Thanks for the explanation. I always have trouble wrapping my head around this.
Granted, my point is belied by idiot newcomers like Vance, Sinema, MTG, Boebert, and Gaetz, but nevertheless many veterans in Congress seem to be mainly skilled in raising money and getting themselves reelected.
Technically that IS ageism as you are using the persons age rather than an objective measurement of performance to determine employment. While physical and mental ability does diminish over time, who is to say for a particular individual whether the cutoff should be 65, 62, or 70?
Well, what’s the practical alternative? I can’t imagine political leaders submitting to competency tests, not unless they had the opportunity to rig them. Both to keep themselves and power and to disqualify their opponents; imagine for example what would happen if such tests existed and the Republicans managed to put their own people in charge of running them. Boom, all the Democrats gone.
Assuming such tests exist, I’ve no idea if they do. At least objective age is an unchangeable standard that doesn’t require problematic tests to judge.
Seniority rules in Congress have been greatly watered down in the last couple of decades. Committee chairs are no longer granted strictly by seniority, although they are still correlated with it. The House Republicans especially have been bypassing senior members in favor of the new ultra-right firebrands.
Many veterans in Congress have great expertise in their subjects, gained by immersing themselves in their jobs over time, just as in any other occupation.
The battle has long been lost, to such an extent that interpreting any usage by the obsolete definition is to lose meaning rather than gain it.
Yeah on the last part, but how much good can you do for your constituents if you are not re-elected.
Exactly.
Not have any bigoted cut off, let the voters decide.
It’s not bigoted, it’s acknowledging reality. And the corruption of the system and the tendency of the powerful to entrench themselves make that a joke of a “solution”. It’s literally just doing nothing.
Please fix the quoting in the post above, it’s inconsistent with SDMB’s expectation for clarity.
Thank you
I think enough time has gone by that @Der_Trihs can’t edit his post. I flagged it for you in hopes that a mod can fix it.
For future reference: Discourse, unlike vBulletin, requires the quote tags to be on separate lines by themselves.
Thank you. I just want to be able to sort out what they’re saying. Next time I’ll know to flag it so one of our mensch mods can fix it.
Yes, ageism is a form of bigotry.
And why bother with democracy if you cant trust the voters?
Why bother have any citizenship, residency, or age qualifications, then?
Because those are not bigoted. Saying women or blacks or Jews are ineligible is bigoted, and also discrimination based age over 40 is. It is the law.
Putting age limits on the presidency is a solution in search of a problem. Trump being old isn’t what makes him a bad candidate, and we already have a system in place in the event that the president can’t do their job due to infirmity.
Yep, you wait for him to withdraw his candidancy.
You’re being glib about Biden, but if he was actually incapable of being president there’s a system in place to deal with that. It’s not as if the entire administration grinds to a halt because the man on top is in bed.
And Biden was a GREAT president- and realized he was not up to also running for office and withdrew.
Um, he had to be led kicking and screaming to the realization.
Not at all.
The most coherent explanation of Biden’s determination not to continue was that his own campaign leaders showed him on the Saturday polling that the electoral maths had incontrovertibly swung to the point there was no victory pathway.
At that point, all hale to him recognising the necessity for change, but to continue would have been an exercise in futility, vanity and blind faith in glories past. And there was no mechanism save Biden himself to change that.