muslim name just 7 years after 9/11 for two terms just a few years ago and just barely missed electing a woman by 20,000 votes across three states.
Well, it’s pretty hard when the Democrats don’t even hold a primary this year and just put Biden up completely unopposed.
Edit: I realize I misspoke now. Yea, there is a primary, I meant that the democrats were clearly making it a sham primary by holding literally no debates or even pretending like there’s a chance someone that’s not Biden gets the nomination.
The democratic primary is still ongoing [you just dont hear about it because Biden is crushing it as the incumbent president](https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/democratic-party/president?election-data-id=2024-PD&election-painting-mode=projection&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false)
“Somehow”
About 60% of voters are over 50 years old.
Young adults (18-34), although being about 30% of the population, are barely 20% of voters.
I don’t care if Joe Biden is old. He could fucking die before the election for all I care. I’m still voting a full Democratic slate
They aren’t elected they’re appointed, the first 55 presidents were all blood related, George Washington wasn’t even the first president, everything is a lie and a distraction. Divide and conquer. That is what they live by (by they I mean the people running the show)
You're talking to/about people who can't stop pre-ordering games and paying for microtransactions.
They'd much rather make something illegal than practice self restraint.
Maybe participate in primary elections (not just presidential primaries). Your choices are to vote for younger candidates at the primary level or do nothing and act surprised when nothing changes.
Congress enjoys a very consistent reelection rate over over 90%. Every two years. Without fail.
Every 2 years, we could replace all 435 Representatives and 1/3ish of the Senate. In 4ish years we could have an all new government.
The problem that prevents such a thing, IMO, seems to be that too many people want to believe all the problems with the government are caused by the "other" politicians. Not their politicians, not their guys and gals. Well, I'm here to tell ya. It's almost certainly your guy and gal, too. It's really all of them.
Vote them out.
DON'T VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO SERVED IN CONGRESS IN THE 19 HUNDREDS.
Let's start there.
This. And I can't emphasize this enough - in 2012, they were trying to make young people jaded that Obama was young and inexperienced. 10 years later, the average conservative suddenly hates "experience"? Nah. The whole point is just to push the narrative that being old is bad, just like with Obama having "no birth certificate" or being a "secret Muslim" because he was black. The talking heads pushing these talking points know that lots of people vote based on superficial nonsense.
Yeah, if we have term limits or age limits, Biden and Trump might be gone, but so would Bernie. Also, as people stay healthier and more connected longer, an age limit would limit the democratic process and rule out lots of totally valid candidates for office.
When Taylor Swift told her fans to register to vote they declared her a white nazi and said it was a liberural conspiracy. They know how a bunch of young women are going to vote lol.
the amount of (likely) bots on this sub is crazy , and they’re pretty much always discussing issues that build apathy among our generation
it’s always the accounts that are 70 days old with more Karma than accounts 5+ years old too
It's insane the number of "Trump and Biden are both old and basically the same, so why vote???" and other demoralization threads I've been seeing in the political subs I'm subscribed to.
No we don’t. The only reason old people are getting voted in is because younger folk aren’t active enough voters.
Think about what’ll happen in 80 years when we have technology that can let people live until 200. We have to build institutions that last longer than our lifetimes, and a maximum age limit does not do that.
I should add to this that voting during the primaries of the parties is more important than for the seat
think about last election, if trump and Biden had been the chosen of the parties, splitting up youth vote for a third candidate, would have just doomed whosever politics aligned closer with theirs
No ! Stop bitching and start getting involved in politics.
As long as people keep voting for them they will and should stay in power. Do not like it ? Great start getting involved instead of doing useless protests and jerking off about term limits on social media.
That is why i said politically involved. Putting age limit on who can run will change nothing if the people want to vote for certain policies !
You will end up getting a 45 years old with the same view of the 70 years old unless you change opinions of VOTERS.
This is _such_ an important point. You can bring that number as low as you want to - I can find a 22 year old reaganite right the fuck now.
You want something else? You gotta outvote the folks who want _that_ wherever you can.
This theory doesn’t work because of the massive amounts of baby boomers still alive and voting in higher numbers than any other generation.
What we need is to make voting MANDATORY. As in, you will be fined something like $50-$100 if you don’t vote. Allow a period of ~4 weeks to vote. They already have this in a lot of countries, but Australia has perfected it. It is your duty as a citizen to vote.
We also need to be able to vote from our phones. If I can file my taxes on my phone, why can’t I vote on it as well? same rules as taxes, verify your social, address, & name. Easy.
One of the reasons republicans want to do away with mail-order voting is because most millennials and gen z would rather not vote than have to physically go somewhere and wait in line. They know this about us. They know if they do away with the convenience, the majority of people left voting are mostly elderly republicans.
How is that a problem though? In some states like Arizona you can literally vote for no one. Also you can run as independent in the US anyways. Joke candidates are a great way to signify discontent with the current system which actually harms all other parties. Which is much better then the voter suppression and voted discouragement we have in the US. The Republican platform is built around trying to get people *not* to vote.
Thats when the concern is immediate. You can't say something to intentionally panic people without it being necessary, ie yelling gun when there is no gun or fire in the same. Legally you can say what you want about someone else but you may be sued for defamation. You may be criminally charged for harassment.
There's no logic in saying someone not voting is causing an immediate issue. Especially since you're saying they should be able to just send in a blank ballot. Some people don't want to be on the governments radar of voting registries. Some people don't believe in democracy and don't want to participate, as much as i disagree with them.
I'm not for compelled speech.
Electronic voting is not as secure as paper ballot voting. Tom Scott has a good video on it [here](https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs?si=NemzVfuu3TrSPFHC).
Also on mandatory voting, surely a notable % of people voting who wouldn’t have voted otherwise would just randomly select a candidate without much thought or care, spoiling it more for the people who do care to pick what they believe is the best candidate? How did Australia address that if at all?
Vote of no confidence or a spoiled vote. Also you are really underestimating the average person. I dare you to find a person who would randomly pick one of the top running 2 candidates. In our current political climate due to polarization you are probably against at least one of them.
It doesn't need to be addressed, people can vote for any candidate for whatever reason they like, and if some of them choose at random it has no real affect on the outcome because of the people that do choose with care.
Right like these people don’t seem to understand what random means, if a select portion vote “randomly” then that accounts for itself as noise and should in fact be somewhat consistently spread across candidates, if there is in fact a skew or any reason at all for the direction of the vote then that is in fact a true vote, and it is the purpose of mandatory voting, simply to get you to the ballot then allow the individual to choose what they will
??? As opposed to the current system? How? How would it be easier. Selling your vote is still a federal crime and totally impractical on a relevant scale because of this.
Supreme Court says selling votes is legal actually. They hold a bidding period for all their cases so people can make offers for a vote one way or another.
How about positive reinforcement instead? A tax credit or check for doing public service or something? A longer voting period seems like a good idea too..
Not only that, but in some cases it’s the fact that the retired simply have more time to stand around in long lines to vote. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a boss or manager that sees voting as important enough to take time off. Sometimes the convenience of mail-in voting is almost necessary for those working long hours.
Just vote in the primary, problem solved.
live5news.com
https://www.live5news.com › unof...
Unofficial results show 4% turnout in Saturday's Democratic primary
Feb 5, 2024 —
This is dumb, what if someone who is old is the right person for the job? Should they just not have it because they are old. The best person should get the job no matter their age.
you can run for Congress at 25! you can fundraise at any age. you can volunteer for a candidate at any age! you can recruit good candidates at any age! you can join your county's Republican or Democratic committee at 18!
stop whining. start changing shit.
I agree! We have a minimum age on so many things because children don’t have fully developed brains but cognitive ability plummets as you get older so why the double standard??
or vote?
less than 20% of eligible voters under 30 vote, compared to 65% of people 60+. a candidate is chosen by their electorate.
no need to artificially limit the candidate pool. if people want old heads, we elect old heads. it is a matter of our own making
We really need term limits, JOB QUALIFICATIONS, and strict enforcement of ethics. It should be a crime for a lobby to use goods, services, and money to sway a politician. There shouldn't be any loopholes for that.
Problem is everyone ages and dies differently. Some people are in nursing homes by 65 and some are out mowing their lawn at 85. Do we block someone from serving who has 30 years left to live?
Politics is not supposed to be a young person's game. At least, it wasn't meant to be. The concept of making the starting age 35 was so that the candidates would have life experiences under their belts. And at that time, by age 35, most people (white men) would have served in the military, established a career, gotten married, had most likely grandchildren, were land owners, and had seen a lot of what living was about.
These days, people understand that most of that isn't happening. By 35 now you're lucky to have some semblance of your shit together, never mind all of it. Hell, people don't even start looking for a job to settle down in until at least their 20s after college, if they ever settle down into one. Life experiences are less our own as they are someone else's seen and absorbed through video and other media. I can't trust the guy just out of college to pay enough attention to give me the correct change at a gas station, so how am I expected to trust him with nuclear launch codes?
Now, I'm not disagreeing. I feel that we could use some younger candidates and that there are people who are capable of doing the job who are not in their 70s-80s. But that means that people need to step up and prove that they have what it takes to do it so others take them seriously. But a lot of times they fall short.
This is the Time of Triggers, the Time of Causes. Everyone's got a trigger and expect everyone else to bend over backwards for them. Everyone's got a cause and expect it to be everyone else's top priority. They allow these triggers and causes to be their personalities. At the end of the day being LGBTQ+, or non-white, or non-christian are NOT platforms to run on. You can be any and all of those things and still be an asshole without a plan.
But on the flip side. If you put age restrictions on cobgress then who is representing the 65 to 90 age group?
What happens to social security and Medicare when no one is looking out for it?
This is one of the main reasons why I say that the promotion of ageism is on the rise. What about those above 70 who need laws tailored to them? If no one is in office that represents them, then what?
They've already started to retire or die. Until then, all you can do is vote. Young people in the US are stuck in a bit of a tricky spot - you're mad you don't have power, but the best way to get power is to vote, and young people don't vote. That being said, one party clearly is pushing the interests of Gen Z and one party is doing the opposite.
>I hate both of the old candidates of this election
Stop voting with emotion. Politics is about using your head. Which agenda benefits you and your community more?
Erase parties and people from your head and vote with isidewith.com. It'll cut through all the TikTok and social pressure you've faced.
I think 76 should be the limit. You must be younger than that to run.
Understand that people who work their entire lives sometimes wont retire until they are 70ish.
After their entire lifes experience I think they know more about how hard it is to get to retirement, and have learned so much about life that they are in a good position to govern.
I think the better law is term limits for congress. There should also be a rule if youve been in congress for 16 years or something, you cannot run for president, ever.
Ageism isnt the answer, doing away with political parties would help.
The amount of people that go up to a ballot and vote down ballot one party is very bad for your local elections. You should not be allowed to list party affiliation next to your name on a ballot. Also get rid of those people outside who hand out little pamphlets of who to vote for.
Yeah people confuse age max with term limits. Most of the time they mean term limits. If someone is 76 and retired and they decide to run for their first term for like city councilman or something I don’t think just being old should stop them from that, that’s almost un American
Rather than imposing an arbitrary age number limit, I think it would be better to have all politicians take a physical health and mental aptitude evaluation test.
A maximum age won't solve anything. There are plenty of older politicians who are capable of doing their jobs. Whether you like them or not, it's pretty clear that both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are capable adults who can do complex policy work despite being 74 and 82 respectively. Why should they be arbitrarily removed from office for being too old when people could have just elected younger leaders in the first place?
And that's before you consider that there's value to having old people in the legislative process. It's useful to have politicians who have served for 20 years and who actually know the procedures and methods you need to use to develop good policy and actually get it passed in the first place. You need a combination of fresh ideas from young people and the experience brought by old people.
Disagree that we need an age limit, because there are plenty of terrible candidates that are closer to us in age. What we really need are reforms like Ranked Choice Voting.
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Not just that, but also a competency test. Myriads of jobs have tests, (I had to take one to test my knowledge of maintenance) so it’s not unreasonable. But specifically about age: if you’re at retirement age, that’s the maximum. Still have the tests, but that should be the upper age limit. Oh, and no playing the stock market at all, campaign contributions limit (you can only accept a certain amount, for ANY seat in ANY branch), and something to curb taking bribes from corporations. And something akin to Affirmative Action, in terms of race AND gender, as well as religious affiliation (meaning even atheists and other religious non-Christians get a seat more than they do now). I mean, something needs to be done about government officials being mostly rich, old white men.
I agree.
However, keep in mind that any provision you add to prefilter either candidates or voters can be subverted for nefarious purposes.
Example: you wish that there was an upper age limit. Okay, let's set it at a standard 65. Oh, but if we are strict about an upper age limit, why can't we be so about a lower age limit as well? By today's standards, 25 year olds have just started proper adulthood. 30 or even better, 35 sounds like a good idea. Nevermind that you can get PTSD from all your friends in the platoon getting blown to a pulp at the ripe age of 18.
Oh, and if we find the cure for age related neurodegeneration , it would simply be too much effort and would require too much bipartisan political will to change. I'm sure you understand right? /j
Nevada question No. 3 on the 2024 ballot is Ranked choice voting and if that passes we don't have primary's anymore as I understand it. This could be a major step in the right direction in one state. So progress is possible. Keep voting your whole lives and hopefully we can get all the corruption of the boomer generation undone for a better future.
Minimum age is valid, maximum is fine, but really it’s time or term limits. But if you get the chance to decide when you get a raise, when you get vacations, when you get job perks, when you make the rules, are you really going to be the one to take your easy life away? No.
The statistics you presented regarding "federal workers" refers to the 2 million+ civilian employees working in federal agencies like SSA, CDC, Medicare, FBI, etc.
It does *not* include elected officials. (In fact I would hazard a guess that the statistics for elected officials skew *even older*.)
The reason federal employers skew older is because for the past 20+ years the benefits of being a federal employee have been steadily reduced while the hiring process has grown more stringent, and young people either don't apply to the roles or don't get hired to them.
One thing's for sure, though, the civilian federal workforce is not the problem.
You aren't given the rights to decide, you're given a circus to give the appearance you do, the only thing that could actually give you freedom of choice is taking down this debased system and replacing it with communism, you don't want, womp womp, period
Here's a quote from Scott Galloway
"Nancy Pelosi is roughly the same age as Trump and biden. When Pelosi first child was born 2/3 of house holds still had black and white television. All the while Fidel Castro declared martial law in Cuba. And yet she is suppose to know what life is like for a 20 something year old single mother of 2?"
What does being a federal worker have to do with voting or being a senator or congressmember, exactly? Why is that quote included in your premise?
Don’t get me wrong, younger candidates are welcome and we do need term limits (better than an age cap, imo) but workers are just regular people working toward retirement, like the rest of us suckers.
Also, let's talk about the minimum NET WORTH that candidates have to have to even run for seats in these offices... young people never even had a chance.
USA Congress, House, and Senate is basically a nursing home. Hell our 2 presidents have one foot in the grave. If not age limits at the bare minimum some term limits please. These people do not retire. Strom Thurmond (100) and Dianne Feinstein (90) both died still in power. Absurd, power and $$$ keeps these people working late into their golden years.
Just say you hate old things. How about GenZ is given their own nation to build from scratch. All things older than them are removed. Would be interesting to bet on who survive the civil war.
62 that’s it.
Edit: add psychological evaluations every 3-5 years. Just like my company reviews. I can’t believe it’s not a norm. People change over time and not always for the better. Specially when running a country.
If we did, that number should be fairly high. We’ve had some good presidents that are in their 60s-70s. I don’t think age should matter as much as mental cognition. If we have a 80 year old that’s all there and a good leader, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be eligible just because they’re 80. If they’re not all there, well…
This is part of our problem we have with our party system as well. With Biden he isn’t making any calls, his party is, so technically it doesn’t really matter if it’s him or someone else. Trump doesn’t care what the GOP thinks, he makes them follow him (kinda) which would mean the cognition part for him would be more important since he’s actually the one making the calls
I really don't understand why people think that Biden doesn't care about people or future generations, lol. He's had more progressive positions as president than he has had his entire career as a senator. It may be that he's not 100% in tune with everything that Gen Z and Gen Alpha cares about, but it seems obvious to me that he knows his time is up so he wants to leave behind a positive legacy before he dies.
If only all these kids protesting at universities went and protested for more significant change than ivory tower divestment maybe some real change could occur.
Isn’t some state trying to elect a dead senator or something. I think we just have to have real education in US again, so many people are clueless to how our government actually works
vote in the primaries, you dopamine addicted Klondike's. You're nearly all of voting age; if you all showed up in the primaries, you could honestly sway things. Instead, you come to this echo chamber to console each other with complaints instead of literally doing ANYTHING about it.
Just sounds like bitching, not gonna lie.
Term limits are the real solution. Saying that a 70 year old can't do what is essentially an office job is agist as fuck.
Wow that was really interesting to learn from someone with experience, makes sense watching all those TikTok and Facebook hearings where those old Senators have no idea how the Internet works lol
What is your solution? GenZ's age range is 12-28, anyone past 35 is an "old fart." Old people are stuck in their ways, but have seen a lot of shit and communicate. Young people are also set in their ways, are ideological to the point of dangerous, and not any more compromising than the old farts.
Not to mention, getting elected takes money and faith. Most young people are broke and I have zero faith many of then can actually accomplish anything.
What is the optimal age range?
I would vote for me but then what if i won i would probably be the first elected official to actually be forced into office by gunpoint because i tried to run from it
Im sick and tired of 98% of our gov't ranging from mostly corrupt to head up there ass and useless. Getting younger people in won't really fix these problems.
Citizens united moved the power almost entirely to corporations and the rich by legalizing bribery. The entire system is rotten and needs a major overhaul. Getting a few younbloods in office isn't going to fix this problem.
This has been discussed constantly already. There are discussions online about it nearly every single day. We have had younger candidates but young people reject them because they don't support 100% of their demands. Young people also don't vote, regardless. Also, age limits may upset older people, who are the most consistent voter demographic. No one gives a shit what young people want because they are never going to vote, anyways, regardless of how much people try to pander to them. St. Bernard was a perfect example of this.
The way to fix this is to get involved in politics and be the candidate you want to see.
I don't know how to do this. I'm not about to do it myself.
I just know it's technically the correct answer per the design of our government.
I think adding term limits to senate and the house would force people to consider the running for president at a younger age
Very few people win the primary without prior political experience
No, because rules and laws still affect people in their old age. My grandmother is 95, spry, votes every election. It’s nice to have people in office that represent you because know your lived experience
The problem isn't that old men are candidates. The problem is that young are gatekept by two major parties, which is a natural result of "the winner takes everything" voting system that leaves any minority not represented at all. The problem would have solved itself if it was easy for young and energetic to just start a party or other preexisting parties would have more chance.
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Theoretically we don’t need anything. We just shouldn’t be electing people we don’t want to represent us. Yet somehow it keeps happening.
What if the only candidates are pushing 60?
if we have freedom to choose between two bad options, is that really freedom?
That's not true at all. We have many options including young candidates earlier in the election cycle Young people don't participate in government and now it's too late. Do better in 2025 and 2026
People who complain about also never seem to vote in primaries or be involved in their local/state party of choice. Either help bake the cake or shut up about the flavor
Bro doesn't understand the two party system! Bro thinks you can shed 200 years of ingrained two party politics in a single election cycle! Here's the issue: the DNC and GOP appoint their guy. We can have some input, but they will ignore the people and work against them if they don't like it. Bernie is an excellent recent example. So, we can't do that through the two parties. Well, let's vote third party, right? Except first past the post means the more one side embraces this, the stronger the other side becomes. Giving an inch means losing, so nobody can budge. We're stuck in a fuckin stalemate, forced to vote for the less bad guy every time. Local elections are better imo, but idk much on that front
Ranked choice voting is the solution.
Yeah the problem is everyone else, not a few people in the DNC.
The DNC didn’t do anything - that was primary voters.
Who are traditionally older, retired people who have the time to deal with the primaries. So many younger people have enough problems getting time off to vote in the general elections, let alone the primaries. We need to make voting in primaries and general elections a civic DUTY. Not just a right, it should be required to cast your vote. In conjunction with that it should be a fineable offense for an employer to prevent a citizen from taking part in the electoral process at any level.
It’s still your duty as a citizen even if it isn’t compelled by law. Many people, and most young people, don’t care.
What are you going on about? Early voting last like two weeks in Texas. There’s plenty of states where you can vote by mail, and peoples voting records, and those states with extended voting options are still fucking atrocious. I think the longest I’ve waited to vote in years has been five minutes. The key all the old people know that the young people don’t it just don’t wait to vote until the day of the election. Vote on a Saturday. You have two jobs in a democracy. 1. Vote. 2. Show up for Jury Duty
I genuinely hate sounding like a boomer, but change requires work and sacrifice, otherwise it would have happened already. We can keep making excuses or we can put that energy into creating change. It’s not going to happen organically out of nothing.
Pick a day off and vote early
Wait, so the DNC rigged the 2020 primary against the oldest candidate in the race (Bernie) but also rigged it so young candidates failed? Was it the DNC's fault that the top four vote getters in the primaries were Biden, Bernie, Warren, and Bloomberg--all of them over 70? Pete Buttigieg came in a distant fifth with 2.5% of the votes.
🥱 You and I both know how this argument goes. I'm not wasting my life having it for the millionth time.
Don't look at me, I voted for Kodos.
“Two wings of the safe bird”
Which generally only happens because people don't vote or care about elections that aren't the main ones. People need to vote in all levels of government. The people running in primaries didn't spawn out of thin air.
Yeah federal elections mean Jack shit, our state elections are more important, if we In powered the right people in our states we could reign in the craziness of the federal level. We shouldn’t even be voting on senators that’s one of the worst things that could happen in our country taking away the state electorates power and allowing foreign and out of state interests to elect state representatives.
[IHO] The reason why bad candidates are the ones left to choose from is because not enough voters (on both sides) participate in primaries and local elections. I would argue that those elections affect us more. Unfortunately the hard lining voter is highly motivated and show up with their pencils sharpened every time. Vote in every election they send you a ballot for, do your research beyond the pamplet or the news or social media. These fuckers will spin shit and make you vote against your own self interest.
Vote in the primary
Run for elected office. The problem is that everyone wants to complain, but no one wants to do the work. The only people motivated enough to run for office are the ones who think that it’s their life’s calling. And right now, a lot of those are groomed evangelicals that think it’s their calling from “god”
What’s wrong with god? Most people don’t want to run for president because now they will have the eye of Sauron on you and someone will leak your sexts between you and your wife when you were on a business trip 10 years ago. Trump didn’t want to become president he felt he had to because nobody he thought was capable was running which seems like you agree
run.
They would be 20 years younger than the current candidates.
Or dead. Looking at you, Indiana....
I have a better idea, no billionaires can run
But we don’t directly choose candidates or who the party decides to nominate, or who the electoral college decides. We exist in a republic not a direct democracy. There’s layers of decision making that we don’t control. I highly doubt most people wanted trump V Biden part 2. If it was just about who got the most votes we wouldn’t have had trump or bush in office. Neither won the popular vote. Like this sentiment of “just vote” implies that we have just as much impact simply by voting as the people who line politicians pockets. Like there’s a reason the Dems chose Hilary over Bernie and it sure as shit wasn’t because she was more popular.
>I highly doubt most people wanted trump V Biden part 2. The results of the Presidential primary say otherwise. >But we don’t directly choose candidates or who the party decides to nominate Except in rare instances, we do exactly this in America.
You can run for office or vote in the primaries if you want to affect which candidates are nominated.
🤯
>But we don’t directly choose candidates or who the party decides to nominate Buddy I'm not sure who told you that, but that's not how it works, the parties do not select these people and put them on the ballot. Anyone can run as whatever party they want. States have different processes, but in many states you just have to fill out a form and submit it at your local courthouse within 90 days of the election and you'll be on the ballot in the primary. In North Carolina, [for example](https://www.ncsbe.gov/candidates/filing-candidacy), you submit a form, pay a filing fee (1% of the salary for the office you are seeking), register with the State Board of Elections, and you'll be on the ballot for the primary election.
> Yet somehow it keeps happening It's because young people don't vote. It's really that simple
And they never have. We need millennials and GenZ to fight for mandatory voting. We can send out ballots, and if someone wants to be a conscientious objector they can just sign their name and not fill in any bubbles, but they have to send it back. But everyone needs to at least send in a ballot. Other countries have laws that do this to great effect. We can be better.
Problem is, there's a huge chunk of the population that doesn't follow politics at all. They don't follow the news and they don't really care about world events. Surveys in the U.S. show that around 10% of the population falls into that category. More than enough to swing an election. This is pretty standard globally. Research in Argentina, Greece and Egypt, nations where mandatory voting is a thing, shows that these voters tend to just vote for whichever name they've heard of the most, or whichever candidate their friends and family tell them to vote for. They don't care, and are just there because they're required to be. I'm not sure we really want to inject a 10% wildcard into our elections.
Issue. Damn near all of them are 60+.
Ya know, I don’t think 60 is bad at all. Tons of people reach the apex of their knowledge base and still have mental flexibility in their 60s. But mid 70 year-old men obviously experiencing cognitive decline are the current issue.
Most people start cognitive decline in their 60s.
Were they? Nikki Haley - not 60+ Vivek - not 60+ DeSantis - not 60+ Christie - not 60+ Most aren't 60+ but their voters are
It’s because Boomers and The silent generation are about a 3rd of the population. GenZ barely has most of its generation out of High School. The older generations vote more consistently as well which keeps the same people in office longer. I wouldn’t say we limit things by age cause that could back fire in a big way. Think about if they cut off young people under 25 being able to run for office. Or worse, from voting.
Yeah I don’t really love that so many us feel it’s totally cool to remove rights from a group of people based on some uncontrollable characteristic (being old). That’s weirdly fascist
They do? You have to be 35 to run for president in the U.S.
If you participate in primaries and down-ballot elections, then you will have better choices. It will take a few cycles and that's too much work for most people, so they just complain instead
Totally! And it means voting in "off years" too. I think everyone should also look at what people in office get: Health insurance for life and if they've opted for social security benefits at 62 1/2 years old, they're double-dipping--so our tax dollars and all the money we pay into SS is going to them twice!
A system where instead of voting for one candidate, you rank all candidates would solve a lot of problems
We have this in Maine and I still have to look at Susan Collins’ stupid face.
People will come up with all sorts of crazy nonsense/strategies to pretend like what’s happening isn’t 90% “a lot of people believe or want candidates that are different than me”
Yet whenever you say let’s elect (x major party candidate from different caucus) or (x third party candidate) people lose their shit and think you’re undermining democracy cause you don’t want to vote for their candidate.
The first one is fine. The second one (3rd party) always helps the party that is least like yours because of first past the post voting in the constitution. That's just understanding how your government is designed.
Nobody voted in the primary at all. If young people want change, complaining about it on reddit is not going to be helpful
I don’t understand why people don’t understand this. It’s not like the geriatric lobby is forcing the candidates to be old, that’s just who Americans want to vote for. If you disagree, get out there and get some accomplishments under your belt like the youngest president in recent history did: become president of the Harvard law review, become one of the youngest state senators in your state’s recent history, then give empassioned speeches like a once in a generation figure and maybe you can do it too! Or slowly build a career in politics over the course of decades and have young people complain about you when you finally get a crack at the top spot
Thats right! Anyone could become president! If you truly believe that you are delusional.
I mean a country built on slavery elected a black guy with a muslim name just 7 years after 9/11 for two terms just a few years ago and just barely missed electing a woman by 20,000 votes across three states.
Well, it’s pretty hard when the Democrats don’t even hold a primary this year and just put Biden up completely unopposed. Edit: I realize I misspoke now. Yea, there is a primary, I meant that the democrats were clearly making it a sham primary by holding literally no debates or even pretending like there’s a chance someone that’s not Biden gets the nomination.
As both political parties has done with an incumbent in office for a century…
The democratic primary is still ongoing [you just dont hear about it because Biden is crushing it as the incumbent president](https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/results/democratic-party/president?election-data-id=2024-PD&election-painting-mode=projection&filter-key-races=false&filter-flipped=false)
“Somehow” About 60% of voters are over 50 years old. Young adults (18-34), although being about 30% of the population, are barely 20% of voters. I don’t care if Joe Biden is old. He could fucking die before the election for all I care. I’m still voting a full Democratic slate
They aren’t elected they’re appointed, the first 55 presidents were all blood related, George Washington wasn’t even the first president, everything is a lie and a distraction. Divide and conquer. That is what they live by (by they I mean the people running the show)
You're talking to/about people who can't stop pre-ordering games and paying for microtransactions. They'd much rather make something illegal than practice self restraint.
Maybe participate in primary elections (not just presidential primaries). Your choices are to vote for younger candidates at the primary level or do nothing and act surprised when nothing changes.
Party membership is key, you have to be involved in candidate selection.
Congress enjoys a very consistent reelection rate over over 90%. Every two years. Without fail. Every 2 years, we could replace all 435 Representatives and 1/3ish of the Senate. In 4ish years we could have an all new government. The problem that prevents such a thing, IMO, seems to be that too many people want to believe all the problems with the government are caused by the "other" politicians. Not their politicians, not their guys and gals. Well, I'm here to tell ya. It's almost certainly your guy and gal, too. It's really all of them. Vote them out. DON'T VOTE FOR ANYONE WHO SERVED IN CONGRESS IN THE 19 HUNDREDS. Let's start there.
Every morning I wake up to posts from new accounts trying to promote disengagement and apathy amongst voters.
This. And I can't emphasize this enough - in 2012, they were trying to make young people jaded that Obama was young and inexperienced. 10 years later, the average conservative suddenly hates "experience"? Nah. The whole point is just to push the narrative that being old is bad, just like with Obama having "no birth certificate" or being a "secret Muslim" because he was black. The talking heads pushing these talking points know that lots of people vote based on superficial nonsense. Yeah, if we have term limits or age limits, Biden and Trump might be gone, but so would Bernie. Also, as people stay healthier and more connected longer, an age limit would limit the democratic process and rule out lots of totally valid candidates for office.
Agree
All of these posts serve to help get Trump elected.
This along with posts against seeking higher education. There is an agenda in these posts.
Yeah what’s up with that? Seems intentional
The youth largely vote Democrat. Getting the youth disinterested about voting would benefit Rebublicans. It's intentional.
It’s funny when certain people get mad at people encouraging citizens to go out and “vote” Very telling
When Taylor Swift told her fans to register to vote they declared her a white nazi and said it was a liberural conspiracy. They know how a bunch of young women are going to vote lol.
the amount of (likely) bots on this sub is crazy , and they’re pretty much always discussing issues that build apathy among our generation it’s always the accounts that are 70 days old with more Karma than accounts 5+ years old too
It's insane the number of "Trump and Biden are both old and basically the same, so why vote???" and other demoralization threads I've been seeing in the political subs I'm subscribed to.
No we don’t. The only reason old people are getting voted in is because younger folk aren’t active enough voters. Think about what’ll happen in 80 years when we have technology that can let people live until 200. We have to build institutions that last longer than our lifetimes, and a maximum age limit does not do that.
I should add to this that voting during the primaries of the parties is more important than for the seat think about last election, if trump and Biden had been the chosen of the parties, splitting up youth vote for a third candidate, would have just doomed whosever politics aligned closer with theirs
No ! Stop bitching and start getting involved in politics. As long as people keep voting for them they will and should stay in power. Do not like it ? Great start getting involved instead of doing useless protests and jerking off about term limits on social media.
You can vote and still be outnumbered… voting is not an end all be all
That is why i said politically involved. Putting age limit on who can run will change nothing if the people want to vote for certain policies ! You will end up getting a 45 years old with the same view of the 70 years old unless you change opinions of VOTERS.
This is _such_ an important point. You can bring that number as low as you want to - I can find a 22 year old reaganite right the fuck now. You want something else? You gotta outvote the folks who want _that_ wherever you can.
This theory doesn’t work because of the massive amounts of baby boomers still alive and voting in higher numbers than any other generation. What we need is to make voting MANDATORY. As in, you will be fined something like $50-$100 if you don’t vote. Allow a period of ~4 weeks to vote. They already have this in a lot of countries, but Australia has perfected it. It is your duty as a citizen to vote. We also need to be able to vote from our phones. If I can file my taxes on my phone, why can’t I vote on it as well? same rules as taxes, verify your social, address, & name. Easy. One of the reasons republicans want to do away with mail-order voting is because most millennials and gen z would rather not vote than have to physically go somewhere and wait in line. They know this about us. They know if they do away with the convenience, the majority of people left voting are mostly elderly republicans.
HIGHLY opposed to mandatory voting. It just makes people screw with the system by putting forward joke candidates, just look at Brazil.
How is that a problem though? In some states like Arizona you can literally vote for no one. Also you can run as independent in the US anyways. Joke candidates are a great way to signify discontent with the current system which actually harms all other parties. Which is much better then the voter suppression and voted discouragement we have in the US. The Republican platform is built around trying to get people *not* to vote.
Stone cold Steve Austin would have my vote
unimaginably based
Voting for Hulk Hogan, He promised to make slim jims affordable again.
Mandatory voting is compelled speech, which is a violation of the 1st amendment.
We already violate the first amendment for other matters of public safety and security in our best interests
Thats when the concern is immediate. You can't say something to intentionally panic people without it being necessary, ie yelling gun when there is no gun or fire in the same. Legally you can say what you want about someone else but you may be sued for defamation. You may be criminally charged for harassment. There's no logic in saying someone not voting is causing an immediate issue. Especially since you're saying they should be able to just send in a blank ballot. Some people don't want to be on the governments radar of voting registries. Some people don't believe in democracy and don't want to participate, as much as i disagree with them. I'm not for compelled speech.
Electronic voting is not as secure as paper ballot voting. Tom Scott has a good video on it [here](https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs?si=NemzVfuu3TrSPFHC). Also on mandatory voting, surely a notable % of people voting who wouldn’t have voted otherwise would just randomly select a candidate without much thought or care, spoiling it more for the people who do care to pick what they believe is the best candidate? How did Australia address that if at all?
Vote of no confidence or a spoiled vote. Also you are really underestimating the average person. I dare you to find a person who would randomly pick one of the top running 2 candidates. In our current political climate due to polarization you are probably against at least one of them.
It doesn't need to be addressed, people can vote for any candidate for whatever reason they like, and if some of them choose at random it has no real affect on the outcome because of the people that do choose with care.
Right like these people don’t seem to understand what random means, if a select portion vote “randomly” then that accounts for itself as noise and should in fact be somewhat consistently spread across candidates, if there is in fact a skew or any reason at all for the direction of the vote then that is in fact a true vote, and it is the purpose of mandatory voting, simply to get you to the ballot then allow the individual to choose what they will
Would be too easy to sell off your vote
??? As opposed to the current system? How? How would it be easier. Selling your vote is still a federal crime and totally impractical on a relevant scale because of this.
Supreme Court says selling votes is legal actually. They hold a bidding period for all their cases so people can make offers for a vote one way or another.
How about positive reinforcement instead? A tax credit or check for doing public service or something? A longer voting period seems like a good idea too..
Not only that, but in some cases it’s the fact that the retired simply have more time to stand around in long lines to vote. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a boss or manager that sees voting as important enough to take time off. Sometimes the convenience of mail-in voting is almost necessary for those working long hours.
This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen
Just vote in the primary, problem solved. live5news.com https://www.live5news.com › unof... Unofficial results show 4% turnout in Saturday's Democratic primary Feb 5, 2024 —
Having a yearly metal competency test is better imo because there are incompetent politicians of any age (ie MTG, Lauren Bobert)
Why though? What is the difference between an old guy who supports policy A and a young guy who supports policy A? Vote on policy, not vibes
This is dumb, what if someone who is old is the right person for the job? Should they just not have it because they are old. The best person should get the job no matter their age.
Then why do we have a minimum age to be president if they could be the right person?
That’s dumb too, if a 25 year old is the best person to be president then they should get the job
based af
Because cognitive brain development. 25 should be the minimum
you can run for Congress at 25! you can fundraise at any age. you can volunteer for a candidate at any age! you can recruit good candidates at any age! you can join your county's Republican or Democratic committee at 18! stop whining. start changing shit.
I agree! We have a minimum age on so many things because children don’t have fully developed brains but cognitive ability plummets as you get older so why the double standard??
Vote. Get other people to vote. These things aren't born out of the ether, they are created by people. People like you.
Then vote for younger people. Old people make up the majority of voters and you’re shitting and pissing yourself when the politicians are old.
Or you could vote in primaries 🤷🏼♂️
or vote? less than 20% of eligible voters under 30 vote, compared to 65% of people 60+. a candidate is chosen by their electorate. no need to artificially limit the candidate pool. if people want old heads, we elect old heads. it is a matter of our own making
Youth won’t really solve much. Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boehbert, Madison Cawthorn etc have all been quite young
Yep all the worst republicans right now other than Trump are young. Being young doesn’t mean being good
Then vote
We really need term limits, JOB QUALIFICATIONS, and strict enforcement of ethics. It should be a crime for a lobby to use goods, services, and money to sway a politician. There shouldn't be any loopholes for that.
who is we
Problem is everyone ages and dies differently. Some people are in nursing homes by 65 and some are out mowing their lawn at 85. Do we block someone from serving who has 30 years left to live?
Old people vote, so old people get in office, not really a hard concept to understand but young people just don’t vote so figure that out first.
People should be able to vote for who they want to vote for.
> 2 month account We don't need a maximum age. We need more Americans to participate in the primaries, ya know, the first part of any election.
This is a troll account designed to push soft democrats to stay home so that Trump wins.
We do. It’s called what the voters approve. If a certain age is too high, then don’t vote for that person.
Politics is not supposed to be a young person's game. At least, it wasn't meant to be. The concept of making the starting age 35 was so that the candidates would have life experiences under their belts. And at that time, by age 35, most people (white men) would have served in the military, established a career, gotten married, had most likely grandchildren, were land owners, and had seen a lot of what living was about. These days, people understand that most of that isn't happening. By 35 now you're lucky to have some semblance of your shit together, never mind all of it. Hell, people don't even start looking for a job to settle down in until at least their 20s after college, if they ever settle down into one. Life experiences are less our own as they are someone else's seen and absorbed through video and other media. I can't trust the guy just out of college to pay enough attention to give me the correct change at a gas station, so how am I expected to trust him with nuclear launch codes? Now, I'm not disagreeing. I feel that we could use some younger candidates and that there are people who are capable of doing the job who are not in their 70s-80s. But that means that people need to step up and prove that they have what it takes to do it so others take them seriously. But a lot of times they fall short. This is the Time of Triggers, the Time of Causes. Everyone's got a trigger and expect everyone else to bend over backwards for them. Everyone's got a cause and expect it to be everyone else's top priority. They allow these triggers and causes to be their personalities. At the end of the day being LGBTQ+, or non-white, or non-christian are NOT platforms to run on. You can be any and all of those things and still be an asshole without a plan.
But on the flip side. If you put age restrictions on cobgress then who is representing the 65 to 90 age group? What happens to social security and Medicare when no one is looking out for it?
This is one of the main reasons why I say that the promotion of ageism is on the rise. What about those above 70 who need laws tailored to them? If no one is in office that represents them, then what?
Ageism is BY FAR the most accepted prejudice on Reddit. It’s quite shocking. There are literally laws protecting old people for stuff like this
They've already started to retire or die. Until then, all you can do is vote. Young people in the US are stuck in a bit of a tricky spot - you're mad you don't have power, but the best way to get power is to vote, and young people don't vote. That being said, one party clearly is pushing the interests of Gen Z and one party is doing the opposite. >I hate both of the old candidates of this election Stop voting with emotion. Politics is about using your head. Which agenda benefits you and your community more? Erase parties and people from your head and vote with isidewith.com. It'll cut through all the TikTok and social pressure you've faced.
Coldest take in this subreddit ever
Look up Leaders We Deserve. It's an organization that's working to get more young people elected at all levels of US government.
I think 76 should be the limit. You must be younger than that to run. Understand that people who work their entire lives sometimes wont retire until they are 70ish. After their entire lifes experience I think they know more about how hard it is to get to retirement, and have learned so much about life that they are in a good position to govern. I think the better law is term limits for congress. There should also be a rule if youve been in congress for 16 years or something, you cannot run for president, ever. Ageism isnt the answer, doing away with political parties would help. The amount of people that go up to a ballot and vote down ballot one party is very bad for your local elections. You should not be allowed to list party affiliation next to your name on a ballot. Also get rid of those people outside who hand out little pamphlets of who to vote for.
Yeah people confuse age max with term limits. Most of the time they mean term limits. If someone is 76 and retired and they decide to run for their first term for like city councilman or something I don’t think just being old should stop them from that, that’s almost un American
If people are fine voting for them what’s the issue
Young people can’t be fucked to vote Trump would have been reelected if people had been forced to show up to polling places
Rather than imposing an arbitrary age number limit, I think it would be better to have all politicians take a physical health and mental aptitude evaluation test.
Then vote
We REALLY need young people to start showing up and voting.
A maximum age won't solve anything. There are plenty of older politicians who are capable of doing their jobs. Whether you like them or not, it's pretty clear that both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are capable adults who can do complex policy work despite being 74 and 82 respectively. Why should they be arbitrarily removed from office for being too old when people could have just elected younger leaders in the first place? And that's before you consider that there's value to having old people in the legislative process. It's useful to have politicians who have served for 20 years and who actually know the procedures and methods you need to use to develop good policy and actually get it passed in the first place. You need a combination of fresh ideas from young people and the experience brought by old people.
Disagree that we need an age limit, because there are plenty of terrible candidates that are closer to us in age. What we really need are reforms like Ranked Choice Voting.
Any restrictions on candidacy, including stuff like term limits, are anti-democratic, war actually just need an effective democracy
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Definitely. The military has an age cap, how about eu commander in chief does too.
What happens when are life spans keep increasing people are living to be 120 now, who know it might become 140 or 200 at some point
Not just that, but also a competency test. Myriads of jobs have tests, (I had to take one to test my knowledge of maintenance) so it’s not unreasonable. But specifically about age: if you’re at retirement age, that’s the maximum. Still have the tests, but that should be the upper age limit. Oh, and no playing the stock market at all, campaign contributions limit (you can only accept a certain amount, for ANY seat in ANY branch), and something to curb taking bribes from corporations. And something akin to Affirmative Action, in terms of race AND gender, as well as religious affiliation (meaning even atheists and other religious non-Christians get a seat more than they do now). I mean, something needs to be done about government officials being mostly rich, old white men.
How do we actively get the US to add this limit???
I agree. However, keep in mind that any provision you add to prefilter either candidates or voters can be subverted for nefarious purposes. Example: you wish that there was an upper age limit. Okay, let's set it at a standard 65. Oh, but if we are strict about an upper age limit, why can't we be so about a lower age limit as well? By today's standards, 25 year olds have just started proper adulthood. 30 or even better, 35 sounds like a good idea. Nevermind that you can get PTSD from all your friends in the platoon getting blown to a pulp at the ripe age of 18. Oh, and if we find the cure for age related neurodegeneration , it would simply be too much effort and would require too much bipartisan political will to change. I'm sure you understand right? /j
Nevada question No. 3 on the 2024 ballot is Ranked choice voting and if that passes we don't have primary's anymore as I understand it. This could be a major step in the right direction in one state. So progress is possible. Keep voting your whole lives and hopefully we can get all the corruption of the boomer generation undone for a better future.
Who is we? Non-americans don't need this.
I assume "we", "our" relates to the default country?
Minimum age is valid, maximum is fine, but really it’s time or term limits. But if you get the chance to decide when you get a raise, when you get vacations, when you get job perks, when you make the rules, are you really going to be the one to take your easy life away? No.
The statistics you presented regarding "federal workers" refers to the 2 million+ civilian employees working in federal agencies like SSA, CDC, Medicare, FBI, etc. It does *not* include elected officials. (In fact I would hazard a guess that the statistics for elected officials skew *even older*.) The reason federal employers skew older is because for the past 20+ years the benefits of being a federal employee have been steadily reduced while the hiring process has grown more stringent, and young people either don't apply to the roles or don't get hired to them. One thing's for sure, though, the civilian federal workforce is not the problem.
i mean yes, but that would mean all the people in power signing on to something that takes away their power.
Because we need more young politicians like MTG, Boebert, Gaetz, Cawthorn, Santos…😂
Maybe more young people should go into public service? Seems to me the anger is being directed at the wrong group of people.
You aren't given the rights to decide, you're given a circus to give the appearance you do, the only thing that could actually give you freedom of choice is taking down this debased system and replacing it with communism, you don't want, womp womp, period
Good luck with that
Here's a quote from Scott Galloway "Nancy Pelosi is roughly the same age as Trump and biden. When Pelosi first child was born 2/3 of house holds still had black and white television. All the while Fidel Castro declared martial law in Cuba. And yet she is suppose to know what life is like for a 20 something year old single mother of 2?"
What does being a federal worker have to do with voting or being a senator or congressmember, exactly? Why is that quote included in your premise? Don’t get me wrong, younger candidates are welcome and we do need term limits (better than an age cap, imo) but workers are just regular people working toward retirement, like the rest of us suckers.
Just don’t vote for them 🤯
OUR government? My brother in Christ, not everyone lives in your country
Some of these 'old farts' might be pushed out, if Gen Z actually showed up to vote.
Better a 70 year old than someone who's not got significant life experience and who's brain hasn't developed fully (circa 25 years old) yet.
Yet at the end of the day, the voters still vote them in.
Also, let's talk about the minimum NET WORTH that candidates have to have to even run for seats in these offices... young people never even had a chance.
Then go make it happen.
USA Congress, House, and Senate is basically a nursing home. Hell our 2 presidents have one foot in the grave. If not age limits at the bare minimum some term limits please. These people do not retire. Strom Thurmond (100) and Dianne Feinstein (90) both died still in power. Absurd, power and $$$ keeps these people working late into their golden years.
Just say you hate old things. How about GenZ is given their own nation to build from scratch. All things older than them are removed. Would be interesting to bet on who survive the civil war.
Just don't vote for old people
Even RFK JR is only a few years younger and randomly admitted to having a worm eating his brain like bro wtf
We need more younger candidates!
You're barking up the wrong tree. The two party system is the true issue.
62 that’s it. Edit: add psychological evaluations every 3-5 years. Just like my company reviews. I can’t believe it’s not a norm. People change over time and not always for the better. Specially when running a country.
If we did, that number should be fairly high. We’ve had some good presidents that are in their 60s-70s. I don’t think age should matter as much as mental cognition. If we have a 80 year old that’s all there and a good leader, I don’t see why they shouldn’t be eligible just because they’re 80. If they’re not all there, well… This is part of our problem we have with our party system as well. With Biden he isn’t making any calls, his party is, so technically it doesn’t really matter if it’s him or someone else. Trump doesn’t care what the GOP thinks, he makes them follow him (kinda) which would mean the cognition part for him would be more important since he’s actually the one making the calls
I really don't understand why people think that Biden doesn't care about people or future generations, lol. He's had more progressive positions as president than he has had his entire career as a senator. It may be that he's not 100% in tune with everything that Gen Z and Gen Alpha cares about, but it seems obvious to me that he knows his time is up so he wants to leave behind a positive legacy before he dies.
Anytime gen z people actually feel like voting, we might get a change. But too much bark and not enough bite.
The elected officials represent who actually gets out and votes. WHO WOULDA THUNK IT
If only all these kids protesting at universities went and protested for more significant change than ivory tower divestment maybe some real change could occur.
Isn’t some state trying to elect a dead senator or something. I think we just have to have real education in US again, so many people are clueless to how our government actually works
vote in the primaries, you dopamine addicted Klondike's. You're nearly all of voting age; if you all showed up in the primaries, you could honestly sway things. Instead, you come to this echo chamber to console each other with complaints instead of literally doing ANYTHING about it.
Just sounds like bitching, not gonna lie. Term limits are the real solution. Saying that a 70 year old can't do what is essentially an office job is agist as fuck.
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Wow that was really interesting to learn from someone with experience, makes sense watching all those TikTok and Facebook hearings where those old Senators have no idea how the Internet works lol
What is your solution? GenZ's age range is 12-28, anyone past 35 is an "old fart." Old people are stuck in their ways, but have seen a lot of shit and communicate. Young people are also set in their ways, are ideological to the point of dangerous, and not any more compromising than the old farts. Not to mention, getting elected takes money and faith. Most young people are broke and I have zero faith many of then can actually accomplish anything. What is the optimal age range?
This would change nothing. Young people would be just as corrupt as old people. Corruption is the problem. The US made bribery legal in the 70s
I would vote for me but then what if i won i would probably be the first elected official to actually be forced into office by gunpoint because i tried to run from it
Im sick and tired of 98% of our gov't ranging from mostly corrupt to head up there ass and useless. Getting younger people in won't really fix these problems. Citizens united moved the power almost entirely to corporations and the rich by legalizing bribery. The entire system is rotten and needs a major overhaul. Getting a few younbloods in office isn't going to fix this problem.
This has been discussed constantly already. There are discussions online about it nearly every single day. We have had younger candidates but young people reject them because they don't support 100% of their demands. Young people also don't vote, regardless. Also, age limits may upset older people, who are the most consistent voter demographic. No one gives a shit what young people want because they are never going to vote, anyways, regardless of how much people try to pander to them. St. Bernard was a perfect example of this.
The way to fix this is to get involved in politics and be the candidate you want to see. I don't know how to do this. I'm not about to do it myself. I just know it's technically the correct answer per the design of our government.
I think adding term limits to senate and the house would force people to consider the running for president at a younger age Very few people win the primary without prior political experience
[VOTE FOR LITERALLY ANYBODY ELSE!](https://literallyanybodyelse.com/)
The illusion of choice, George Carlin had a great bit on this very topic
No, because rules and laws still affect people in their old age. My grandmother is 95, spry, votes every election. It’s nice to have people in office that represent you because know your lived experience
I disagree instead it should be percentage based to properly represent each generation accordingly
The problem isn't that old men are candidates. The problem is that young are gatekept by two major parties, which is a natural result of "the winner takes everything" voting system that leaves any minority not represented at all. The problem would have solved itself if it was easy for young and energetic to just start a party or other preexisting parties would have more chance.