• Poggervania@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I also think we should include term limits for these offices as well.

      You can’t be president for more than 8 years, but you can be in the same political office more or less for almost 40? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me lol.

      • hogunner@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes, term limits are a much better solution as age restrictions can be a slippery slope.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It would also make you useless as your term comes to an end. Political capital and IOUs are the currency in the capitol

        • theragu40@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Right, I mean those are the things we are saying are bad.

          The culture of the Senate and Congress would need to change, and I think it would rather quickly. Unfortunately this is an issue both Republicans and Democrats will never support because the very people entrenched in power would need to vote themselves out of power. It will literally never happen.

          • Wrench@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Why do you think that term limits will solve it? If there’s no seniority whip, what other motivation do they have besides corporate donations? I.E., take all the bribes they can in their short tenure?

            Don’t tell me more idealistic politicians will make it to the top. I don’t believe that for a second.

            • theragu40@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I guess I’d flip that question. Why do you think being career politicians gives them motivation besides bribes and money?

              Because that’s the thing, they know they’re running another campaign in a couple years, they always need to be raising money for the next one. They always need to solicit donations. And they can’t do anything that rocks the boat because it affects the next election.

              Presidents very commonly get more done during their second term because they aren’t worried about the political impact of their actions affecting their ability to get elected again. I don’t see why this effect wouldn’t be the same for Congress and the Senate.

    • bobman@unilem.org
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      1 year ago

      Can’t we just vote for younger candidates?

      Doesn’t make sense to subvert the will of the people when they clearly support this.

      • LethalSmack@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The problem is that this isn’t the will of the people. Preliminaries don’t count as an election so your vote for which candidate that appears on the actual ballot is just a suggestion.

        The party committees gets final say on who’s on the ballot for that party to vote for.

        Which leads to the problem of the 2 party system where we vote for the least worst candidate

        • BoofStroke@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Maybe in a true democracy. No more gerrymandered districts, ranked choice voting, and term limits would be a good start. Let’s kill citizens united while at it.

          • bobman@unilem.org
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            1 year ago

            In a true democracy, we’d have direct voting.

            Which I’m a huge fan of. Not sure why we’d vote for people who won’t agree with us on everything when we can just vote ourselves and get true representation.

          • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I disagree. Fundamentally we have the final authority to elect our representation. Collectively we decide (and are ultimately responsible for) who is elected to office. Districts don’t vote, and corporations don’t vote. The people do.

            It is the collective responsibility of those not disenfranchised or otherwise excluded from the political system to rectify those problems. Failing to address those problems (or any political problem) isn’t a failure of the politicians–it’s a failure of us, as a collective, to choose the appropriate lawmakers. Especially when we repeatedly elect the same people over and over.

            I know it sounds naive to frame the system this way. But fundamentally the political system operates under the collective authority of voters.