e; I wrote a better headline than the ABC editors decided to and excerpted a bit more
According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old.
Sixty-two percent of Americans think Trump, who is 77, is too old to serve as president. There is a large difference in how partisans view their respective nominees – 73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve. Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump.
Concerns about both candidates’ ages have increased since September when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 74% of Americans thought Biden – the oldest commander in chief in U.S. history – was too old to serve another term as president, and 49% said the same about Trump.
Part that drew my eye,
The poll also comes days after the Senate failed to advance a bipartisan foreign aid bill with major new border provisions.
Americans find there is blame to go around on Congress’ failure to pass legislation intended to decrease the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border – with about the same number blaming the Republicans in Congress (53%), the Democrats (51%) and Biden (49%). Fewer, 39%, blame Trump.
More Americans trust that Trump would do a better job of handling immigration and the situation at the border than Biden – 44%-26% – according to the poll.
So that bipartisan border bill stunt was terrible policy, and it doesn’t seem to have done anything for the Democratic party politically
Can we please stop trying to compromise with fascists now?
We have a minimum age to become president, 35, so if that doesn’t qualify as “age discrimination” then a maximum age limit shouldn’t either.
65 should be the max, you get 30 years to try for the presidency then you’re forced to retire.
And honestly that should be the maximum age for any elected official, not just the president.
In America age discrimination is only illegal once you’re 40 years old…
If you’re 39 and 11 months, you can be denied a senior position for being too young, even if you have 20 years experience
Because old people write our laws, and they don’t see a problem with telling a middle aged adult that they’re too young.
If only one out of two groups have protection, it’s not equaly opportunity, it’s legislated discrimination.
It’s insane because republicans constantly complain about valid equal opportunity, but never mention the one that’s actually discriminatory.
It’s especially insane when we have to pretend like an 81 year old magically is immune to scientifically proven medical facts
It is age discrimination but it’s legal because it’s built-in to the Constitution. Not joking, the “founders” decided that there was a such thing as too young but not too old.
People back then had an average lifespan of 39-56. A 70 year-old in 1780 would be exceptional.
Not really. The lifespan includes GIGANTIC numbers of babies dying at birth–that brings down the average in a big way. Poor people also had it harder. If you were a rich person? 80 wasn’t a big deal.
Doubt. In 1890*, if you made it to 20, it was a 50/50 chance of making it to 65 and about a 1 in 3 chance of making it to 75. 1 in 3 is hardly exceptional. Just slightly better than average. You need to go to 85 to the top 10% and mid-90s to get top 1%, which is what I’d start to think of as exceptional. Most of the difference between 1780 and 1890 was liking decrease in mortality in the 0-25 yo range, so I wouldn’t expect there to be much difference for 1780 data starting with 20yos.
*https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life1890-1910.pdf using the table on page 127
Why 65? It seems like many people nowadays are totally coherent at that age. I don’t even think of 65 as old as this point. I can’t think of any other occupation that’s forced to retire then.
Anything with eyes would say they are old. Yes, a 2-party system is broken in the modern world. Still Biden/ Harris as president is better then Putin’s cuddle buddy.
Yes, a 2-party system is broken in the modern world.
I would love to have a 2-party system. But we have closer to a constellation of one party systems. Red States and Blue States, with a smattering of battlegrounds.
Between Winner-Take-All districts and the Electoral College, there’s very little incentive to participate in an election in a municipality or state that’s overwhelmingly one team or the other. And even when you do participate, you’re limited to… what? People blowing up your phone and email with donation requests? A few months of block walking for a local candidate who you get to meet maybe twice and who barely knows your name? Running around bothering your friends a week before voting day not to sleep through this one? Getting drunk at a campaign event on election night, only to be dropped like a bad habit in the morning?
The parties themselves aren’t really political entities. They’re more like boosters for professional athletics teams or celebrity tours that you’re expected to cheer for but never really interact with. They don’t do anything outside of an election season. They don’t provide any kind of constituent service or artery to the leadership themselves.
This consumerist politics is genuinely very different from the kind of organizing and activism that takes place throughout the rest of the democratic world. If it feels like Biden and Trump are just kinda being foisted on us by a cartel of party insiders, there’s a good reason for it.
I was under the impression that even in other countries, activism is generally separate from the political parties and it’s more like activist groups putting pressure on candidates and organizing for them if they are more favorable, and sometimes getting something in return.
I’ve seen exceptions, but I gather they are rare (and we can already see some change as the party is under pressure to become more “normal” and “competitive”).
I was under the impression that even in other countries, activism is generally separate from the political parties
You can see activist political movements operating in real time, in Pakistan and India right now. The Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf has been openly contesting the soft coup imposed by the state security services against former Prime Minister Imran Khan. And the India National Congress has been a big part of the outright mass mobilization of northern Indian farmers shutting down highways and blockading exports over the current President’s plan to privatize the agricultural sector.
And a president isn’t just the presidency, it also sets tons of agency heads and tons of judicial appointments including potential Supreme Court nominations. It’s a major mistake to think of a presidential vote as a vote for one person, it’s for tons of incredibly important positions that the president decides.
Even if that’s true, wouldn’t a younger person be better equipped to appoint and oversee those positions?
It is true, that’s not up to debate, it’s just how the government works. Yes a younger person would be better but the point is that the effects reach much further than the single candidate.
Yes, but that conversation gets too close to having a conversation about the people who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. And we can’t have a conversation about that because the rational conclusion would be: it was selfish and foolish to vote for Joe Biden in the 2020 primaries.
Go away RFK jr., no one is buying you as a candidate. Fucking lurking around here!
I literally don’t care if they Weekend at Bernies Biden, I will vote for him happily if the alternative is Trump.
Biden could drop out and they could nominate a literal piece of driftwood covered in seagull shit, and I would vote for the driftwood if it were between that and Trump.
This might be the enlightened libertarian in me talking now, but I believe said driftwood would also be superior to Biden.
Which illustrates the missing piece of this conversation: When are we going to talk about the people who voted for him in the 2020 primaries? When are we going to state, repeatedly, voting for Biden in the 2020 primaries was a selfish and foolish thing to do?
73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve. Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump.
This is one of the really interesting takeaways. People are looking at Biden’s gaffes–and he has always made verbals gaffes throughout his career as a politician–and saying that it’s a sign that he’s too old. Meanwhile, Trump, who trails Biden by a mere four years of age, is viewed as energetic and mentally sharp by Republicans. So essentially, Dems are pretty realistic in their assessment of both candidate’s ages, while Republicans are only realistic about Biden.
Also - forcing the Senate to vote against their own compromise bill, a bill they’d worked on for months, was a fantastic bit of hilarity. They know that they’re not going to be able to get a better bill under Trump–because the majority in the Senate would still shoot down their worst tendencies–but they couldn’t risk bucking Trump. So they undid all their own work. ::chef kiss::
Meanwhile, Trump, who trails Biden by a mere four years of age, is viewed as energetic and mentally sharp by Republicans. So essentially, Dems are pretty realistic in their assessment of both candidate’s ages, while Republicans are only realistic about Biden.
I would bet my entire life savings that if you asked exactly the same Republicans exactly the same question about Trump in 4 years, their response would be exactly the same. Their assessment is not whether an 81 year old is too old to serve, it’s that an 81 year old Democrat is too old to serve.
That is cause the other 65% think Trump is too crazy to serve
Haha, a man can dream …
There are a fair number of Republicans that still think that Trump is a bridge too far. My parents, for instance; they’ve been reliable Republicans since, shit, Nixon?, and since 2016 they’ve been largely voting Democratic. Especially because all the people running as Republicans in their state are bitshit crazy MAGA-cultists. But if they could vote for a Jeb Bush, or a Mittens Romney, they would absolutely do it. I’m pretty sure that they’d vote for Nikki Haley, even though she’s probably more conservative than Trump, because she’s better at hiding how much pandering she does to the extreme right wing, and has some tact and decorum. (And, to be fair, Haley is consistently conservative, for the most part. Trump et al. are not; they’re far-right populists, not necessarily conservative in all or even most of their actions.)
Well, too bad. Those are the only two viable options, so most likely it’s going to be one or the other. The time to do something about it has long passed. All we can do is hope Trump is jailed or either of them die.
There was NEVER anything any of us could do. The moment Biden announced he would run for reelection, everyone who mattered fell in line.
As it should be. Anything else would have been giving the GOP a golden ticket for their golden turd
as it should be
No, it should not be.
There was once a time when politicians would use election time to debate the president anyway, allowing up and coming politicians to get their views and voice out there while also letting the current president show their strength, conviction, and skill even within their own party. Time that’s used for inter-Party debates is time where that party’s points are being broadcast to all, as well.
But now that we’re all so scared Trump’s gonna win were tossing that in the garbage because “any question to Biden at all means we get a fascist!”, which is only gonna bite the US in the ass when Dems eventually have nobody that’s well known ready to take the seat
Biden absolutely should have been challenged in the primaries by competent Dems that will be the next generation
All we can do is hope Trump is jailed
Nothing in the Constitution bars Trump from holding the Office of the President while in a super max prison.
Absolutely nothing.
Maybe, but good luck doing it from there.
I think congress would have to make a ruling on that and I doubt they would say that he could be president in prison.
Congress has no say here unless they decide to try an impeachment and then the Senate would have to remove. Otherwise, there’s nothing to stop this from happening. You’d genuinely have secret service people in the prison and intelligence officers doing daily briefings and the VP would be the one to be present for events, meetings, etc.
The democratic primary has hardly started, its literally exactly the time to do something.
That’s not how that works. Even if we somehow managed to bypass filing deadlines up get this theoretical candidate on the ballot (that have likely already been printed, and in many cases mailed out), they don’t really have time to get their message out and persuade voters. You don’t just start running for president 3 weeks from super Tuesday.
The only way Biden isn’t the democratic nominee is if he steps down or is really incapable. And then it’s pretty much guaranteed to be Harris. I don’t think most people want that.
If democrats wanted a different candidate, they needed to start like 6 months ago minimum.
Democrats do want a different candidate, and have been very vocal about it for 4 years.
The DNC does not.
Thank you. I’ve said this multiple times and people keep griping about it anyway.
And you don’t see that as the end of your country? Nothing else left to do but vote for ham sandwiches? Lol
I thought y’all liked freedom or some shit.
I just find it really weird that you can be under such heavy legal proceedings and still be eligible to hold office, like in general. If a teacher is suspected of being inappropriate with students, they’re pulled. If a president is inappropriate with democracy, they can run a second term?
Last time I expressed my incredulousness over this, I was told “innocent until proven guilty”, but again, with the above example; if a teacher is suspected of being inappropriate towards student, they are pulled and put on leave for the investigation.
It seems to me that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to be the president incumbent until all the legal stuff he’s through clears.
