No functioning democracy allows their representatives to sit for twelve terms.
Eh, I get what you’re saying, but term limits aren’t a prerequisite for democracies.
The problem was neoliberals ran the party for generations and would
blackmailblackball anyone that worked on a primary against a neoliberal incumbent.Even to the point they were robbing state parties and threatening to cut entire state parties off of their reps didn’t toe the line.
That’s over, it’s been over for a year.
Even if the current DNC chair did a 180 as I’m typing this, he’s been dumping all the money stolen via the Victory Fund back on state parties. The DNC couldn’t use the old threats if they wanted to.
Without that pressure from the top, progressives will replace neoliberal and republican incumbents.
And if a progressive gets thru the presidential primary and into the Oval, then they get to name the next DNC president.
That’s what pisses me off the most these days…
I spent decades trying to convince people the DNC was a problem. And as soon as the voting members fixed it, everyone started to realize how bad it was, but not that it’s been fixed.
I don’t understand how people keep falling for billionaire propaganda.
I don’t believe it’s been fixed and it will take some convincing. And I’m probably not the only one.
Same boat for me. I can’t argue however that there have been many steps in the right directly recently.
I don’t understand how people keep falling for billionaire propaganda.
Because there is, quite literally, nothing else. Who is talking about it being fixed besides you? Anybody with any credibility?
The DNC’s problem is exemplified by the old joke - If a Democrat found a magic lamp, rubbed it, and got three wishes from a djinn, they’d negotiate down to one and then wish for whatever the nearest Republican wants.
The DNC doesn’t stand for anything beyond lining the pockets of insider traders like Nancy Pelosi. Same as the Republicans, just minus all the goosestepping, conspiracy theories, and shilling for supplements. They aren’t the same, but being the only alternative doesn’t inherently make them better by default. They lost the plot trying to make the Clintons into a dynasty.
Fixing the systemic problems at the root of this goes all the way back to how these parties responded to Ross Perot and the elimination of third party viability. A strictly two party system is not a functional democracy. It’s a one party system masquerading as two parties.
There’s really one political party in the USA - the monied party. Which is why there’s so much billionaire propaganda for people to fall for.
Who is talking about it being fixed besides you? Anybody with any credibility?
NPR is a fantastic resource…
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin says President Trump is a “dictator-in-chief” whose agenda is “fascism dressed in a red tie” and his party must fight back against his policies.
“Now look, folks, I’m sick and tired of this Democratic party bringing a pencil to a knife fight,” Martin said. “We cannot be the only party that plays by the rules anymore. We’ve got to stand up and fight. We’re not going to have a hand tied behind our back anymore.”
Speaking during the first session of the DNC’s summer meeting in Minneapolis on Monday, Martin said the Democratic Party has to stop trying to win arguments over policy and politics and do more to win future elections.
“>You know what winning the argument gets you? A nice round of applause and a few likes on Instagram,” Martin said. “But the reality is it doesn’t make life any better for any person. We have to stop settling on winning arguments with each other. We have to win elections.”
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/26/nx-s1-5515631/dnc-democrats-ken-martin-trump-facism
Fixing the systemic problems at the root
Is what happened over a year ago when the ~400 voting members of the DNC pivoted away from neoliberals…
If the last year wasn’t enough, look at his track record in Minnesota and what happened during the decade he ran it
He’s a known quantity, the last year of gains hasn’t been a fluke, and everyone is just as much “not trump” in those elections as they’ve always been.
The DNC doesn’t stand for anything
This is the problem…
You think of the DMC as an entity…
It’s not, it’s ~400 people that vote for a dictator for four years if and only if a Republican wins the presidency.
2025 was the first time since 2017 since those ~400 got a say, because we settled for Biden as voters in the middle. They fucked up in 2017, they didn’t know what to do and Hillary and the “victory fund” was the only thing keeping them from bankruptcy, and that came with strings.
But by 2025 a lot of them were dead or no longer voting members, and a few had changed their mind.
So we pivoted
You have to understand how the system works, to understand when it changes, why it changes, and how it changes
I 100% understand the anger with “the party” and for the last 30 years I’d agreed with you, if I was older I’d have agreed for longer.
But shit changed, and if Martin paves the wave for FDR 2.0, that’s who picks the next head of the DNC.
You can be mad it’s a long process, but don’t fucking spend your time telling everyone to quit a marathon when we’re 200 yards from the finish line and no ones in sight behind us.
You have no fucking clue how hard it’s been to get this close, this is not the time to quit.
2025 was the first time since 2017
Your timeline is misaligned by at least a decade and missing the forest for the trees. In 2025, we’re on the brink of WWIII. The DNC has been hand-in-iron-fist with the GQP since 9/11 and the Patriot Act. Both parties merrily marching us to fascist authoritarianism. The only disagreement being who’d be the eventual Fuhrer.
But shit changed, and if Martin paves the wave for FDR 2.0
This is the problem with Dems. They’re fixated on repeating the mistakes of the past because they’ve only read the sanitized versions of history used in public schools. FDR 1.0 caused the double-dip in the Great Depression with his New Deal. Friedman’s Economic History of the United States covered it thoroughly. Maybe try reading some more modern economics strategies, like UBI, or wildly crazy shit like re-enacting the prohibition against Congress owning securities, enacting anti-gerrymandering legislation, and open-auditing of all electronic voting machines, plus enacting a general cap on all campaign expenditures of a nominal value with any remainders automatically allocated to the federal treasury to restore impartiality to our elected representatives.
The anger you’re seeing is because not only is the process long, but the outcomes are stupid and not worthwhile. Biden put on a demonstration of what competent leadership looks like. It was impressive to watch the things his cabinet was accomplishing. If it were any other yesteryear, it would have been an administration lauded for its competence.
But literally the one thing they didn’t touch was any of the linchpins to their lucrative kleptocratic establishment. All of the mechanisms that could have prevented allowing a known pedophile a second term in the oval office would have required addressing systemic corruptions that would have disturbed their seats of power. Instead, the Biden administration had other priorities instead of preventing what did happen - a rigged election. Thanks for the “assist”, Elon. As a reward for his help, Elon gets to rummage around in federal databases destroying evidence of this and other crimes. And Dems get to watch once again, as the minority party plays them for the fools they are.
You might not think this is the time to quit. I don’t think you should have ever started because you’re still pulling for the wrong team. There is no evidence to suggest your efforts are anything but too little, much too late.
At this point, I am incredibly skeptical that America has a peaceful way out of the current situation we’re in. Dems are very much not anti-authoritarian. They will not give up the executive powers that the GQP has so graciously secured for them. That’s the one thing you can always count on. Power, once centralized, is only ever decentralized through violence.
Your timeline is misaligned by at least a decade and missing the forest for the trees
You’re confusing me describing reality, with me saying that should be the way it is…
That’s the same reason medicine women were burnt at the stake.
I didn’t read anything else you typed, and I won’t see anything else you ever type again…
Shits too important to waste effort on lost causes.
Shits too important to waste effort on lost causes.
If you really believed that, you’d be focusing your efforts elsewhere.
Agreed. Plato even wrote about it in Laws.
In “Laws,” Plato suggests that senators should serve for a term of one year to ensure that they remain accountable and do not become too entrenched in power.
It’s not like he went bad as a result of serving too many terms—he was a corrupt neoliberal from day one. Term limits aren’t a cure for that.
But if there was a limit, at least he would be in that position for only one or two terms
the doddering that comes with age is one problem and milquetoast neoliberalism is another. We can solve for the age one.
Refusing to allow voters to re-elect their preferred candidate just because they’ve hit some arbitrary time limit doesn’t seem very democratic to me
We definitely have a ton of problems with our campaign finance regulations and enforcement of those regulations which makes it so incumbents have a hugely unfair advantage because they’re just swimming in oceans of perfectly legal bribe money, but terms limits are a bad way to fix that problem imo. Punishes voters for lawmakers being shitty.
People say this all the time but honestly it’s not really true.
It makes sense for the executive - there is a lot of power concentrated in one human being.
But this guy was a rep - he’s one of 435. One of 535 if you count the senate. He doesn’t have a lot of individual power in that position and it can take a long time to build credibility and connections to be able to work in congress.
Something like 120 in congress are over 70 years old, so over 20%.
bOtH pArTiEs are unwilling to fix this, that 20% are of course much more powerful than newer members. Maxine Waters, Mitch McConnell, and others are over 80; McConnell is visibly, horribly, embarrassingly impaired, and still in office. Maxine is 87 and is the modern incarnation of Smaug, sitting upon her immense treasure hoard.
Yet another humiliation for Americans… and they have the best healthcare insurance on Earth, while the lifespan of their own constituents falls.
Go ahead and vote, but I don’t think we can vote our way out of this and that change must be forced upon them by others.
John Roberts was 67 when his geriatric lapse rendered the 2024 election illegitimate and fraudulent.
79% of Americans want age caps.
Pilots are retired at 65 years old.
The unfolding geriatric catastrophe of the White House is enabled by Democratic Party failure to press the issue of age. Geriatrics with a stranglehold on party politics damned us to continued geriatric incompetence.
It follows that the only path to restoring the constitutional order is the immediate removal of all geriatric politicians at every level. Federal, State, Judiciary, Legislative, Executive. 100% gone.
It’s not difficult: “respect for elders” shouldn’t be a suicide pact.
The Democratic Party, which is a private institution not beholden to the electorate, has a seniority system for high ranking positions. The Republican Party doesn’t. I’m no fan of Republicans, but this should be understood by anyone trying to understand the situation.
Once it’s understood that geriatric politicians are a disease, the only thing that matters is removing geriatric politicians, regardless of party.
I don’t disagree, but I think it will be more difficult with the Democratic Party given the way the party is run.
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death is the new political retirement
all federal employees should have mandatory retirement at 70. Including congress, judges, and president.
I believe it was Japan, but I was having a casual conversation with someone from SEA area and he told me publicly traded companies had a mandatory retirement age of like 68 for executives. I thought that was interesting.
We require pilots to retire at the age of 65. If they’re not fit to fly a plane, why would they be fit to run a country?
70?? No one over the age of 63.
Condolences, but 80 is too fucking old.
In the last two years 8 Congressmen have died in office. 7 of them were Democrats, and only two were younger than 70, and none younger than 65.
Can you imagine loving your power so much you choose to die in power than enjoy a guaranteed retirement?
I’ve heard speculation that Congresscritters keep running entirely for the health care benefits.
Like, once you get that old, you just want the kind of care only the government can provide
Why would they do that? I’m pretty sure they get those benefits for life.
They don’t get access to DC hospitals and doctors, or a Congressional staff that can substitute as home health care workers.
I was about to say wow we need to fix that but fuck em. Term limits and they can die alone in their own diapers like the rest of us.
Skeksis have entered the chat
Do some of them require their parliamentary immunity maybe ?
Ok?
It’s a clear indication of the massive disconnect from the reps and the constituents. I don’t feel like that was a hard road to walk down to figure that out honestly.
If I believed in God, I’d say that it sounds like God had other plans.
But I don’t. Maybe he should have enjoyed his retirement while he could.
maybe milking tax payers was his dream retirement?
Maximum age for first term should be 59 and no more than 8 years. That puts them at 67 and they should retire.
I don’t know. As I get older I am developing opinions. A lot of them. On everything! What sauce is best with cheeseburgers. How short should my neighbours’ lawn be. Should banks be open on sundays.
By 80, if I’m still kicking, I’ll be ready to discuss any boring topic for hours before a vote. Anything.
There’s an oddly well written scientific paper on Death in Congress. Made me laugh out loud.
Whenever an elected official has a heart attack, stroke, or cancer they should have to publicly disclose it.
They need to fix those age requirements. Even God wanted that guy to retire but he was hanging on.
I would say that no person should be able to run for office after the federal retirement age, but I suspect that would just lead to retirement age being raised.
Term limits or age cap please.
I’m all for an age cap. It should be dynamic and based on some sort of percentage of the average lifespan of the population in their area.
It would provide a good incentive for them to vote in/pass legislation which would help raise the overall life expectancy of everyone.
Age limits and Term limits please. You’re not going to be doing any high level job well enough like this where people’s futures are at stake at 80.
Ya. He should have retired 20 years ago!
