The longest-serving leader in Senate history spared concerns about his health after freezing mid-sentence during a press conference on Wednesday.
number of Republican figures, including Donald Trump MAGA loyalists, have called on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to resign amid concerns about his health.
I think it's clear that people can be disconnected from reality no matter how old they are, and that older people are not excluded from being insightful and valuable to the political process (think Bernie Sanders and Robert Reich).
It's easy to feel like elminating older people from politics is a solution, but it's not. Voting for good people who actually represent your interests and the interests of your community is a better solution, but that's harder to think about.
I would agree with you if it wasn't for the fact that there is also a minimum age for office. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If a grown adult is considered too young to serve then these geriatric ghouls are too old in my opinion.
Logically, if you’re a candidate from any party, that knows they won’t be around in a decade’s time, what incentive, responsibility, or obligation do you REALLY have to do what’s best for ALL citizens— Including those who’ll be around for a few more decades. Especially regarding decisions with society-changing implications that’ll impact generations of change. It’s such a staggering conflict of interest that it’s not reasonable to expect any politician to set it aside.
That is even setting aside the obvious statistical likelihood that people over the age of 65 are significantly more likely to contract ailments that will impair their judgement and therefore their ability to do their job like Alzheimers (the exact same parroted reason for the minimum age requirement, that young people’s brains are not fully developed, and therefore are not able to perform the job adequately). If we’re going to arbitrarily set a minimum, we should be obligated to set a maximum.
Retirement is still too dangerous. A retired politician can still be a figurehead or whisper in an ear. They need a public, naturally caused, and highly embarrassing death so they're out of the picture for good. No one speculating foul play, no little conversations at a party, and no one putting together conspiracy theories that they're still around and relevant.
There is no way this could go down that would not immediately get turned into either a new theory or used as evidence of a theory already in existence.
yes, well, I was thinking more along the lines of a natural death due to their advanced age and probable health conditions. It's not really a longshot to say some of those octagenarians may not have a whole lot of time left.
After telling a friend of mine about the Mitch McConnell incident yesterday, and he replied, “Him and (Diane) Feinstein gonna get a little cabin together and just see out their years on the porch?
This gave me an idea. I had my other buddy who frequents Midjourney prompt it with “Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein sitting on a cabin porch on a couple of rocking chairs staring out into the sunset”
And Diane is hindering actual progress being made holding a seat she doesn't even do the work for. More accurate if they were sitting there with the world on fire not a lovely sunset.
Before anyone gets too excited: while Kentucky does have a Democratic governor, under (recently amended) state law, if McConnell's seat goes vacant, the governor doesn't get to pick his replacement but only gets to choose from a list of 3 candidates submitted by the state GOP.
Incredible out in the open fascism from the Kentucky GOP when they amended that law. Just like desatan and him changing the governorship law so he could fail at a presidential run.
Just flat out steamrolling democracy. Enemies of the people.
EXACTLY. Diane Feinstein is in the same damn boat. Both her and Mitch could have fucked off into the sunset with plenty of retirement money YEARS ago, so it seems pretty clear to me the only reason they’re clinging on is power, and maybe hubris.
Honestly I do feel like people get too old at some point to be in power positions, but instead of just having a strict age limit like a lot of people are saying here, there should just be some positions that have this limitation. They could still work as advisors and such, as long as they don't have the last word.
People like Bernie Sanders for example can provide a lot of insight and have lots of experience in the field which is useful. But to have someone that could potentially die from taking a wrong step as a leading figure is a bit silly.
Of course the MAGAts are calling for him to resign, they're nearly as mad at him as the Democrats! I'm not sure what it's going to take for voters to wake up and stop re-electing these geriatric politicians but it needs to happen. We can't move forward as a nation with all of these oldsters clinging to power and applying yesterdays thoughts and solutions to today's problems.
It is going to take a viable alternative. There should be a guaranteed primary every election, open to all voters, or better something like ranked choice.