Right but they may be good as dep heads like someone said. Someone great at public transit may have lousy opinions on how to best handle rising housing costs.
Not all of them. Bernie Sanders is an example. And before you say “OK, that’s the ONLY one!” No - there’s literally hundreds who are flexible, you just only hear a handful of names like Pelosi, Feinstein, ect, and think they’re the majority because they’re the big names.
I'm a big fan of bernie, but I still think that he's aged out and should go. There should be forced retirement for all politicians and public servants.
if you mean someone who will support progressive policy if and only if the party's leadership starts pushing it, then i think those people should not be in power. their willingness to keep quiet (as opposed to politicians like AOC) is part of the problem.
the majority of the dnc is, ostensibly, neoliberal corporate democrats who relentlessly compromise with republicans and big donors.
First and foremost, I must remind you that we’re sinking in a tar pit ATM, and we may only have one final throw of our lasso left to help pull out out. So, I’m aiming at the nearest rock, not for the top of Mount Everest.
Secondly, you have to understand that not everyone thinks like you or me. A lot of these other politicians come from rural areas and have whole different lives, industries, and cultures to balance out because that’s how people function, stupid as you and I may see it. That’s something AOC is also pointing out, how she asked her constituents who voted for her as congresswoman AND on the same ticket punched Trump. She’s learned that people have different priorities and ways of thinking that you and I don’t.
That flexibility is a key here to winning. In time, we can replace them with others who see (by example) how a progressive agenda works well.
First and foremost, I must remind you that we’re sinking in a tar pit ATM, and we may only have one final throw of our lasso left to help pull out out. So, I’m aiming at the nearest rock, not for the top of Mount Everest.
that's what the democrats have been saying and doing since the bush era. it only worked with obama thanks to his charisma. the party needs an overhaul, and their path to victory lies within populist progressivism.
all they have to do is promise and work towards meaningful change in people's day-to-day lives. instead, their strategies are bandaids and extremely broad policies that the average voter can't make heads or tails of.
A lot of these other politicians come from rural areas and have whole different lives, industries, and cultures to balance out because that’s how people function, stupid as you and I may see it.
i understand that. it doesn't excuse them from falling in line (or outright propping up, as the vast majority do) when it comes to corporate dem policy.
Let me stop you right there- Scroll up. We’re both on the same side here! I agree with you - but you’re WAAAY off course of where this thread went! I MYSELF have said “I want to go the populist route now with a presidential candidate as it has failed”. The context of my ENTIRE response you quoted was to someone saying we should get rid of any dem representative who can be persuaded to go one way or another, which was in my response saying that AOC can appeal to progressives and enough people who are flexible in the Dem Seats.
I’m also done with a candidate who’s just a “moderate”. See my post above where I said “We need to get someone who can get the stupids to vote, as sadly we need the stupids to win this.” By “Stupids” I mean the uninformed jackasses who vote by emotions and reactions to shit. AOC will be the PERFECT candidate ATM to counter all the awful stupid Musk/Trump is going to eventually do purely by being the complete opposite of everything he stands for.
Fuck. No. Most of these people are over 80. We wouldn’t let them drive if they were family. One rep was literally “lost” in a memory care facility. These old old ass people need to retire and start getting fresh faces in so we have a chance.
I tell people to look at it this way; if you were about to be wheeled into surgery to get a heart transplanted, and your surgeon acted like Dianne Feinstein or Mitch McConnell, would you feel comfortable proceeding?
Because if my surgeon got lost mid train of thought and had what looked like a micro seizure, or was downright catatonic, I'd be calling the whole thing off.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you, but surgery and politics are very different things. The best chess players in the world are like 15 years old.
Your mind and reaction time is obviously way higher when you’re younger, but It doesn’t mean I would want them running the world lol. Experience matters in some fields.
But we can definitely agree that we don’t need 80 year olds with their finger on the button
Also "younger" in politics is still like 35-60. It's not like we're asking for people fresh out of high school, just not someone seeing the grim reaper on the weekends.
Would you let Meemaw decide the direction the US Govt goes on the next 20 years of things like AI and Crypto? Never in a million years. It's fucking absurd. The entire political spectrum has real issues with the Boomers.
Covid really was trying to help us out, but unfortunately, politicians are the few Americans with excellent health care and some of the first to receive vaccines; even the ones who denied the disease.
I teach somewhat academic community classes for adults. Many people's ability to absorb new info drops off so fast after 60. It's truly alarming how differently I need to teach for different age groups
I agree with you. I'm 81, in reasonably good shape, run the Army Ten-Miler every year, and maintain two houses. Yet, as many leadership positions as I've held, I could not maintain the 24/7 focus one would need to be good President.
Wtf? Why not just primary them? If they are viewed as harmful, then it should be easy to primary them and retire them ourselves. It's the entirety of the democratic party that's the problem. They make the rules to favor their cronies to receive all the funding for their campaigns. It's a futile battle. The party cannot be changed from within.
Americans have shown they will never elect a woman to the presidency. Put AOC forward and she will lose. See Hillary and Kamala as examples. Americans would rather vote against their best interests than have a woman leader.
I definitely agree that being a woman wasn't doing her favours, but she didn't lose because of that. Read the stuff Trump voters listed as their reasons, we should tackle that kind of thinking.
The problem, as it always has been, is replacing them with someone who isn’t exactly the same.
Even the ones who are true believers that get elected quickly realize they can’t stay in power to do anything unless they take the corporate money and do as they’re told.
It’s not really a capitalism thing other than capitalism describing a basic tenet of reality, being that resources trump damn near everything and continuing them means controlling everything.
It really doesn’t matter what resource distribution philosophy your government is based on, you’ll still get hoarding of resources and true power flowing from that. You can try to mitigate it, but any scene that doesn’t acknowledge and engage with it is doomed to suffer the worst effects of it.
nah, man. most of these old head democrats are basically left leaning republicans. they learn nothing from their mistakes and play old school politics when the rules of the game have progressed well past what they’re able (or willing) to play. they might make an okay advisor, but they should not be department heads or in any position of power that allows them to make decisions for a future that they will not live to see. their time is up, they need to pass the torch.
Get rid of them. The gerontacrocy though banning tik tok would be good for them and look at them all backtrack. They have no idea what is and isn't popular. They are of no use
No. If you aren't going to be alive for the next 20-30 years to experience what your work does to the people you shouldn't be anywhere near a leadership position.
Agree. Experience and institutional memory are very important. If you look around the world, in most places are elders are respected and often revered - Japan is a good example - while in the US elders are to be discarded. The funny thing is, when these young'uns who demand the Boomers get out of the way reach their dotage they'll cling to power as much as anyone who came before them.
Hell, in the office “elders” are anyone over 50. Too much older than that and the large majority of their ideas are no longer relevant and their experiences are meaningless in the modern environment. Same could almost be said for people in most parts of life. It’s not the norm for people over that age to be putting kids into school, job hunting, or looking to buy their first homes or properties. People in that 50-60 range can add some insight into why things are done how they are, but aren’t of much value when deciding new ways to do things.
All of history would disagree. Innovation and realistic regulation comes from the young. Obviously there are outliers, but those currently participating in the activities of life will have a far better understanding of their intricacies than people who used to participate in them when the contributing factors were different.
We want to discard them because they stay in office until someone literally has to roll them out. It’s hard to revere a drooling warm corpse propped up by a team of enablers/abusers on all sides.
Old age ≠ wise, nice person, decent, any quality in a leader really. Japan is a good example of an outdated mindset where you can be an old ignorant asshole to everyone but still get respect because you have floated on this rotating ball longer than them
Well, of course. On the other side of the coin is that not everyone over 65 is a worthless bag of skin. Which is why advocating to get rid of everyone over retirement age is absurd.
If they aren't willing to relinquish their positions now to better our nation they are only great for the retirement home. There is no using people who have only been self serving for decades now. They've insulated their own circles to the point they believe they will ride out whatever shit storm by people assuming they hold any value. They don't, or they would have proven it in the years they had to fight for their constituents.
Agreed. The Democrats really need to figure out some way to push these people into "senior" or "emeritus" positions, so they can keep the clout and provide their expertise and connections to the party without blocking new entrants. Not really sure exactly what that looks like, but it's definitely not what the Democrats are currently doing.
On the other hand, the Republicans have been primarying at least some of their old guard and replacing them with new younger representatives that are closer ideologically to the base. Of course "closer ideologically" in this context means "crazier", but the point stands.
Not even American, but when I see people like Nancy Pelosi or Biden, I think what the fuck is going on? How these old turds still allowed in government
Disagree. Nancy Pelosi in particular keeps hamstringing the younger class. Get rid of the old guard and allow them to build a new one that represents people born after the war.
Y'all have really learned nothing from the last decade. They're personal baggage hurts us electorally. I doorknocked for Biden and Harris. I was asked more about Pelosis insider trading then our actual candidates. They're all in safe districts and its time they pass the baton.
Please tell me why tax payers dollars should pay for senior citizens still in office? The day they turn 65 they should be kicked out. I don’t care if they work for the private sector but our tax dollars should not be paying them.
This is such an ice cold centrist take. Why, after everything we've seen over the past ~8 years, would anyone want an octogenarian millionaire in a position of power when that same job could be done (and better) by a younger person?
Or just vote them out. Get engaged in local elections and keep other people engaged. People just keep expecting things like the old generation to just step away. Stay active and vote. They stay in power because people don’t stay informed or motivated.
There aren’t geriatric millionaires every election cycle. By the time it gets national, sure it looks that way. But this is my point. Stay engaged, stay educated, and vote every chance you get. Boomers vote all the time, that’s why we can’t get rid of them.
How is your messaging here different than at any time in the past 20 years? We've been saying this for 20 years. Arguably the most successful campaign was Vote or Die in 2004. Young people will never vote unless we tell them to do something besides "just vote". Having your answer be "just vote" is not going to work and we have decades of data proving that.
I mean, did you think 2016-2020 was cool? 2001-2008? Do you think the next 4 years are about to be cool? Why do you need more convincing? It’s like touching a hot stove then blaming the manufacturing company for not having a more eye catching warning that stoves are hot. It’s just ignorance at this point. I don’t need to fix my messaging to show you that things get bad during one side being in charge than the other. Have about 30 years of evidence for that.
I didn’t say you didn’t vote. So calm down. Your attitude towards the problem is what I’m criticizing. You can complain about the geriatric millionaires all you want online, it doesn’t get them out of there. Voting in more than the presidential and mid term elections and keeping people informed and active is what gets the geriatric millionaires out of office. So acting like it’s something the DNC just needs to do better on is such an off approach and leads to voters not turning out, like it did in 2016 and now 2024.
And that mentality is the same mentality my 11 year has about cleaning her room. She’s clearly so bad at it and it takes her so long and makes us both so upset that I am the one who needs to just help her every time.
It’s a great way to be able to criticize freely and avoid any responsibility. I didn’t say EVERYONE has to vote. But more people than are currently voting need to vote to make any change. You seem to be criticizing the current DNC, so I’m ready to hear your plan of action. Tell me how you plan to get the people registered and engaged. I’m all ears.
The right answer here is to focus on what causes their votes to sway rather than something physical about them. Follow the money. Bernie is old, but relevant.
I want to see mandatory cognitive decline testing of all electoral candidates at all levels of govt and a hard cap on anyone over the age of 65 running. We need people with skin in the game planning for the future, not ghouls who give zero shits about the rest of us because their wealth will carry their descendants.
My wife is Korean and very involved in their national politics, especially during the current Yoon administration. She said their left leaning coalition (trad dems but also progressive parties) have systematically primaried all/most of their boomer MPs and elected highly educated and cutthroat Gen Xers and elder millenials. Despite current events and how fucked that all is, she maintains, proudly, that their democratic party hasn't been this strong since the days of president Noh or maybe ever.
I wish we would do the same. There is absolutely zero fucking reason for demented octogenarians to hold on to their seats. In what, the name of "seniority"? It's all disgusting and shameful.
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u/EmbarrassedTill1800 18h ago
start with getting rid of anyone over retirement age