this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
16 points (68.2% liked)
World News
461 readers
7 users here now
News from outside of Australia
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Possibly the most demanding and stressful job in the world. Even 'young' guys come out looking 20 years older.
I know! Let's have two eighty year olds run for president! Democracy rocks!
I am not in the US and struggle to understand why things work the way they do but it seems large parts of the country are impossibly conservative in ways that outsiders simply can’t comprehend. Things that seem like common sense to everyone else can’t happen there for very deep cultural reasons that aren’t in the normal experience of people in other western democracies. They depend on their Supreme Court to decide law on things that elsewhere are determined by legislation because any politician taking a political stance is painting a target on themselves. It doesn’t seem like an environment favorable to young leaders who want to make a difference.
The country was broken by electing a man with brown skin and the thought of electing a woman after sent them firmly down the path to Christian nationalist fascism. Not sure I would want to see how they react to a young candidate. I imagine it would be savage. I think the age of the president is by far a lesser concern than their executive team and policies and given both are extremely old and with very obvious health issues they cancel out so people should focus on more important differences.
Part of the problem for the Democrats is that an entire generation of talent was wiped out under Obama. A lot of the candidates who would have come through and been at the right age now never had a chance under his presidency. The Democrats lost more House, Senate, state legislative and governors seats during his eight years in power than during any other period in history.