They know that he’s way too narcissistic to ever step down and the republicans controlled legislative branch has no shot of impeaching him again
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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That's because "News" is a product for the poors. 🤌🏼
I love that so many on the American left are still enthusiasticly defending the candidacy of an elderly man in rapid mental decline, who at the end of his (then) current term was set to be the oldest ever president, older than the four (4) (!!!) people that most recently held the office before him, out of which three served two consecutive terms, their combined terms totalling 28 years. At the time of the 2024 election, there were five living ex presidents in the US.
Nobody should have to explain how batshit fucking insane that is.
The hole the US is in wasn't dug by people who weren't motivated to vote for Biden or his unpopular ad hoc replacement. By the 2024 election it was plenty deep already, more than a decade in the making. Ceding ground in the vote might have been foolish, but would ultimately not have changed the trajectory. The sooner you realize things were already broken, maybe you can get to work fixing it.
I don't disagree on your last point, but age is a factor that I don't think matters as much as you imply at first. In the sense that different people are affected in different ways. A good president or politician won't be defined by their age. You know who is older than Biden? Sanders, and he might be one of the most lucid and seemingly good politicians all around (but I'm not in the USA so my understanding is limited, at least what I have heard of him is extremely positive).
That's not to say that I'd rather have younger people involved in important roles in politics, there's too many that should be completely retired, and Biden is one of them. But age is not the main issue.
I think it's complete nonsense that a president (or any person) will not be defined by being of an extremely high age. It's not just about their health, though the risk that a very old person will be affected by diseases related to old age within a four year term obviously is high compared to the population in general.
Another particularly disturbing thing is that people that old are not accountable to death. They're living on borrowed time and are not expected to live to see the long term consequences of their decisions. Biden was several year past the average life expectancy in the US when he left office (i.e. would have started his second term).
Age may not have been the main issue, but it – gerontocracy – for sure is an issue on its own. That there aren't more prominent leaders that are younger and have strong popular support is surely more worrisome though.
Generic statements such as "X age is too old for anyone to be president" is the issue. Some people at 80 could be healthy and lucid enough to be president and some at 60 might not. Age is not a limiting factor equally for everyone, so such judging should be made individually for each person and not with a blank statement.
Not accountable to death is a complex topic, for the same reason that they won't see the consequences of their ruling, they might also rule for more "pure" reasons and not to make friends in high places or pocket all they can to retire and live life. So I'm not sure that's the negative point you seem to think it is.
The fact that someone is more likely to die soon shouldn't be a reason to block them from doing something long term, or think they can't provide a real positive effect.
What we do agree on is that the lack of younger representation in politics is indeed a worrying topic.
I don’t think you truly appreciate how old 80+ is.
Politics, as a business, is about the future – not the past. I really don’t believe someone who’s formative years were in the post-war era and first entered national politics during the fucking Vietnam war (!) has perspective that is very representative (as opposed to occasionally valuable) of the populace that, themselves or their spawn, have to face the challenges of living in the current era – whether you consider it a new golden age or ”late stage capitalism”. Furthermore, I really don’t subscribe to ideas that have so little resonance that they couldn’t be represented by a gamut of people. If you think you need to rely on the elderly (Sanders) or those with feeble, Trump adjacent minds and actual brain damage (Fetterman), you don’t believe enough in the ideas themselves – and that’s a huge fucking problem. Don’t downplay that part we’re in agreement over to justify that someone, hypothetically, somehow, could be above it all and be a great representative even if they are completely removed from the people that will actually have to inhabit the Earth they leave behind.
That’s not to say I think your points are entirely moot. I just think you’re overplaying hypotheticals that we really should not accept at face value.
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