Edit: Thanks @Jearom for providing the paywall free link!
Maybe a collection of old folks that would be completely unemployable in any other field shouldn’t be running the country?
They can all be Walmart greeters in their home states
Agree. It’s partly the age, but also the wealth.
I have to work for a living. They do not represent me.
Paywall removed: https://archive.is/UozLV
In my view, the gerontocracy is a side effect of deeper, systemic issues: too much power in incumbency, too much power placed in the hands of the hands of too few, too much power given to money. I would prioritize these three changes to fix our democracy:
- Publicly funded elections
- Uncap the House
- Term limits on the Supreme Court
That’s it. Everything else flows downhill from there.
Can you expand on 2 (uncap the house)? I’m not familiar enough to know what that refers to.
Fully agree with 1 and 3 though.
I still would love to see a new political party which represents the people’s interests - call it the direct democracy party. Use blockchain technology to create a general ledger of polling for every vote inside the party - everyone would have a copy of the polling data so it couldn’t be hacked/changed. Every party member would have one single vote in every poll, and their elected politicians would be bound to follow the polling data in how they vote, or they are immediately replaced under the party rules.
Of course that’ll never happen - too expensive to implement and the campaign laws are setup to ensure a two-party system while preventing a third party from challenging them.
But damn it would be nice to have a party which represents the voice of the people, directly.
I couldn’t read it because the article is behind a paywall
Politicians should be restricted to minimum wage. Its supposed to be a public service, not a fuckin career. You’re supposed to do it because you want to speak for the people. Maybe then they’d move their asses.
Tale as old as Rome. Maybe we shouldn’t have taken so much from them.
Sounds like a great way to ensure only the wealthy hold office. Also, the government salary is hardly breaking the bank. These people get their money from the wealthy, not from our taxes.
Good point. I guess a wealth limit that bars you from running if your net worth were too high might work… hmmm.
What would you do, if you had the power to change it?
You might be able to work with that. Cap the salary at twice minimum wage. There are far more poor people than wealthy people, and running for office would be both attractive for them financially, while making it unattractive for the wealthier of society. It wouldn’t solve the problem of Bush Jrs or D. Trumps (the wealthy who inherited, but have proven incapable of making money themselves), but those people will always be a pestilence.
A concern might be that poor people will be easier to bribe, but I’ve seen no evidence in my life that being rich is a prophylactic against being crooked, so maybe it’d be OK.
I’m not sure a wealth limit would be the right solution, but it is an interesting idea. Honestly, I’m not nearly smart enough to have a detailed solution to something like this, but in general, eliminating the methods and loopholes government officials use to enrich themselves with their position - insider trading, campaign financing, lobbying, etc. All the things that corrupt the purpose of government.
These people may be very old and also may be evil pieces of shit, but they have earned their …
Earned their what?
Um… They earned their uh… …,…
Go on, you can do it. Say it for me. Earned… theirrrrr?
Retirement.
Does anyone know what exactly happened to him? Mini stroke or something?
A former nurse I know called “Transient Ischemic Attack” - aka mini-stroke.
Some are theorizing Parkinson’s or possibly early Alzheimers but that is all very speculative. We likely won’t know until he is out of office.
and he has no plans to leave office.
For him, Alzheimers isn’t early
