Originally published at: Oops! Dianne Feinstein begins to give a speech rather than simply voting "aye" (video) | Boing Boing
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All of these septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians in Congress and government need to retire immediately and clear the way for the up and coming cohorts of quinquagenarians, quadragenarians, and tricenarians.
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Between this stuff and the fact that the last two Presidents both set records for “oldest guy to enter the White House” I’m wondering if the United States is going to see some genuine, concerted pushback against the gerontocracy soon.
I don’t want to see a reactionary ageist movement to exclude elderly people from government (Bernie still seems pretty sharp, for example) but I’m afraid we might find ourselves there if we don’t start seeing some kind of balance coming back.
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You know it’s bad when all us old people are complaining that we need younger people in leadership roles.
We’ve lived through the damage the old guard created. Give us someone who isn’t invested in this current shit.
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One would think that the “insider knowledge” and the profitable opportunities of the kind only afforded to politicians should have provided them the means to retire early if they wished… rather than much, much, much later. Perhaps it’s more about the allure of power, the thrill of wheeling and dealing, the prestige, party camaraderie, the need to feel useful and/or wanted… or perhaps being too addled with age to know when it’s time to leave. How many millionaires so far in Congress?
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Yeah, I don’t want a mandatory retirement age, and I don’t really want to see us start mandating that people pass some sort of cognitive function test, because that seems likely to be abused, but it would be really nice if people who have been in government for 35 or more years just retire on their own. Feinstein has almost completely ruined her legacy, and McConnell would be ruining his as well if his legacy wasn’t already 100% cruelty and horribleness.
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The reason to have clearly defined retirement ages is so we don’t have to have this same humiliating, degrading argument about each individual official and the things that person did to humiliate and degrade themselves every time
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The problem is that people don’t all age the same. Some people are sharp well into their 90s, and other people suffer significant cognitive decline in their 50s. I don’t really like putting a number on it. Plus, I’m pretty sure that would require a constitutional amendment, and realistically, those have almost 0% chance of passing right now.
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I don’t see how you could set an arbitrary mandatory retirement age that would make sense for everyone. We can’t even do that for drivers’ licenses.
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I understand that, but need it get to the point where a sitting politician needs constant attention due to senility? Who presses the brakes? Party collegues on the qt urging family members to firmly step in… and that quietly for the sake of politics? How ugly should the situation be allowed to worsen? There’s a fucking country to run.
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All valid points and questions. It would also help if people wouldn’t just reflexively vote for the incumbent, even when the incumbent is in their party. And I would love to see primary challenges to incumbents become normalized, rather than be an unusual occurrence that tends to piss off the party leadership. The people of California could have, and should have voted Feinstein out in 2018, or even in 2012. Especially in California, because they don’t have partisan Senate elections. Feinstein’s opponent in at least her last two general elections has been another Democrat, I think.
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Between this and Mitch McConnell, I’m thinking that a “Logan’s Run” scenario might be a good alternative….and I say that as someone well beyond 30 years of age.
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I suspect that some incumbents use their accumulated power and influence to squelch even talk of a primary challenger. Those types of incumbents are worrisome and possibly even unworthy.
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They probably typically don’t even have to do anything to discourage primary challenges. The incumbent advantage in the general election is pretty well documented, so the party leadership in both parties are never going to support primary challengers. And mounting a challenge like that without any help from the party is tough. AOC did it, but many Democratic Party leaders still probably don’t like her because she did that. Same with Cori Bush from Missouri. That’s what I would like to see change. Make primary challenges normal. In both parties. That would help with providing some accountability for incumbents. And if that becomes normal, then I think people will be more willing to vote against someone like Feinstein.
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And along with everything else, even if she does retire tomorrow, the Dems evidently can’t replace her on the important committees until the new session starts, and everything grinds to a halt. We need to ram through as many sane young federal judges as we can in the window provided.
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Party leadership carries a lot of responsibility here. The DNC and RNC are loath to support a primary challenge when an otherwise safe seat is on the line.
The DNC should have been the ones to take away Feinstein’s car keys years ago.
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How about just having term limits. You wanna hire an older person who has never served before, cool - in that case it’s more likely that people will be voting on merit rather than name recognition.
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You know, I don’t think it’s that complicated. Just set term limits. 
Let’s say 6 for the House and 2-3 for the Senate and throw in a 20 year sunset for SCOTUS for good measure. You’re right that…
But, honestly it would probably be the most rapidly ratified amendment in history. They’re already aware of how their offices are compromised with my wonderful Senator Gillibrand teaming up with the bottom-of-the-barrel Sen Hawley to pass bans on congressional stock trading and “blind” trusts ( as if). I actually think it could get a decent amount of support assuming, of course, that the clock starts ticking on incumbents after its ratification.
ETA: @Jim_Campbell caught me typing! 
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