It's time to start voting based on candidate age alone
Get these ancient, out-out-of touch pieces of crap out of leadership
They know fuck-all about our new digital society, are a thousand times more racist than anyone sixty years younger, and are so physically incapable that a 2-inch step up across the threshold becomes a matter of national security. It could be argued 20 years ago that they weren't fit for leadership, their continued presence in the halls of the Capitol building simply produces almost daily evidence of the fact. Truly at this point it doesn't border on the absurd, it blows straight past it.
We've been run by dinosaurs for too long, and "ha-ha old person" gaffs aren't rare, but a good pair of high profile ones this week renew calls for elderly representatives to get out of the damn way. We can't push them too hard though, they'll break a hip.
But you don't have to take my word for it:
Emily Jacobs, Congressional Reporter
Kristin Wilson
Matthew Loh
Cameron Joseph
Chris Cillizza
Paul Blest
At least the idea of Mitch McConnell falling straight onto his face makes me laugh. Bipartisan well-wishing can go in the trash.
It isn't ageist if it's unfair representation
Voters apparently don't mind older candidates. Hell, most voters are as old or older than the candidates they elect. It could be speculated that the state of things is acceptable because people defer to their elders as simple acknowledgement of life experience; but in the last thirty years this has become more of a liability than an asset.
Government leadership in the United States has long languished on producing effective change of any sort. Climate change, the green-washed term for global warming, has proceeded unabated since the industrial revolution. Wealth extraction by the rich from the rest of society has only increased at the cost of global health; billionaires forcing us into a sweltering hot-tub of pandemics. The only good amount of progress McConnell is responsible for is making his constituents poorer, fatter, and angry at the wrong people. If the average age of the House of Representatives or the Senate doesn't change, none of the individuals responsible for continuing full steam ahead will be capable of understanding the hell they've driven us into, or even alive.
None of this fairly represents the population of a country that is increasingly diverse, increasingly trapped, and increasingly aware.
Where are the younger candidates then?
I mean they barely vote, can it be expected that they register for elections and campaign? The articles above that aim to draw attention to an increasingly out-of-touch and incapable group of leaders never touch on solutions or causes. This piece is full of bad fucking language, and is going straight into The Appeal's garbage opinion section, so I can't be assed to do actual research. Instead we'll speculate.
No one but the oldies vote, so no one but the oldies want to run for office?
Is it an issue of access? I would like to be able to generalize about "today's youth" being more technologically inclined, but this isn't true. The age of candidacy for a Representative in the house is 25. Within that age range you'll find software developers with an understanding of hierarchical file systems—the fancy computer term for folders in folders—and overly medicated TikTok addicts who only know how to push button get combination skin-care/dance routine. The absolute state of things. If they were motivated there's not reason these people wouldn't be able to get their names on ballots; the information necessary should be freely accessible by computer literate persons. Perhaps this isn't even the problem; for all this author knows there are plenty of fresh 25 year olds attempting to be House Representatives, it's just that they're not winning.
A high schooler trapped in the grips of a dissociative personality disorder forced on them by an inability to disconnect from social media is probably more in tune with the day-to-day struggle of the American people, and more capable of not only having the empathy required to feel something about it, but also the social skills and tie-ins necessary to collect popular opinion and synthesize an understanding of the zeitgeist. This is depressingly close to what representational leadership should be actually doing, at least loosely conceptually. Those that have grown up knowing that the news is trash and basically everything you read is a lie place less stock in Fox news reports that ensnare their parents.
"Youths" aren't perfect either though
If it's not Fox news though it'll be Andrew Tate radicalizing them into small-dick misogyny or trying to beat the previous mass shooter's high score.
It doesn't matter anyway, just try to make happy moments while the world literally burns. Thanks grandpa.
