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Welcome to America, where you’re never quite sure if your senator is dead or not
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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there really ought to be an age limit to being in government, in much the same way you have to be over a certain age to run for pres.
The problem is we have a generational conveyor belt problem.
The 80 year olds are running the Senate, taking the jobs the 70 year olds should have. The 70 year olds are holding the jobs of the 60 year olds. Etc.
If you implement term limits, there's inevitably going to be a generation of leaders that never gets a shot at the top posts. Imagine you're a Senator in your 70s. You've been waiting patiently for leadership posts for years, working jobs that should have been for someone 10-20 years younger than you. You were told to wait your turn, and you did! You did everything you were supposed to. Then some young upstart comes along and wants to implement term limits that will mean you'll never get that shot at leadership you've been waiting years for. Would you support term limits?
If there are ever going to be term limits, they'll have to be implemented by a constitutional convention or mass popular movement voting out any leader that won't support term limits.
Minimum age is insane to me as well. In AU it's like "Well you have to be a legal adult to become a member of the house of representatives" so that's the closest we have.
Cut politicians off at 70 bare minimum
waaaaay before 70. at 70, they likely have some dementia. I'm thinking 60.
There's plenty of 70 year olds cooking your arse son. Having said that, if it's for a 4 year term I agree they shouldnt be able to run after 72-75 . There are some very energetic 79 year olds. There's also plenty that are 5 years away from death.
The risk of dementia goes upb with age but there are many many 70-year-olds wandering around who are still perfectly capable. In fact I would be willing to bet that the majority of 70-year-olds don't have dementia.
My 96 year old neighbor is building something out of wood with his table saw in his garage right now after driving his truck to the lumber yard this morning. Broadly speaking I get cutting people off but sixties would be wild to me. I’m not all that far off from my sixties, I think I used to think that seemed older than it was in my twenties and thirties.
I don't think there should be an age limit but I don't think it's unreasonable beyond a certain age to require people to prove cognitive function. There are many countries in the world where they do that for driving tests which seems perfectly reasonable.