366
Biden says that 'if Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running'
(www.nbcnews.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
366 points (95.5% liked)
politics
19239 readers
2322 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Term limits in Congress mean we lose experience. So we're forced, right away, to rely on outside experts for everything from technical knowledge on fracking to getting a bill passed correctly. This is the first axis on which lobbyists and parties gain more control over representatives.
The second axis is campaigns themselves. A lot of time in office is actually spent campaigning and fundraising. Especially in the house where you're up every two years. This means your name and reputation is your brand. However, with term limits people will not have time to build those brands. So anyone looking to move up to the Senate, Governorship, Presidency, or wherever else will likely have to depend on "outside" money far more. They simply will not have had time to build up their own funds. This money, of course, comes with strings.
Even staying in place would require abiding by those strings in the long run. Once fundraising is no longer expected of the representatives they become vulnerable to a primary by their party. The party simply shifts funds to another candidate and that's the end of a problem for them.
The third axis is the predetermined length of a politician's public political career. Only senators and representatives that toed the line get cushy jobs provided by the party or lobbyists. While that's already true to some extent, many politicians end their career when they don't have the popularity to get elected anymore. This also means they don't have much political capital to spend getting cushy jobs unless a personal connection grabs them. With politicians being forced into retirement at young ages, with plenty of popularity and capital, they're going to get offers they can't refuse. As long as they're a "team player."
Another way to think about term limits is making the politicians employees of their party. And while that's not a bad thing in systems with a lot of parties (like ranked choice voting and proportional representation); it's catastrophic in a two party system. Because the oligarchs will waste no time literally buying the legislature.
Age Caps are great. Age Caps simply require you to retire at retirement age. And for that side step much of the tomfoolery I've described above. Long serving politicians are more accountable to their constituents and it's harder for lobbyists and party die hards to influence Congress.
Everything you wrote already happens
So how about we think of something that won’t make it worse
Money is considered speech, lobbyists already buy politicians and write bills. The only difference would be they'd have to buy a different politician every decade or 2
Sounds like lobbying should be outlawed.
In other words, you don’t think it would improve anything.
Yes. But we should be fixing that, not making it happen more. Thus the analogy of adding gas to an existing fire.
This is an unpopular opinion that I share. Everyone loves to talk about term limits as a solution.
Term limits will just make the revolving door to cushy corporate jobs spin faster, it doesn't solve the roots of the problem.
We need to do something about citizens united and lobbying.
The reason that congresspeoe get paid well is that we do NOT want a system where you have to be rich to be in Congress. You SHOULD be able to have a career as a politician, otherwise who would do it? That's right, only the rich.
If we wanted regular people to be able to serve in Congress with low term limits, we'd have to make sure they can go back to their career and not have to sell out to corporate interests and set up a job on K Street. Maybe if we treated public service like military service, where your job is protected by law while you serve?
I completely agree with you on term limits.
But if you’re the kind of person who argues against term limits by asking the person you’re talking to to visualize lobbyists’ influence as a three dimensional metric space, you’re also the kind of person who knows that age based term limits are absolutely a violation of human rights and an example of ageism.
So even if we set aside the fact that it would take a constitutional amendment to do just because the constitution is what legally defines the roles and requirements of federal office, it’d have to be a constitutional amendment because agism violates the 14th.
I’m not against the idea in principle, of course. Democracy itself often feels like one of those late night “There’s gotta be a better way“ commercials. The problem is that their central assumption derived from the enlightenment that man was a rational actor who could both be trusted to work in his own interest and (at least amongst the noble and wealthy) self-sacrifice for the good of all.
Of course it's ageism. But there are certain jobs that require retirement because of age related problems creating critical issues. I don't think we should be politely standing by as someone with Alzheimer's is in a position to affect leadership of the country. They should have an age limit, just like the military. (which is 62)
As to whether it would require a constitutional amendment, I'm not sure. I'm not a constitutional scholar. But term limits would likely require it if age does. We're not getting one easier than the other. If we do put in the effort let's make sure we're doing the right thing, not some corporate lobby astroturf thing.
And yes the extent to which our government is a gentleman's agreement has become glaringly obvious in my lifetime.
There are some fundamental issues with our democracy that I think need addressed, but I don't think age restrictions or term limits would do anything useful. There are already mechanisms in place that are supposed to handle the case of age-related incapacity - these need strengthened, but that doesn't require an amendment. The other problem I hear this is supposed to address is out-of-touch representatives - which should be addressed by strengthening our voting process. Reverse Citizens United, make it easier for young people to vote, and you'll see an improvement.
Getting states to use ranked choice voting would go a long way and can be done today.
That would be a massive improvement. I was thinking along the lines of expanded voting time and better remote voting options for college students and the like; but ranked choice would be a seed change.
Clearly we should drop the minimum age too. I do mean allow literal children to hold office; it's ageist to do otherwise.
Well, minimum age requirements are constitutional because they’re literally in the constitution. I’m about as far from a constitutional literalist as you can possibly get (I think it’s a deeply flawed and outdated document), but at least as of right now it’s literally the foundation of the US legal system.
There are a number of reasons to be concerned about adding additional requirements on top of the current set of requirements. The whole Trump thing highlighted the degree to which the entire system is built around an assumption of good faith, and I’m more concerned about that than the fact that DiFi has no business being in the senate at her age. The problem, as I see it, isn’t all of the old people. It’s systemic issues that go to the heart of this particular form of government. I mean, Reagan didn’t know where he was for most of his second term, but the real damage he did to the country has nothing to do with his cognitive decline.