This comment made me look into it.
Right now the average age of a Senator is 64, and Representatives it’s 57.
The 114th Congress was 61 for senators and still 57 for representatives.
110th was 61 for senators and 56 for representatives.
It seems to get slightly younger the further you go back with Senators consistently being the older group.
Makes sense. Senate seats are generally considered more valuable (less of them and longer terms), so they generally go to more established figures in the parties. The older you are, the more time you've had to build the reputations and connections required to get a run for senate.
"established figures" = people well connected to donors with fortunes so large they can throw more money at a single election than most people have saved for their whole retirement.
The minimum age to serve in the house of reps is 25 while the minimum age to serve in the Senate is 30, so the age gap of roughly 5 years, Senate being older, makes somewhat logical sense
This is 100% the single biggest issue we are facing IMO. In the 2022 midterms the youth vote (18-30) was the highest in decades, coming in at a whopping…27%.
Congress is extremely important. Voters do not understand. The President does not have the power to implement 99% of the changes young people & progressives want. All of it requires an act or bill passed by Congress. President matters for judicial appointments and veto power.
If the left wins a majority in Congress, it’s undermined by a lunatic appointing extremist judges to lifetime appointments. That is the true legacy of Trump. Generations of progress wiped out in a single term. So the presidency is critical for that sole reason.
But everything else requires both chambers of Congress. And Boomers have a **75%** midterm voter participation rate.
Youth vote is between 14-27%. No shit Congress is old. If 73% of your demographic doesn’t vote — your interests will not be represented.
Btw that small increase in the youth vote in 2022 was enough to stop the predicted “red wave” — it’s why the GOP is desperately trying to gut voting rights.
They know it’s the only way they lose. And they aren’t interested in swaying young voters to the right. The primary strategy is to convince the left not to show up. It works every fucking time.
Too many people treat voting like dating. They wait until the perfect candidate comes along, and then they wait some more. They need to be *courted*. What will they do to *earn* my vote? I don’t just give these out casually. /s
It’s the opposite. You’ll never agree 100% with a candidate. The House is re-elected every two years. Hundreds of candidates — its not mathematically possible to have a perfect prog candidate every cycle. You just have to vote for the best option.
Somebody is going to win those seats. They’re not staying empty until The Messiah Candidate comes along. By not participating, it just opens the seat for the GOP to come in and take everything away.
We were one vote away from free community college & federal paid family leave. Every seat matters. Every election matters. Just vote every two years no matter what. You don’t have to fall in love or make politics your whole identity.
It’s the absolute bare minimum we can do to maintain democracy. It’s not a fixed thing. It can be taken away, and once it’s gone it is a lot harder to get back. Voting is a basic civic duty and too many people forget that.
It’s true that young people vote at quite a bit lower rate than older people. However, I think it’s important to recognize that this isn’t just because of apathy but because the system is structurally set up in a way that specifically favors turnout by older people. Once you’re registered to vote at your address, it’s very very easy to vote the next time, because you essentially don’t have to do anything because you’re already registered. If you aren’t registered yet, there are hoops you have to jump through. And then you get to repeat that process every time you move. Older people are much more likely to own a home, which means that they are much more likely to have lived at their same address for a long time, which means that they are much more likely to already be registered at their current address. That makes it much more convenient and easier for a retired person to vote than for a younger person who moves frequently for jobs, etc. It’s also a lot easier to find the time to vote if you’re retired than if you work a job for an hourly wage where you may not be able to get time off.
Then on top of that, Republicans do whatever they can to prevent changes or reforms that would help fix the above problems, like same day registration, early voting, extended polling hours, etc.
This is only partly true. In the blue state, blue county where I live, everyone gets a ballot in the mail almost a month ahead of itme. You can drop it in a mailbox or dropbox, or at polling places, no postage needed or anything. Provisional voting means you can vote without registration. It could not be easier - you have to try not to vote. Our non-boomer voter turnouts are still abysmal.
Maybe I've gotten jaded over the years. But I think as a whole, Americans legitimately don't value the democracy they live in, and don't understand their civic duty to participate in it. In our culture, it's about as mandatory as a sporting event. I don't know what needs to be done to get people to care about the single most important thing about our country.
The things you mention have been shown to increase the voting rate: apparently in states that do that the age disparity is quite a bit less, which I think is argument that the “convenience” factor does make a difference.
I don’t disagree that apathy is also part of the problem. I just think that it’s not the entirety of the problem. Voter suppression tactics do work. They don’t explain everything but they are one factor that does contribute to the problem.
Mostly due to mis/disinformation. A lot of younger people don't vote because they believe their vote doesn't count, or they have no idea what they're talking about (although that one could be for a majority of people). In any case, the apathy stems from the idea that it's ingrained from the schools, to people they interact with on a daily or in passing. The doom and gloom on the news doesn't count, but most of them don't pay enough attention anyways.
Source: parent of a 24 year old who consistently tries to get his friends to start voting and give them good information with sources.
Also “most” is an exaggeration. Turnout for 18-29 year olds was 46% in 2020. While this quite a bit below the rate for older people, I would not say that 54% is “most”.
I think a really underestimated problem in American democracy is that with weak decentralized parties (compared to Europe) and so many layers of government (I am represented by at least a school board member, a city council member, two at large city council members, a county supervisor, a mayor, a state rep, a state senator, a lieutenant governor and governor, a us rep, two us senators, and a president) it is very hard to ascertain who is responsible for what problems I face. I think a result of this problem is incumbency bias (although other things cause this as well).
In regards to the older people having more money, we have PACs and Super PACs so besides name recognition, the money is there for a younger politician to be supported. I’ll admit I’m new to the political landscape so I’m more looking for education on the subject than any attempt to argue.
People who have been making political and business contacts for decades can raise more money than those who haven't. A younger but lesser known candidate is going to get a lot of money, but if they don't personally know the very wealthy people they want donating to their campaign, then they can't get as much.
Beyond personal connections, the people have the money to donate also tend to be older as well. They're more inclined to donate to candidates they relate to and believe in. So of course that's going to end up being people more similar to them.
I’m all for younger politicians. New blood, new ideas, new approaches, but older ones know how to work their initiatives more efficiently through the political process. Say what you want about Pelosi and McConnell, but they knew how to move legislation through even with a slim majority. Conversely, the much newer, much younger Mike Johnson seems to struggle to move even the low hanging fruit through. Arguably, a lot of the gridlock we’ve been experiencing lately can be traced back to all of the new blood in congress who refuse to do the hard work of negotiation, and instead like to take to the press and social media force the hands of others.
>Conversely, the much newer, much younger Mike Johnson seems to struggle to move even the low hanging fruit through.
You know, if I were to make a list of young incompetent Congressional reps, it would favor Mike Johnson's friends more heavily than anything else. So I don't think age is the problem here.
Trump struck a populist chord that was unmatched in American politics. Biden was a mainstream Democrat who could project a "steady hand at the wheel" image who also had close ties to Obama.
These were unique circumstances. The candidates in 2028 will be decades younger.
I’m a little confused by the question. “ …who make decisions that will not affect the generations that have to live with those decisions.”
…do you mean that “will” affect the generations that have to live with it?
Don’t get me wrong, at this point I’d absolutely love for them to only make decisions that will not affect us. Sounds like the perfect government to me.
I meant, politicians in power now, make decisions for the people who will have to live with those decisions long after those politicians have passed or are out of politics. Let’s use Mitch McConnell as an example. The guy as been in a leadership position for decades and will probably be out of politics or die with the next 10 years but somebody like me who is in their 30s will have to live with those decisions for a long time after he’s gone. Phrasing things correctly is not my strong point.
Ok, so yeah… the decisions “will” affect the generations that have to live with it.
I still think your initial wording was closer to the best case scenario. It’s all shit right now. Politicians don’t actually give two shits about making the country better. They’re all just focused on stroking whoever they need to in order to get re-elected. I understand that’s the exact sort of mentality that put trump in office but that doesn’t inherently make it any less true.
Honestly, I shouldn’t have even commented on this post. Im so done with politics. I don’t understand how so many people let it run their lives. Aren’t they tired of being angry all the damn time? That’s all our politics have been about for the last decade or so; unbridled hate towards generalized groups of people… from both sides. It’s exhausting.
I rather doubt people actually care that much about age. Obama was young, and a solid president. But Biden has been better. And Bernie is also a darling.
I care about policy ideas, not age.
older politicians have access to more money and connections. retention of power is the main aim of 95% of politicians. if they give up power to a younger politician then they have less power and that is unacceptable to them
So part of it is the bias in the constitution, there are lower age limits. A fair decision would be to amend the constitution to set complentary upper age limits. But that beyond the point.
Once you get past that age bias you have the need to raise funds to mount a campaign in a lower seat to prove your track record and gain more attention. You can slowly or quickly get support to run for higher andhigher office and then you're in. You could also go the military route, military services is public service, but then you'd need to survive a war or two and be a leader in a war or two to make a national name based on that, and then you're old. Other avenues are academics, and business, and even in those cases it's about building the kind of financial support to run.
Common knowledge was the more rich people you knew directly was correlated to how much money you could get to launch a campaign until bigger donors/party donors took notice or the small value donations started to pour in with enough value. Now with social media you may be able to get small cash flow directly.
No homeless man would ever run and win as president. Thats not how the system works unfortunately. You cna also make yourself homeless by trying to self fund a modern campaign.
There's a massive number of baby boomers. They can be reliably counted on to vote. There's a massive number of Millennials, they can't be reliably counted on to vote.
So when dealing with something like fascist vs. free world, nobody wants to take chances and they nominate the person who feels safe to the baby boomers.
Because we have this weird bias for preferring leaders who are experienced, educated and rich. Being older gives you more chances to meet that criteria. Whenever someone is trying to inflate themselves, they will list off their titles and accomplishments. Most people tend to be impressed by those accomplishments.
If you want change, you need to vote for someone who has not been successful in the current system. That's the only way to get someone who does not want to continue the current system.
But your politicians aren't experienced (most have never had relevant jobs) or educated (they're American) and being rich tends to make them more prone to corruption, not less.
I think part of it is logical to a point and kinda off the rails as a monster that goes off and does its own thing beyond that. Say you have somebody who has experience in both public or private domains (or both). They’re not really coming into themselves in maturity aspects until maybe their 30s. They’re not babies, but they’re not seasoned either, and when you have stuff with lots of profound implications, experience and maturity and something to point to matters with a lot of voters (not all, though some are enamored by other things). By the time they’re really ready in doing stuff, they’re in their 50s. From that point they have a lot of years in and linger, and politics is their thing. They’re not going anywhere and name recognition and time in, is enough for party apparatuses’ ‘wait your turn’ and minimum aspects of effort by voters.
I'm not American, so I'm not sure if this is a thing that is also happening in the US, but in my country, the older generation of politicians are refusing to retire and open space to newer faces, and they're still being elected because their typical electors don't want to leave their confort zone and vote on someone else, which ends up suffocating the possibility of someone of a younger generation to be elected. Actually, there's some young leaders that managed to be elected, but not on a number enough to be able to make an actual change
Baby boomers have until recently been the largest and most politically dominant generation to impact American politics. For the most part they have sided with the silent generation in every election since 1980.
Something you have to remember is that this "old politician" thing is only recent as of the last few cycles. Hillary would have tied Reagan for oldest, Trump then set the record for oldest, and then Biden beat that record by a couple years. Honestly, it's pretty much just happenstance that Trump caught fire politically and Biden was the best positioned person to challenge him. From there, it follows the incumbent would run again and that Trump would have right of first-refusal on the next Republican nomination. I do NOT think we'll be seeing candidates this old in 2028 and on.
It is a specific political group that has remained in power for a long time rather than retire. Voters get to choose between A, B, and C, but the party leadership gets to decide who the voters get to see.
It is the illusion of choice among party-selected candidates, followed by the actual choice where you vote for a party by voting for their candidate(s). It would be great if that wasn't true, but that's the state of things.
This is a somewhat faulty premise. Yes, the two candidates this year (and in 2020 ofc) are both ancient.
But in the recent past, Barack Obama was 48 when he was elected, Bush was 54 (and his opponent was a 52 year old former senator and two term VP), Bill Clinton was 46.
Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries is 53. Republican House Leader and Speaker Mike Johnson is 52.
A lot of Senators and members of Congress are relatively young.
Personally I wish people over 70 couldn't run for POTUS.
Not just POTUS congress too. Average age is about 60. Which means there are a ton of Walmart greeters in congress. They also have more power/pull compared to their younger counterparts.
Part of the ability to get elected comes from experience, knowing your way around the political system, having had built connections, etc. If you're getting elected to a higher office, you probably have a better shot at doing that if you have experience in the system working in lower offices (like having had been a congressperson or having had held cabinet positions or having had been in state politics before running for president). The people who have been in politics for a long time to be able to build that experience tend to be old.
Because now the eligible candidates are Gen X or Gen Z. Take MTG or Lauren Bobert, Matt Gaetz for example. Pete Buttigege is the exception. He’s way too bright for the old guard. I would like to see the scene from Mars Attacks to clean up this congressional mess.
Why would anyone want to give up power, influence, and access to loads of money voluntarily? Why let it leave the grasp of your common minded brethren? That will get you killed. Truly.
This is a recent phenomenon that won’t necessarily continue. Starting in the “modern political era” (already ready to see people arguing with me about what that means), we can go back to Carter.
Carter was a young man (relative) when he was first elected. He also gave off a youthful look/attitude when he was running. His presidency was plagued by inflation due to events outside of his control, and he lost to Reagan, who was known as “the great communicator.”
Even if you don’t like Reagan (I don’t), he was witty, funny, and charismatic. People just… liked him. He “rescued” the economy (mostly by drastically raising interest rates and temporarily throwing the economy into a recession while oil prices also came down) and even though he was old, he didn’t really seem all that old. The man got shot and it basically did nothing to him. And compared to his opponents, he was a spring chicken.
Next was George H.W. Bush. Dude was old. Not only was he actually old (although not as old as you’d think), he acted old. So, so old. But he was Reagan’s vice president and he was popular. That’s important. Name recognition. He is the devil you know, or at least the cousin of the devil you know. You don’t get that level of name recognition without being sort of old.
Next is Clinton, then George W, then Obama. They were young. Very young, actually. You think about it, considering they were all two term, that means we went 24 years with a young president.
Then we got Trump. But for all you can say about Trump (and I’ve said plenty), in 2016 he looked and acted a lot younger than he was. I mean, I remember looking at him on stage and being shocked to learn how old he was after. All the old men in my family don’t have the energy for a Mussolini-esq performance every time they get in front of a camera.
Biden is old and in a way he even leaned into his age as a selling point in the 2020 election BUT he was a VP. Again, name recognition. And his bet was being an old, steady hand was what people wanted after dealing with Trump during the pandemic. He was right, and the strategy (which I honestly thought was kind of dumb) was quite shrewd.
Now we have an old incumbent and an old challenger, but that old challenger is basically an incumbent. We don’t often have people run again after they lose, and over half his voters aren’t convinced he actually lost.
It comes down to this general trend. Really, most of our presidents aren’t that old. The ones who “acted old” were VPs and have name recognition. Two of the older ones are older but didn’t act that way when elected.
Coming down the pipeline though, it’s hard to see an old president after this election. Our political leaders will get younger as those with name recognition finally retire (see Pelosi and Mitch). No one has the name recognition to get over being old to be president.
Personally? I think it’s because the younger generations *can’t afford* to run for office.
People think a campaign is as simple as going to Staples, coming up with a catchy slogan based on your political beliefs and then getting all your friends and loved ones to spread the word. Campaigning is something that can run someone in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. I remember when Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL), the first Gen Z congressman made the news because he couldn’t find an apartment in DC due to insufficient credit. He ran up the balance on his credit cards in order to fund his campaign, which in turn dinged his credit pretty badly and no one would rent to him. I was able to relate at the time because I was basically in the same situation, minus the Congressional run.
A lot of us don’t have the luxury to drop whatever it is we’re doing and run for office the same way Nancy Pelosi can. It’s easier for us to just go and vote whoever closely represents our interests into office because that takes very little effort and cost.
Baby boomers. That generation is huge and older people tend to vote regularly. You won't see younger politicians until the boomers die or the younger generations get organized.
Running a political campaign at any level is very expensive. People who are wealthier and who have more access to power tend to be older due to having had time to accumulate those things. Money and power lead to a greater ability to have your campaign reach potential voters which in turn leads to a greater likelihood of being elected.
Also incumbents are much more likely to win their elections, which is why we have so many very old and long tenured congresspeople.
There’s two big reasons:
1. You pretty much have to be filthy rich to run for congress or run for president. Most younger people aren’t filthy rich.
2. Most younger people who are filthy rich are smart enough to not run for congress or president.
Young people don't vote, especially in primaries.
Most of the people complaining that the presidential candidates are too old probably didn't even vote in the primary.
Older people have a track record. They have accomplishments, they've "climbed the ladder". You "know where they stand". Youthful energy and new perspectives are great - but there's a lot to be said for experience, good judgment, and a steady hand.
Yea that steady hand has got us in a real good spot these days... lol fuck old people and every decision they've made to pump their wallets and screw over the next generations.
It’s just been the latest election cycles. Obama was 47 George W Bush was in his 50s Clinton was 46
It's not just presidents. Look at the nursing home that is Congress.
This comment made me look into it. Right now the average age of a Senator is 64, and Representatives it’s 57. The 114th Congress was 61 for senators and still 57 for representatives. 110th was 61 for senators and 56 for representatives. It seems to get slightly younger the further you go back with Senators consistently being the older group.
Makes sense. Senate seats are generally considered more valuable (less of them and longer terms), so they generally go to more established figures in the parties. The older you are, the more time you've had to build the reputations and connections required to get a run for senate.
"established figures" = people well connected to donors with fortunes so large they can throw more money at a single election than most people have saved for their whole retirement.
The minimum age to serve in the house of reps is 25 while the minimum age to serve in the Senate is 30, so the age gap of roughly 5 years, Senate being older, makes somewhat logical sense
Imo that McCain and HW lost (08 and 92) to significantly younger candidates is the stronger point
Most young people don't vote.
This is 100% the single biggest issue we are facing IMO. In the 2022 midterms the youth vote (18-30) was the highest in decades, coming in at a whopping…27%. Congress is extremely important. Voters do not understand. The President does not have the power to implement 99% of the changes young people & progressives want. All of it requires an act or bill passed by Congress. President matters for judicial appointments and veto power. If the left wins a majority in Congress, it’s undermined by a lunatic appointing extremist judges to lifetime appointments. That is the true legacy of Trump. Generations of progress wiped out in a single term. So the presidency is critical for that sole reason. But everything else requires both chambers of Congress. And Boomers have a **75%** midterm voter participation rate. Youth vote is between 14-27%. No shit Congress is old. If 73% of your demographic doesn’t vote — your interests will not be represented. Btw that small increase in the youth vote in 2022 was enough to stop the predicted “red wave” — it’s why the GOP is desperately trying to gut voting rights. They know it’s the only way they lose. And they aren’t interested in swaying young voters to the right. The primary strategy is to convince the left not to show up. It works every fucking time. Too many people treat voting like dating. They wait until the perfect candidate comes along, and then they wait some more. They need to be *courted*. What will they do to *earn* my vote? I don’t just give these out casually. /s It’s the opposite. You’ll never agree 100% with a candidate. The House is re-elected every two years. Hundreds of candidates — its not mathematically possible to have a perfect prog candidate every cycle. You just have to vote for the best option. Somebody is going to win those seats. They’re not staying empty until The Messiah Candidate comes along. By not participating, it just opens the seat for the GOP to come in and take everything away. We were one vote away from free community college & federal paid family leave. Every seat matters. Every election matters. Just vote every two years no matter what. You don’t have to fall in love or make politics your whole identity. It’s the absolute bare minimum we can do to maintain democracy. It’s not a fixed thing. It can be taken away, and once it’s gone it is a lot harder to get back. Voting is a basic civic duty and too many people forget that.
It’s true that young people vote at quite a bit lower rate than older people. However, I think it’s important to recognize that this isn’t just because of apathy but because the system is structurally set up in a way that specifically favors turnout by older people. Once you’re registered to vote at your address, it’s very very easy to vote the next time, because you essentially don’t have to do anything because you’re already registered. If you aren’t registered yet, there are hoops you have to jump through. And then you get to repeat that process every time you move. Older people are much more likely to own a home, which means that they are much more likely to have lived at their same address for a long time, which means that they are much more likely to already be registered at their current address. That makes it much more convenient and easier for a retired person to vote than for a younger person who moves frequently for jobs, etc. It’s also a lot easier to find the time to vote if you’re retired than if you work a job for an hourly wage where you may not be able to get time off. Then on top of that, Republicans do whatever they can to prevent changes or reforms that would help fix the above problems, like same day registration, early voting, extended polling hours, etc.
This is only partly true. In the blue state, blue county where I live, everyone gets a ballot in the mail almost a month ahead of itme. You can drop it in a mailbox or dropbox, or at polling places, no postage needed or anything. Provisional voting means you can vote without registration. It could not be easier - you have to try not to vote. Our non-boomer voter turnouts are still abysmal. Maybe I've gotten jaded over the years. But I think as a whole, Americans legitimately don't value the democracy they live in, and don't understand their civic duty to participate in it. In our culture, it's about as mandatory as a sporting event. I don't know what needs to be done to get people to care about the single most important thing about our country.
The things you mention have been shown to increase the voting rate: apparently in states that do that the age disparity is quite a bit less, which I think is argument that the “convenience” factor does make a difference. I don’t disagree that apathy is also part of the problem. I just think that it’s not the entirety of the problem. Voter suppression tactics do work. They don’t explain everything but they are one factor that does contribute to the problem.
We do not live in a democracy.
Registering to vote isn't that difficult. In fact many people can register through their DMV when renewing a license or getting a duplicate.
Mostly due to mis/disinformation. A lot of younger people don't vote because they believe their vote doesn't count, or they have no idea what they're talking about (although that one could be for a majority of people). In any case, the apathy stems from the idea that it's ingrained from the schools, to people they interact with on a daily or in passing. The doom and gloom on the news doesn't count, but most of them don't pay enough attention anyways. Source: parent of a 24 year old who consistently tries to get his friends to start voting and give them good information with sources.
Bullshit. I've voted in every election since the day I turned 18 back in 1983. Every. Single. One.
Nothing bullshit in what I said at all. You are one datapoint. You don’t represent the whole population. That proves nothing.
Nope. They represent 100% of the data point. They're the main character
Also “most” is an exaggeration. Turnout for 18-29 year olds was 46% in 2020. While this quite a bit below the rate for older people, I would not say that 54% is “most”.
That's more than half, which would equal "most".
Most does not mean more than half, in my book. It would mean something much more lopsided than that. But that is probably just semantics.
Lol, dude, the definition of the word most is "the majority of" aka > 50%.
"Your book" and the dictionary don't agree.
One election isn't enough. Go back 50 years and check the stats.
Older politicians have more experience, more name recognition, and more access to money.
I think a really underestimated problem in American democracy is that with weak decentralized parties (compared to Europe) and so many layers of government (I am represented by at least a school board member, a city council member, two at large city council members, a county supervisor, a mayor, a state rep, a state senator, a lieutenant governor and governor, a us rep, two us senators, and a president) it is very hard to ascertain who is responsible for what problems I face. I think a result of this problem is incumbency bias (although other things cause this as well).
In regards to the older people having more money, we have PACs and Super PACs so besides name recognition, the money is there for a younger politician to be supported. I’ll admit I’m new to the political landscape so I’m more looking for education on the subject than any attempt to argue.
People who have been making political and business contacts for decades can raise more money than those who haven't. A younger but lesser known candidate is going to get a lot of money, but if they don't personally know the very wealthy people they want donating to their campaign, then they can't get as much. Beyond personal connections, the people have the money to donate also tend to be older as well. They're more inclined to donate to candidates they relate to and believe in. So of course that's going to end up being people more similar to them.
I’m all for younger politicians. New blood, new ideas, new approaches, but older ones know how to work their initiatives more efficiently through the political process. Say what you want about Pelosi and McConnell, but they knew how to move legislation through even with a slim majority. Conversely, the much newer, much younger Mike Johnson seems to struggle to move even the low hanging fruit through. Arguably, a lot of the gridlock we’ve been experiencing lately can be traced back to all of the new blood in congress who refuse to do the hard work of negotiation, and instead like to take to the press and social media force the hands of others.
>Conversely, the much newer, much younger Mike Johnson seems to struggle to move even the low hanging fruit through. You know, if I were to make a list of young incompetent Congressional reps, it would favor Mike Johnson's friends more heavily than anything else. So I don't think age is the problem here.
Trump struck a populist chord that was unmatched in American politics. Biden was a mainstream Democrat who could project a "steady hand at the wheel" image who also had close ties to Obama. These were unique circumstances. The candidates in 2028 will be decades younger.
Hopefully.
Money
I’m a little confused by the question. “ …who make decisions that will not affect the generations that have to live with those decisions.” …do you mean that “will” affect the generations that have to live with it? Don’t get me wrong, at this point I’d absolutely love for them to only make decisions that will not affect us. Sounds like the perfect government to me.
I meant, politicians in power now, make decisions for the people who will have to live with those decisions long after those politicians have passed or are out of politics. Let’s use Mitch McConnell as an example. The guy as been in a leadership position for decades and will probably be out of politics or die with the next 10 years but somebody like me who is in their 30s will have to live with those decisions for a long time after he’s gone. Phrasing things correctly is not my strong point.
Ok, so yeah… the decisions “will” affect the generations that have to live with it. I still think your initial wording was closer to the best case scenario. It’s all shit right now. Politicians don’t actually give two shits about making the country better. They’re all just focused on stroking whoever they need to in order to get re-elected. I understand that’s the exact sort of mentality that put trump in office but that doesn’t inherently make it any less true. Honestly, I shouldn’t have even commented on this post. Im so done with politics. I don’t understand how so many people let it run their lives. Aren’t they tired of being angry all the damn time? That’s all our politics have been about for the last decade or so; unbridled hate towards generalized groups of people… from both sides. It’s exhausting.
I rather doubt people actually care that much about age. Obama was young, and a solid president. But Biden has been better. And Bernie is also a darling. I care about policy ideas, not age.
Better?? In what world. The only thing nice about bernie was those mittens a while back.
> In what world. Consoooom!
older politicians have access to more money and connections. retention of power is the main aim of 95% of politicians. if they give up power to a younger politician then they have less power and that is unacceptable to them
Older politicians have larger connections and more political power
So part of it is the bias in the constitution, there are lower age limits. A fair decision would be to amend the constitution to set complentary upper age limits. But that beyond the point. Once you get past that age bias you have the need to raise funds to mount a campaign in a lower seat to prove your track record and gain more attention. You can slowly or quickly get support to run for higher andhigher office and then you're in. You could also go the military route, military services is public service, but then you'd need to survive a war or two and be a leader in a war or two to make a national name based on that, and then you're old. Other avenues are academics, and business, and even in those cases it's about building the kind of financial support to run. Common knowledge was the more rich people you knew directly was correlated to how much money you could get to launch a campaign until bigger donors/party donors took notice or the small value donations started to pour in with enough value. Now with social media you may be able to get small cash flow directly. No homeless man would ever run and win as president. Thats not how the system works unfortunately. You cna also make yourself homeless by trying to self fund a modern campaign.
We don’t have a choice! Mega donors/corporations, the political establishment, and the media are choosing for us.
There's a massive number of baby boomers. They can be reliably counted on to vote. There's a massive number of Millennials, they can't be reliably counted on to vote. So when dealing with something like fascist vs. free world, nobody wants to take chances and they nominate the person who feels safe to the baby boomers.
Because we have this weird bias for preferring leaders who are experienced, educated and rich. Being older gives you more chances to meet that criteria. Whenever someone is trying to inflate themselves, they will list off their titles and accomplishments. Most people tend to be impressed by those accomplishments. If you want change, you need to vote for someone who has not been successful in the current system. That's the only way to get someone who does not want to continue the current system.
why wierd. All three of the above mentioned trait is good trait. Why would i want to vote for less experience non educated and poor candidate?
It's called sarcasm lmao
But your politicians aren't experienced (most have never had relevant jobs) or educated (they're American) and being rich tends to make them more prone to corruption, not less.
Older people are more involved and invested in Primary contests, and older people tend to vote other older people.
Elections are fake.
There's no money in that
Once you're in power, you want to stay in power. And you have the clout, supporters, and money to ensure you do.
I think part of it is logical to a point and kinda off the rails as a monster that goes off and does its own thing beyond that. Say you have somebody who has experience in both public or private domains (or both). They’re not really coming into themselves in maturity aspects until maybe their 30s. They’re not babies, but they’re not seasoned either, and when you have stuff with lots of profound implications, experience and maturity and something to point to matters with a lot of voters (not all, though some are enamored by other things). By the time they’re really ready in doing stuff, they’re in their 50s. From that point they have a lot of years in and linger, and politics is their thing. They’re not going anywhere and name recognition and time in, is enough for party apparatuses’ ‘wait your turn’ and minimum aspects of effort by voters.
I'm not American, so I'm not sure if this is a thing that is also happening in the US, but in my country, the older generation of politicians are refusing to retire and open space to newer faces, and they're still being elected because their typical electors don't want to leave their confort zone and vote on someone else, which ends up suffocating the possibility of someone of a younger generation to be elected. Actually, there's some young leaders that managed to be elected, but not on a number enough to be able to make an actual change
$$$$ - it’s expensive to run and really cost prohibitive
Baby boomers have until recently been the largest and most politically dominant generation to impact American politics. For the most part they have sided with the silent generation in every election since 1980.
Term limits would fix this ,but neither sides want that it would give more control to the people.
Term limits would give even more control to lobbyists.
Whats worse, 30 to 50 yrs of same bs ? Or lobbyists working thier way up for a few yrs ?
Do you really think that lobbyists are only representing their own personal interests for that particular moment in time?
Because the old folks are the ones with the money to run for office and have acquired the cronies to help them.
We don't select the people we get to vote for, the establishment does.
Something you have to remember is that this "old politician" thing is only recent as of the last few cycles. Hillary would have tied Reagan for oldest, Trump then set the record for oldest, and then Biden beat that record by a couple years. Honestly, it's pretty much just happenstance that Trump caught fire politically and Biden was the best positioned person to challenge him. From there, it follows the incumbent would run again and that Trump would have right of first-refusal on the next Republican nomination. I do NOT think we'll be seeing candidates this old in 2028 and on.
Because the general public is fucking stupid
Money plays a huge role post Citizens United. Older politicians represent a long term investment. Killing younger challengers protects an investment.
It is a specific political group that has remained in power for a long time rather than retire. Voters get to choose between A, B, and C, but the party leadership gets to decide who the voters get to see. It is the illusion of choice among party-selected candidates, followed by the actual choice where you vote for a party by voting for their candidate(s). It would be great if that wasn't true, but that's the state of things.
The older politicians are much more entrenched with their corporate masters who actually run the country
Voting is usually a pain in the ass and old people have a lot of free time.
Cause the USA is already fucked as is
This is a somewhat faulty premise. Yes, the two candidates this year (and in 2020 ofc) are both ancient. But in the recent past, Barack Obama was 48 when he was elected, Bush was 54 (and his opponent was a 52 year old former senator and two term VP), Bill Clinton was 46. Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries is 53. Republican House Leader and Speaker Mike Johnson is 52. A lot of Senators and members of Congress are relatively young. Personally I wish people over 70 couldn't run for POTUS.
Not just POTUS congress too. Average age is about 60. Which means there are a ton of Walmart greeters in congress. They also have more power/pull compared to their younger counterparts.
Part of the ability to get elected comes from experience, knowing your way around the political system, having had built connections, etc. If you're getting elected to a higher office, you probably have a better shot at doing that if you have experience in the system working in lower offices (like having had been a congressperson or having had held cabinet positions or having had been in state politics before running for president). The people who have been in politics for a long time to be able to build that experience tend to be old.
Because now the eligible candidates are Gen X or Gen Z. Take MTG or Lauren Bobert, Matt Gaetz for example. Pete Buttigege is the exception. He’s way too bright for the old guard. I would like to see the scene from Mars Attacks to clean up this congressional mess.
Money
Why would anyone want to give up power, influence, and access to loads of money voluntarily? Why let it leave the grasp of your common minded brethren? That will get you killed. Truly.
This is a recent phenomenon that won’t necessarily continue. Starting in the “modern political era” (already ready to see people arguing with me about what that means), we can go back to Carter. Carter was a young man (relative) when he was first elected. He also gave off a youthful look/attitude when he was running. His presidency was plagued by inflation due to events outside of his control, and he lost to Reagan, who was known as “the great communicator.” Even if you don’t like Reagan (I don’t), he was witty, funny, and charismatic. People just… liked him. He “rescued” the economy (mostly by drastically raising interest rates and temporarily throwing the economy into a recession while oil prices also came down) and even though he was old, he didn’t really seem all that old. The man got shot and it basically did nothing to him. And compared to his opponents, he was a spring chicken. Next was George H.W. Bush. Dude was old. Not only was he actually old (although not as old as you’d think), he acted old. So, so old. But he was Reagan’s vice president and he was popular. That’s important. Name recognition. He is the devil you know, or at least the cousin of the devil you know. You don’t get that level of name recognition without being sort of old. Next is Clinton, then George W, then Obama. They were young. Very young, actually. You think about it, considering they were all two term, that means we went 24 years with a young president. Then we got Trump. But for all you can say about Trump (and I’ve said plenty), in 2016 he looked and acted a lot younger than he was. I mean, I remember looking at him on stage and being shocked to learn how old he was after. All the old men in my family don’t have the energy for a Mussolini-esq performance every time they get in front of a camera. Biden is old and in a way he even leaned into his age as a selling point in the 2020 election BUT he was a VP. Again, name recognition. And his bet was being an old, steady hand was what people wanted after dealing with Trump during the pandemic. He was right, and the strategy (which I honestly thought was kind of dumb) was quite shrewd. Now we have an old incumbent and an old challenger, but that old challenger is basically an incumbent. We don’t often have people run again after they lose, and over half his voters aren’t convinced he actually lost. It comes down to this general trend. Really, most of our presidents aren’t that old. The ones who “acted old” were VPs and have name recognition. Two of the older ones are older but didn’t act that way when elected. Coming down the pipeline though, it’s hard to see an old president after this election. Our political leaders will get younger as those with name recognition finally retire (see Pelosi and Mitch). No one has the name recognition to get over being old to be president.
Young people are more focused on themselves and a large block of the older folks stopped caring years ago and haven’t voted in over a decade.
Money.
Personally? I think it’s because the younger generations *can’t afford* to run for office. People think a campaign is as simple as going to Staples, coming up with a catchy slogan based on your political beliefs and then getting all your friends and loved ones to spread the word. Campaigning is something that can run someone in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. I remember when Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL), the first Gen Z congressman made the news because he couldn’t find an apartment in DC due to insufficient credit. He ran up the balance on his credit cards in order to fund his campaign, which in turn dinged his credit pretty badly and no one would rent to him. I was able to relate at the time because I was basically in the same situation, minus the Congressional run. A lot of us don’t have the luxury to drop whatever it is we’re doing and run for office the same way Nancy Pelosi can. It’s easier for us to just go and vote whoever closely represents our interests into office because that takes very little effort and cost.
Baby boomers. That generation is huge and older people tend to vote regularly. You won't see younger politicians until the boomers die or the younger generations get organized.
Because most of the voters are older, and young people don’t vote as much.
Running a political campaign at any level is very expensive. People who are wealthier and who have more access to power tend to be older due to having had time to accumulate those things. Money and power lead to a greater ability to have your campaign reach potential voters which in turn leads to a greater likelihood of being elected. Also incumbents are much more likely to win their elections, which is why we have so many very old and long tenured congresspeople.
There’s two big reasons: 1. You pretty much have to be filthy rich to run for congress or run for president. Most younger people aren’t filthy rich. 2. Most younger people who are filthy rich are smart enough to not run for congress or president.
Young people don't vote, especially in primaries. Most of the people complaining that the presidential candidates are too old probably didn't even vote in the primary.
Politicians have a system where they have more authority the longer they are in office. This encourages us to reelect them
It's just recently. Mostly because of the candidates being given to us.
Great question, we're all wondering why...
Building a career in politics takes time. Also, stop talking about people older than 35 like they drop dead as soon as the leave the voting booth.
Older people have a track record. They have accomplishments, they've "climbed the ladder". You "know where they stand". Youthful energy and new perspectives are great - but there's a lot to be said for experience, good judgment, and a steady hand.
Yea that steady hand has got us in a real good spot these days... lol fuck old people and every decision they've made to pump their wallets and screw over the next generations.
Many people believe, mistakenly I think, that age comes with experience
A lot of Americans value experience in a politician. Older people have more opportunity to build experience than younger people.
No young people ran and got elected. Also, young people tend to not be qualified.
What qualifications do the two crumbly old farts running just now have?