Doesn’t fucking matter, I’m voting D because it’s a fucking binary system and the other choice is a dystopian totalitarian shithole and abstaining from voting is voting for said shithole.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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it’s a fucking binary system
That can change but it requires people to get involved at ground level politics like school boards, city councils, county supervisors and township offices. It takes about ten years for these officials to reach congressional levels. The teabaggers did this successfully but they had a lot of financial support from wealthy conservatives.
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How about no President over the age of 60? I want young politicians. I also want term limits.
Please no. An age cap is fine. But term limits will just add gas to the fire of corruption.
This is something you can actually observe too. Districts that have implemented term limits have seen corruption go up, not down.
How? Wouldn't that do the opposite?
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.
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?
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What exactly would term limits accomplish? Bernie Sanders would be prevented from running, but people like Kyrsten Sinema would be fine.
The solution to bad candidates is to vote them out in the primary or work towards ranked choice voting so that people have a legitimate 3rd option in the general.
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Not surprising, this is pretty much why he ran 4 years ago. He never wanted to be president, but his party had literally nobody (whom they would allow) that could step up and be a real contender.
That "allow" part being a rather substantial issue for those not really paying attention back in 2016.
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I'm not sure you can say he never wanted to be president. He ran in 1988 and 2008 before running in 2020. It sounds more like he always wanted to be president, but I could believe he'd prefer to not feel like he has to run for another term.
he was also all geared up to run in 2016, but then his son died. If I recall, Hilary Clinton actually waited for Biden to decide he couldn't run before she entered the race.
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Getting 2016 vibes this time around...
Or it is just the vocal few that are more openly speaking out...
Polling and all, it will be in the history books come 2024.
And yet, most people don’t want to vote for Biden. He won because people voted against Trump. I’m not convinced it will work again.
I do. I’m an old progressive and he’s been the most progressive president in my lifetime outside of Carter, and honestly he’s probably been more progressive than Carter.
I don’t get the ambivalence about Biden at all from anyone who’s not a hard core Republican.
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Well, I voted against Trump last time, and this time I'm split. Yes, I'm voting for Biden, but that doesn't mean I'm not voting really really hard against Trump.
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Not helpful.
This is why we have no honesty in politics.
For fucks sake. He's trying to do everything he can to alert the country their democracy is in grave danger to the point of admitting he wouldn't still be there if he didn't think he had the best chance of stopping Trump.
And at the sidelines we have endless hand-wringing about his age and calls for a better candidate.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
Everyone complains the Democrats suck at messaging and then bitch about everything they say and do, even when it's honest, straightforward, and easy to understand.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
This is not at all the only conclusion one would draw from an incumbent president not drawing challengers. Incumbent challenges usually cause division and a divided party may be in a worse place than a party unifying around a bad candidate. If Biden decides to run, we're pretty much stuck with him.
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I liked it. Makes it seem like he isn't disconnected from the world, he knows what we want.
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