It's about more than just whether a congressperson is all there or not.
A bigger concern to me is that many of them are old enough that any long-term impacts resulting from bills they pass simply won't happen until they're gone.
And, I would expand that to include more than just Congress - I think major executive offices (e.g., President, VP, cabinet members, etc.) and the Supreme Court should have an age limit for the very same reason. Anyone in government office whose decisions can have long-lasting effects should be young enough they need to keep that in mind.
Anyone who (statistically) has only a few years left to live and especially anyone past the average life expectancy are welcome to hang around in advisory roles, but they should have limited (if any) power to directly affect future policy because they simply don't have any real skin in the game any longer.
To be fair, corruption is also a problem in China. But still the consequences are much higher, if you think of province-level book-cooking and what happened to their leaders.
The incentives for policy making are much different in both countries.
Even the punishing of corruption in China is corrupt. The corruption is baked into to every level. Such that if an upper power is unhappy with a lower level for whatever reason, they can just push the punish switch and have them done away with.
The US is rapidly catching up here; already in the US if a higher power wants a lesser figure punished they can simply order an indictment, should anyone be foolish enough to resist such an order for lack of evidence of any actual serious crime, they can be replaced immediately with someone willing to bend and break the law with a straight face.
No law is enforced absolutely on every offender. That's impossible. Selective enforcement is a problem, but I would never say it's worse than no enforcement unless the law is bad in the first place.
From what I was reading, it sounded like the "with reprieve" essentially transforms the death sentence into a life sentence unless there's another crime committed. I may have misunderstood though.
> Death sentence with reprieve is a criminal punishment found in chapter 5 (death penalty), sections 48, 50 and 51 of the criminal law of the People's Republic of China. It is a two-year suspended sentence where the execution is only carried out if the convicted commits further crimes during the suspension period. After the period the sentence is automatically reduced to life imprisonment, or to a fixed-term based on meritorious behavior. The reprieve is integrated into the sentence, unlike a pardon which occurs after the sentence.
And somehow sentence from "The good, the bad and ugly" movie (state by Italy born actor) fit on that subject: "If you want freedom you become a priest or a bandit"...
And remember to all the time stick a smile to your face and, internet even, conversations. That is sure fire way to have everything look positive.
There is another sort of old age the US suffers from. The government is now amongst the oldest nation-state organizations on the planet with probably the oldest written national laws (the constitution) still in use.
The cruft that has built up (from the 2nd amendment, to the electoral college) over 250ish years is a serious problem.
I doubt that’s the problem. The public policy government is captured by corporations. The military policy arm of the government is manipulated by a myriad of interests operating indirectly from the shadows — ranging from foreign intelligence agencies (ie Israeli) to military/industrial companies.
Old so competent senators barely matter. It’s all about unelected corporate boards and secret groups within influential government agencies.
I don't know, it seems like it's a weird argument but it's definitely a thought I've had too. When I was eyeballing the Egyptian dynasties I was bit shocked to notice how short lived they all are, compared to what I expected. The majority struggle to get to 150 years, no one gets past 300. In fact old man America will soon be an older polity than all of them except the much maligned Ptolemies (275 years). Same deal for the (well documented) Chinese dynasties. People think kingdoms and states are long enduring, measured in multiple centuries, but they're actually pretty unstable.
It seems like a weird unexamined law of the universe. Dynasties/polities struggle to make it past 300~ without some major interruption or something going wrong, if they haven't imploded earlier. There are exceptions. The Korean Joseon managed an eye watering 500+ years. And the Catholic Papacy has been going on continuously for closer to 2 millenia. But still, 249 years is pretty long in the tooth.
For that matter, look at Europe. France has gone through 5 republics and an empire since 1789 and they got a new constitution around 1958. (West) Germany has had three governments in the past 120 years, most recently in 1945. Spain has only been democratic since 1975. All of Eastern Europe has an entirely new state since 1989. Most of the smaller western countries got conquered by Germany in WWII. Even the UK in its current state is only since 1922, although that's a little unfair since I believe that was evolutionary; the last discontinuity was in 1660 if my history is correct.
I am guessing that the problem is worse where power is inherited. Just because the first guy in the dynasty was capable enough to make himself king and stay in power, doesn't mean his successors are.
The Magna Carta was a second, more forceful, iteration of the Charter of Liberties introduced a century earlier in 1100 by Henry I of England.
Clauses of both are still part of the basis of English Common Law (the Common Law cited in the US Constitution) and the Magna Carta is still being cited in recent times by politicians and lawyers in support of (UK) constitutional positions, and still, albeit rarely, cited in UK courts
in 2012 the Occupy London protestors attempted to use Magna Carta in resisting their eviction from St. Paul's Churchyard by the City of London. In his judgment the Master of the Rolls gave this short shrift, noting somewhat drily that although clause 29 was considered by many the foundation of the rule of law in England, he did not consider it directly relevant to the case, and that the two other surviving clauses ironically concerned the rights of the Church and the City of London and could not help the defendants.
It's firmly a part of the continuously evolving history of UK law:
Magna Carta carries little legal weight in modern Britain, as most of its clauses have been repealed and relevant rights ensured by other statutes, but the historian James Holt remarks that the survival of the 1215 charter in national life is a "reflexion of the continuous development of English law and administration"
suggesting that what the UK lacks is the stagnation of US law which hasn't yet evolved past the errors of scale that have crept in since its foundation; the US electoral could also do with a revamp to better serve the people.
The UK doesn't have an entrenched constitution through. Whenever there's a simple parliamentary majority for a reform in the lower house it can be done. In the US even simple laws can require a filibuster breaking supermajority in the upper change, and changing the constitution is much harder.
But that's more because they want to keep the charter, no? I mean that keeping the UK constitution "living" is much easier since the written parts can be legally changed easily.
And the 2 party system is a result of US electoral and constitutional law, which is entrenched. If the US had a new constitution from scratch today I don't think it would feature the electoral college, it's there because of legal inertia.
Yes, but I'm not arguing the US Constitution is older than the UK one, although it is much older than that of almost all countries I think. I'm arguing that the UK doesn't suffer from having an old constitution because its constitution changes more easily than the US one.
The sheer bulk of the law is a huge problem, but there are very clear and well thought-out procedures for amending the Constitution. Cruft is all the felonies and misdemeanors you commit just commuting to work every day, not the Constitution, which can be read and more or less understood by anyone literate in a few hours.
> which can be read and more or less understood by anyone literate in a few hours.
The fact that the supreme court even exists shows that this is far from the whole truth. Besides that, and even if it were the case, there is a pretty clear effort underway to do an end-run around large chunks of that constitution.
That's not a "problem" and not a "cruft" - it's how it was built by design. You may not like it - your right, of course, but don't pretend it's because it's "old" or "out of date". If the framers were alive right now, they'd insist on the same framework, and maybe made it even more robust, given how eroded those principles became over the years. They had a very particular set of ideas, how the relationship between the state and the people should work, and those ideas didn't change with time, they are still very actual and often at the center of the discussions. You may not agree with them - there was a lot of disagreement among the framers, and people who argued with them, too - but pretending you understand more just because you were born later is just arrogance. People 250 years ago weren't stupid.
Do they teach nothing of European history in America? Magna Carta? Basically the inspiration behind your constitution?
1215, still a few parts left as enforceable law today. If you think US institutions are old, try European ones. We're still supposed to practice longbow on Sundays.
America is middle aged, at best. You haven't even changed regime yet. Only every been a republic. Never changed religion.
How cute. Poor old Spain has been back and forth with absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republics and even a fascist dictatorship thrown in the mix.
The UK is a bit of an exception through, large parts of Europe have gone though at least some sort of revolution or a change in constitution in the last century, if not multiple.
And the UK constitution isn't entrenched. Whenever the House of Commons wanted it to change to fit with the times it could be done. Imagine if the US constitution could be changed by a simple majority in the House of Representatives.
To be fair, like 5% of the magna carta still carries weight as law today. The main framework of UK law doesn't come from the magna carta anymore.
> You haven't even changed regime yet. Only every been a republic
Right I think that's literally the point that GP was making? The US main legal framework is the same one from 250 years ago, which is not the case for the vast majority of Europe et al. Which leads to some weird interactions, and in some people's minds a lot of anachronisms. Like you gotta deal with the law written by armed revolutionaries protecting the right to own cannons and warships and whatnot (which continued pretty well into the 1800s), with the modern day of like.... maybe not allowing private ownership of 127mm naval guns or JDAMs.
It’s less about them being “not all there” and more like the level of disconnected they are from modern society. The last time they had the average job (if ever) was before credit cards existed and it was $0.50 for a loaf of bread.
Totally fair to call out blanket “anyone 75+ isn’t all there” as ageist. But the governance point still stands: even sharp octogenarians are often out of sync with modern life (platforms, tech norms, digital risks). Only 8% of adults 65+ say they’re online “almost constantly,” vs 48% of 18–29 a proxy for how different the information environment is that shapes decisions.
we take it for granted that someone below the age of 15-ish in the United States shouldn't be behind the wheel of an automobile, but that's not universally true. We try 18 year olds as adults, and that's not universally true, either.
It isn't a far leap to presume that people past a certain age meets the same psychological and mental/cognitive decline as the average person that age without testing.
You wouldn't expect a 95 year old to be eagle-eyed and athletic, to presume that their age isn't a deficit whatsoever is ageist from another perspective.
If I saw a person using a wheelchair I wouldn't wait for them to tell me that they needed a ramp for the staircase at the restaurant -- this too is -ist, but I see no real problem with it as a wheelchair user myself.
Somewhat similarly : the amount of 'with-it' and sober 95 year olds that I have met in real life makes me really question their fitness as an important member of a government group. Just like the presidency, these roles should probably be qualified into by participants with more than just votes.
If you're a 95 year old that passes the mental health and physical health examinations, more power to you , welcome to <government group>.
Plenty of 12 year old morons, and 90 year old razor sharp professors, as counter examples.
Either way, those same old folks are the ones who’d need to sign off on the rules banning their existence and I don’t see them doing that.
So who are the idiots exactly?
Personally, I think it’s the folks who think more rules will make a difference against someone who is explicitly great at violating rules and getting away with it. While pretending to be a moron.
Mother Nature has made this particular rule, and you can only fool her for so long. 80+ year old people do not belong in positions of power, any more than 8-year-olds do. They should step aside and let the next generation take responsibility for their own future.
(Or rather make them take responsibility, in the case of voters who insist on electing Trumps, Reagans, Bidens, and Feinsteins simply because those are the candidates they've heard about, due to their having been around the longest.)
If no one can unseat the king, they’re still the king.
Well, in theory, we weren't supposed to have kings here, but it appears that the voters are going to insist on one.
And after all, if they really are as dumb and incompetent as you say that should be easy eh?
That's my usual response to Trumpers complaining about Democrats in my own state's legislature. I have to say, though, that it doesn't work any better for me than it will for you.
OK so let's say it's ageism, why should I care again?
If your president can barely finish a coherent sentence and literally pisses in a plastic bag strapped to his leg I don't care how you call it but I want none of it
Same reason I don't leave my newborn baby alone with my 95 years old grandma who has dementia, call it ageism if you want, I call it basic common sense
It's usually used as a slur, though. Not letting 3 year olds drive is changing behavior based on age, but sometimes you should be treating people differently based on some external attribute they cannot help. If most people a certain age do not meet the minimum requirements for the task (such as being able to see over the steering wheel and having a good judgement about rapidly changing situations), it is not "ageism" to say they cannot do something. Banning 3 year olds from driving is different than only hiring under-40 software developers.
I bet plenty of managers/owners could make arguments about the over-40 group, like unwillingness to work stupid hours, whatever random tech stack they want, etc.
"Muh ageism" is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for these kinds of conversations. You have to make an effort to actually argue against the statements you disagree with. Are people 75-and-older agile and flexible enough, mentally, to perform in these positions? To connect with the constituents they represent? If the incidence of the requisite acuity does indeed drop with advanced age, are the individuals in government disproportionately among those who avoid issues? And, if so, how do you know?
>Are people 75-and-older agile and flexible enough, mentally, to perform in these positions?
All of them? No. But I also could introduce you to plenty of 25 year old's that aren't "agile and flexible enough, mentally to perform these positions". And it's often not even "mental agility" that is the problem with people in power, it's corruption, greed, and just plain old hate that is the problem. Those things don't have any age limits except maybe below 6 years old, and even then I've met some pretty nasty, spoiled toddlers.
>But I also could introduce you to plenty of 25 year old's that aren't "agile and flexible enough, mentally to perform these positions"
There are vanishingly-few 25-year-olds in national office, certainly not in proportion to their chunk of the overall population. But bringing them up at all is beside the point. The contention at hand is that there are too many elderly people, who are beyond their ability to perform adequately, in positions of power. If you would like to address that, feel free. But please stay on topic.
>There are vanishingly-few 25-year-olds in national office
Well thank [deity] for that, because many of them aren't fit for it. Neither are 75 year olds, but age doesn't really play that much of a factor - it's the people voting to put shitheads in positions of power no matter their age that are causing this damage in the first place.
>> "Muh ageism" is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for these kinds of conversations.
>There are vanishingly-few 25-year-olds in national office, certainly not in proportion to their chunk of the overall population. But bringing them up at all is beside the point.
Yes, it is the point - you made it the point with your "muh ageism" quip. I simply pointed out that age doesn't make a difference, but greed, corruption, and hate do.
>The contention at hand is that there are too many elderly people, who are beyond their ability to perform adequately, in positions of power.
There are also old people in power that are not "beyond their ability to perform adequately", and that's also a very subjective goalpost you're setting. Some of those shitty old politicians are doing exactly what their shitty constituents want them to, even if they are just holding the pen while someone younger moves their hand.
>But please stay on topic.
You made this about "muh ageism" not me, so all ages are fair to comment about. Shitty 25 year olds are actually worse than shitty 75 year olds, because shitty 25 year olds will be around much longer doing much more harm than a shitty 75 year old politician could. And again, it has nothing to do with age, and everything to do about corruption, greed, and hate. Those things are ageless.
Ok so then you compare the numbers and you see that one group is worse than the other. Just because you found one black pixel in a grey area doesn't mean its not white.
Old people are voting for old people, because they are not going to vote for kids. Does not matter that the "kid" is 45 year old who is much more attached to everyday reality than old people.
Benjamin Franklin would like a word with you (signed your declaration of independence at 70), as would Churchill, Picasso, Enzo Ferrari, Mother Theresa and a thousand others…
"In 1953, during his second stint as prime minister, Winston Churchill had a stroke after dinner. “No one seemed alarmed by [his] slurred speech and unsteadiness on his feet, one of the advantages of having a reputation for enjoying alcohol,” writes Andrew Roberts, a historian. For several weeks, as Churchill was incapable of governing, his son-in-law and private secretary in effect ran the country. He never fully recovered, yet refused to stand down until 1955, when he was 80. "
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/07/03/senility-in-hi...
Churchill at all ages is exactly what the US should be trying to avoid - he was the best product of a generation of politicians who took the greatest empire in the history of the world and flubbed the economics and diplomacy so badly that it has become a footnote.
If the plan is to reduce the reach of Washington to Virginia and DC then Churchill would be a great choice of leader and if that is the explicit goal then ok sure. If the plan is to maintain a peaceful status quo as a powerful and successful country people like Churchill in the leadership are a very bad sign indeed.
You have to assume the UK had no power to influence its internal or world affairs to conclude that its political class were competent through the last century. Which is a crazy stance given where they were in the early 1900s.
Not to be an anglophile but you are seriously giving that generation of british rulers a lack of credit. They stood up for the international order and joined two wars that destroyed them financially. Britain could have sat both of those world wars out. They could have said its not a big deal that germany invsde belgium or poland. But they willingly and knowingly undertook an expensive endeavor for a greater good.
When their empire was then faltering aftet world war ii, they then let them go. They set them up to be independent and had peaceful transfers of power instead of bloody civil wars like France and Portugal did. They didnt do it perfect. But they gave them independence, in democracies, with books of laws, and set them up in international organizations.
Britain took the losing hand and tried to set up a situation that a rules based world order could thrive in, and churchill was amongst the men in charge for that.
> But they willingly and knowingly undertook an expensive endeavor for a greater good.
Let's not go that far. They joined the war because of literal decades of politicking done beforehand in order to secure an alliance with France and Russia. Germany wanted more prestige, more colonies and a Navy. Britain, being the preeminent colonial and naval power, would prefer that didn't happen.
Your view on if the allies were justified in wanting to contain the ambitions of Germany probably depends on if you see Germany as justified in wanting a bigger slice of the pie that the other powers of the time were currently taking up, or if you see Germany as a buffoon that upset the existing balance of power for selfish reasons. But Britain entering into those alliances made conflict inevitable, and I find it hard to see any selflessness in desiring or preserving empire. They all paid dearly in the end.
Gp was probably talking about Churchill last stint, after 70, where he was extraordinarily bad for his country. I know leftists usually blame Thatcher, but to me she mostly tried to make up for what the post-WW2 UK government broke. At least unlike France, they managed the decolonization peacefully.
Churchill post-WW2, Picasso after 60, Ferrari after 58 (his son died and that's a _really_ good excuse tbh, he might have stayed sharp if not for that) are good example for people who think humans after 60 mentally decline.
Why would there need to be a hard limit on something the electorate is already directly voting on? You might say every election is an election on if people above X age should be in congress.
Not sure what is the solution, but if people say they would prefer younger "options" and they don't materialize on the ballots, that is a sign that the system does not work as intended.
Which really makes you wonder how well the system is really working. Of course I don’t know this but I feel like if you asked everyone, the majority of people would say that 95, or 90, or 85 is too old to be in congress. But somehow they keep getting reelected…
Aging population means that many democracies will have more old than young voters. Couple that with the American culture of f you I’ve got mine, leads to a prioritization not on the future generations.
We have an age limit in so many fields. Being in congress should have one, too. Aging affects many parts of our brain (negatively) responsible for cognition.
There are incredibly smart and talented 12 year olds that are not allowed to vote due to age. Agism is pervasive in our culture, old and young, so we should ask if the discrimination is pragmatic or not. Moral or not. Legal or not.
While young people can be considered immature until certain age, old people have big taboo about senility and dementia. As you are not allowed to vote and drive until certain age, you should not be allowed to vote and drive since certain age, because your brain could be considered immature again through degeneration.
There are 13 Senators, out of 120, who are over 75, as far as I can see. I don't think we can attribute all the problems to them - there's not enough of them. I mean, some of the elders in Congress - like Pelosi, Waters, Nadler, Durbin, etc. - would do well to retire, but not every single one of them is "not all there". By a coincidence, I've met one of those 13 about a month ago (not personally, on an event, but it was a small event and I could see and hear him very well) and he certainly wasn't a youngster but I didn't see any obvious degradation of mental facilities. That said, I don't think term limits and mandatory retirement age is such a bad idea for top politicians, just don't expect it to fix much.
I remember in the 1970s when the Soviet Union was called a gerontocracy. Gorbachev becoming general Secretary at the age of 54 was seen as a breath of fresh air. As your chart shows, one third of the US Senate is over the age of 70. We have people like Biden and Trump as president. Sign of the times (who are respectively 10 and 7 years older than Xi). Incidentally, Xi is the oldest member of the Politburo Standing Committee.
> I learned today Chuck Grassley plans to run again and would be 95 years old in congress. This is insane.
The age of the senior senator from Iowa is like 537th on the list of major problems this country is facing.
I mean, let's be real. Would a bunch of spry 30-somethings in the senate have prevented the Assault on Tylenol or the coming invasion of Portland? Seems beyond dubious.
One thing I've realized it that the Democratic party is a machine. It rewards loyalty and waiting your turn. It punishes getting out of line and challenging incumbents.
Parts of the Republican party are too of course (hence Grassley) but it's been the target of several successful insurgencies. First the tea party and then Trump. Now it's turning into something completely different.. a cult of personalty for a dictator.
But the intact machine is the reason why the Democrats can not rise to the occasion. Their whole system is one designed to produce dour grey apparatchiks.
I learned today Chuck Grassley plans to run again and would be 95 years old in congress. This is insane.
If you've worked retail you know many above 75 are not all there, plain and simple.
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025...