The US Gerontocracy - should their be an age cap?

[Stylan]

No age cap but lower the age someone can be President to around 25-30.

[Freiheit Reich]

No age cap but lower the age someone can be President to around 25-30.

18 seems better. If they can be sent to war to die, why not be allowed to be president?

[Amazonia-on-Themiscyra]

An age cap seems a bit much; I rather just encorage more young people to run for office.

[Des-Bal]

18 seems better. If they can be sent to war to die, why not be allowed to be president?

Because they're two wildly different skillsets.

[Freiheit Reich]

18 seems better. If they can be sent to war to die, why not be allowed to be president?

Because they're two wildly different skillsets.

That would be up to the voters to decide. Are you telling me that millions of American voters would vote for an incompetent leader as president?

An 18-year old that spends his/her days playing video games, watching movies, debating on NS, and racing cars and his nights chasing tail and dancing at the disco (not saying all 18-year olds do that but some do) would still probably be a better leader than George W. Bush (he lowered the bar to knee high on a grasshopper) . Age doesn't mean a leader will be better or worse and he/she would have advisors to help him or her.

[UniversalCommons]

Wait until the Chinese Gene Therapy for aging is fully tested. We could have a 100 year old president and some senators in their 90s.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/20/chinese-s ... lay-aging/

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

It's probably better to do that now, than wait until people start commonly living to 120.

Better to do it now, because a cap at 90 wouldn't be too controversial ... now.

[Wahlid]

US presidents have a term limit, don't they? Iirc 2 terms and that's it.

Presidents do, but Senators and Representatives don't, which is how we end up with people aged 80+ who have served decades in Congress.

Which is basically how we ended up with the current president, bless his Aviators-loving soul.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Wait until the Chinese Gene Therapy for aging is fully tested. We could have a 100 year old president and some senators in their 90s.

https://nypost.com/2021/01/20/chinese-s ... lay-aging/

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. NYPost is not extraordinary enough, I'm afraid.

[Mercatus]

There shouldn’t be an age cap, and I think anyone above the age of majority should be able to run in a democratic political race. However, there should be tests ensuring that the people running are mentally fit to be in office, because today at inauguration Joe Biden literally said COVID has killed the same amount of people that WW2 did. When your president can’t count, then I think it’s time we change the system up a bit.

[Parxland]

Didn't realize Biden was 78, he looks younger. I guess that's why he gave the farewell speech, since he's likely going to die while in office.

[Chan Island]

There shouldn’t be an age cap, and I think anyone above the age of majority should be able to run in a democratic political race. However, there should be tests ensuring that the people running are mentally fit to be in office, because today at inauguration Joe Biden literally said COVID has killed the same amount of people that WW2 did. When your president can’t count, then I think it’s time we change the system up a bit.

Well he isn't completely wrong....

Just obsolete. Covid has killed a third more Americans than WW2 did.

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

Absolutely not. No adult citizen should bear obligations nor enjoy privileges with regards the State that do not burden or privilege every other.

If anything, the current limitations barring younger US citizens from elected offices ought to be removed. Whatever happened to citizen equality?

[Baltenstein]

Didn't realize Biden was 78, he looks younger. I guess that's why he gave the farewell speech, since he's likely going to die while in office.

The US certainly chose an unusual way to introduce their first female president into office.

[Hirota]

So Joe Biden age 78 is now the eldest President inaugurated in the USA, which by most peoples standards is quite old. The youngest president at 42 was Roosevelt.

The average life expectancy in the US has increased roughly 15 years since then. With more old people living longer, it's inevitable they will be increasingly represented.

[Nagakawa]

Well, if we see to it that the Deep State pumps any and every new president full of whatever Mahathir and Lizzie II have been having all these years, then I don't see a problem.

[Exxosia]

The 25th amendment exists for situations where the president becomes unfit, I decline to entertain the suggestion that we should exclude people from eligibility until it can be shown the 25th amendment is insufficient.

Woodrow Wilson and FDR were both, by measure of the intent of the 25th, eligible for removal and were not.
JFK was on such a massive amount of drugs at all times and had so many health and function problems as to be considered too close to incapacitation by the intent of the 25th. A simple supply chain hiccough would have been enough for a presidential crisis.
Ronald Reagan was definitely not mentally okay enough by half way through his second term to stay in office.
Joe Biden is entering office with sufficient mental and physical frailty to activate the 25th, but it will not be used.

The 25th amendment will never be used for its intent. The president will fall into a puppet of a cabinet cabal state at best. So it has already shown itself to be insufficient five times that we can outright acknowledge.

[USS Monitor]

Leave it up to voters to decide how old is too old.

People did bring this up during the Democratic primary. I had concerns about Biden's age and mental sharpness, but apparently a bunch of black people in the South disagreed with me, so here we are.

[Molither]

Nope - that's pure ageism

[Molither]

Plus Joe Biden is America's first President from the silent generation

[Exxosia]

Are you telling me that millions of American voters would vote for an incompetent leader as president?

Out of 59 elections, they have only voted for a somewhat competent leader once (Coolidge)... So yeah, they would... Repeatedly and with fervor.

[Wizlandia]

Actually, I dislike term limits. If a president is good enough to keep getting elected, that is the will of the people. Term limits seem a bit anti-democratic in a way. The people were not forced to vote for FDR 4 times (I dislike FDR but obviously most Americans loved him). Also, term limits have not ensured that the USA gets good leaders.

The last bit is important because it seems like term limits are not as great as people might initially assume.

Should note that the site you linked talks about legislative term limits. Personally, I'm pro term limits on executive offices (e.g. Presidency or Governor), even if they are a little anti-democratic, but against legislative term limits (because I think institutional knowledge is valuable).

[USS Monitor]

Are you telling me that millions of American voters would vote for an incompetent leader as president?

Out of 59 elections, they have only voted for a somewhat competent leader once (Coolidge)... So yeah, they would... Repeatedly and with fervor.

I got a couple of Dahlgren guns for anyone that knocks Honest Abe.

[Agarntrop]

Plus Joe Biden is America's first President from the silent generation

I wonder if Obama would be considered boomer or Gen X

[Cetacea]

An age cap seems a bit much; I rather just encorage more young people to run for office.

I would love to see more young people running for office, but I do wonder if the overwhelming number of old people in the government Genontocracy actively discourages young people from considering politics.