When all you have is lemons, make lemonade.
Both, as candidates, have the capability of delivering 70mil votes and/or 270 EC votes.
Nowt else is required.
Given a central tenement of the MAGA movement is the legitimacy of any government would it not be an attractive prospect for the legislative, executive and judicial branches to be fully staffed by occupants too enfeebled in body and mind to enact their constitutional duties?
Personally, I’m thankful that we’re only one or two more election cycles away from ever having to hear again about what Candidate X did or didn’t do in Vietnam.
This point gets back to the question about PMs being younger than presidents. In parliamentary systems, there is no individual incumbency advantage for MPs, equivalent to your Congress folk and Senators.
In a parliamentary system, you can’t split your vote. If you want to change the government because you don’t like the PM, you don’t vote for the MP in the PM’s party, even if you think that MP has done a good job locally.
Tenure in a parliament tends to be shorter than in your Congress. Cabinet ministers get defeated personally every election, and lots of them if the government changes. Even the PM might lose their own seat. (See PM Kim Campbell in Canada in 1993.)
When a government is defeated, that automatically culls the herd and creates openings for new and younger candidates, and shuffling older pols to their reward upstate.
(I’m speaking about a parliament with first-past-the-post. The herd-culling effect isn’t as strong in parliamentary systems with PR.)
The Boomers are never going to hand the reins over to Gen X. They’ll hold on as long as they can and then skip us entirely in favor of the Millennials. You’ll see.
The Silent Generation only got Jimmy Carter. Gen X may not even get that much
Hasn’t she been acting as President of the Senate?
As for Trump vs. Biden, it’s gonna sell a lot of books. Neither are “perfect” candidates for their party, but they balance each other except for age. The past vs. the future, in more ways than one.
From the Canadian Encyclopedia:
Following the 2021 election, 70 per cent of MPs were men. Thirty per cent were women — a record high. Most MPs were also middle-aged (in their 40s and 50s). Their careers are usually short-lived — eight years, or two terms on average — due to shifting electoral behaviour.
I think that’s different from your House of Representatives and Senate?
(I’m not including our senators because they lack political power compared to MP, Congressfolk and US senators.)
Thanks for the replies. It’s a strange and messy system, clearly, or at least from the outside. I do get the argument that Biden has to run because Trump is, but in a sane world Trump wouldn’t be running
FWIW, I don’t watch Fox news and yes I was using the term “wheeled out” colloquially and not literally.
I don’t buy the argument that Biden isn’t in cognitive decline, but then again I suppose locals see more of him than foreigners and we’re more likely to be fed the gaffes in the news rather than the day to day boring shit.
Good luck with it all.
Obama is early Gen X by some definitions. My mother is the same age as him and identifies more closely with Gen X than with Boomers.
Sounds like a good plan, but I don’t even know how to begin to implement it.
To answer the OP: Because both American parties overwhelmingly favor the status quo within their own side.
Nothing short of a coma, stroke or the like would convince the DNC/RNC to go with someone else.
Didn’t they also get Joe Biden?
Carter is technically old enough to be Biden’s father.
Strictly, baby boomers had to be conceived by de-mobilized servicemen after VJ day. Other yardsticks stretched to include the British Invasion rockers (Tommies got home leave, but US GIs were overseas for the duration)
I don’t agree that Obama is a Baby Boomer, but “Generation Jones” is only acceptable as a cultural grouping, not just the downslope of the boom that started, frankly, when good war industry jobs encouraged people to have the kids they couldn’t have fed a few years earlier in the Depression. That wartime economy put the twinkle in mom and dad Biden’s eyes.
Yes, bring on the Gen Xers . . . who could possibly find a reason to object?
This. Ye gods, it’s like everyone has forgotten the gaffe machine that was W…
Trump departed this reality quite a while back, and began living in his own alternate universe. The press & public totally gave him a pass on it. That’s why it’s hard for people to detect his mental decline. He’s as weird as ever, but you can only know he’s losing it now if you compare it to his already-weird standard. Which people don’t, because weird rants are part of his entertainment package, intended to be enjoyed and not fact-checked.
Biden on the other hand… he’s the man who already defeated Trump once. He’s not changed much since that time. The best his critics can come up with is “omg he’s old, so incredibly old”. This tells you that, at least among media-illiterate median voters, Biden is doing such an outstanding job that the only weak spot is his age, and that his age hasn’t affected his performance one whit.
Biden’s slightly elderly but doing fine. Trump is delusional and increasingly incoherent. Hope that helps!
Sure. Just don’t forget the sugar.
Or have to listen to them lie about using marijuana.
Reporter asks 2028 Presidential candidate: “Have you ever used marijuana?”
Candidate answers: "Have you ever drank coffee?"
Obama was a little ahead of the curve on that one.
Obama was ahead of the curve on many things.