Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell struck up a friendship during their nearly quarter-century in the Senate together. Now in their 80s, the Democratic president and the Senate GOP leader appear to be giving political cover to each other as they fend off questions about their advanced age and health issues.
Notably, McConnell, R-Ky., 81, hasn’t joined Donald Trump, 77, and other Republicans who have attacked Biden’s age, health and mental acuity as he seeks re-election.
And after McConnell’s second freeze-up last week, Biden was one of the first to call McConnell, telling reporters that his “friend” sounded like “his old self” and that such episodes are a “part of his recovery” from a fall and a concussion this year.
I do have to admit, after getting concussed I also appeared to freeze but I was thinking hard of what the right word is to say next.
That said, probably anyone in concussion recovery should be on leave from legislating. The brain will heal more slowly, and your work will be of poor quality.
That’s all before getting into the actual politics of having a gerentocracy.
I know a lot of people have talked a out adding an age limit, but it seems to me most of the ancient ones are skating by on incumbent effect. If we had term limits it would resolve that. Alternatively something like the Virginia Gubernatorial rules where you cannot hold the position successively.
I dunno I don’t feel good about setting laws about who should be eligible to run for public office. The voters should decide who is eligible and who isn’t.
Yeah there’s a lot of dumb voters out there, but the general idea that we’re smarter than the voters and therefore need to make laws that supersede the voters feels wrong to me.
I think the problem of voters being dumb is just something we have to accept about democracy.
That’s the beauty of the “can’t hold the position consecutively” rule.
It doesn’t matter what age, party, or how long you’ve been in office.
You can always run for a different office, or wait for the next term to run again.
Might be a bit weird with the House.
Voters being dumb and electing incumbent yet incapable people is not just democracy, but populism. Especially when those in power have been in power for so long that they meddle in education funding to keep said voters dumb
Democracy and populism are mutually exclusive?
Especially when those in power have been in power for so long that they meddle in education funding to keep said voters dumb
Improving education is indeed the solution to the problem. And it’s a thing that is more likely to happen than a law prohibiting those currently in power from running again.
IMO it’s useless talking about what laws or policies need to change to fix this because the people with the power to change it know that doing so will affect their ability to stay in power and just won’t change it to their detriment. It’s the same reason protesting won’t ever fix the fundamental issues. The people currently at the top aren’t just going to hand their power away or cripple their ability to easily generate or access wealth. If it comes to it, they’ll go to war before giving that up.
Then it follows that it’s also useless to even discuss such things on the internet. So why even bring up these topics if it’s impossible to change anything?
Or are you just spending time posting on the internet in an attempt discourage others from trying to improve things?
Solving a problem requires understanding it. I’m not trying to discourage improvement but want more people to see what I see about the nature of what’s going on and how many of these flaws in the system aren’t seen that way by the people who pass the laws and make the policies.
I don’t know either. It feels shortsighted and bigoted to do things like that. The issue is that when votes in Kentucky vote the rest of us have to endure how they vote. Term limits could and should be tried. So even when the voters make a mistake the mistake doesn’t linger around.
It would solve a lot of problems of the Senate if we set the term limit to 0.
The solution is simply better education. Which solves a lot of problems beyond codgers like Mitch McConnell. There are plenty of other terrible people running for office that wouldn’t be prevented from doing so by such laws. But these terrible people wouldn’t have a chance of winning an election in a better educated population.
I have the same occasional issue with forgetting words after a TBI, and have worked with people in recover who have it much worse than I. It’s an interesting outcome when simple words just cannot be recalled. To fabricate an example; I know what this object is, a tool for writing, it’s in my hand, it has ink, but what the hell is it called. (a pen) - it can be for the most mundane and common words.
However; I don’t go slackjaw and become completely nonresponsive for 10-20 seconds. This guy needs to be in medical care.
You’re right, it’s never as long as this. I am young, though so I don’t know how it would show in an ancient man hahaha.
I don’t see the appeal in insisting everything is fine. I would rather see my leaders saying “hey, I don’t feel good so I’m going to take some time to get healthy”.
The hubris of man
I appreciated that about Fetterman. I feel as though he presented his injury as something humans go through. He will continue his job, at times with assistance, and do the best he is able. He didn’t need to step down and he is not incapable of doing his job, but he has a flaw and is honest of it.
Yeah bruh, I’ll take Brandon over any traitor republican.
I’ll take my neighbors over any rich ass hole.
You have to have a sense of irony for that to be true, and conservatives tend to lack a sense of irony.
They also don’t care about hypocrisy. So shit like this doesn’t phase them one bit, yet MSM still hasn’t gotten the memo lol.
complicate attacks on Biden’s age
Do they, though? For that to be true, the following would also have to be true:
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The people mad about Hunter Biden making money on his dad’s name would also be mad about Trump’s kids doing that
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The people mad about Obama taking vacations (or golfing) while in office would also have been mad when Trump took more vacation time and golfed more
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The people mad about Clinton lying about a blowjob would also be mad about Trump’s infidelity and lying
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etc.
I’m going with: it doesn’t complicate anything. They don’t care about their people living up to the standards they demand others live up to, the point for them is that double-standards are a feature, not a bug.
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This would be devastating if conservatives cared at all about hypocrisy or logical consistency.
how? people vote for the seniors to lead no matter what letter their name starts with or what color their shirt is
but there was noone else on the ballet but the other person with a different name and color would win if we do not vote for this person
Obama and Biden had someone chained to chair for eight hours because she wanted to be on the same debate floor as the demopublicans Biden still got votes https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala
They’re both too old! And McConnell is a rhino who secretly is best friends with Nacy Pelosi and senator Feinstein. They all sit around together on the weekends babbling, freezing, forgetting where they are and pooping their pants like little babies.
Attacking somebody else for something they do themselves has never been an issue for them before now.
Yeah it cannot be just used on Biden anymore.
When has being hypocritical ever stopped the GOP?
Why do Democrats keep entertaining the notion that rank hypocrisy will ever be a dealbreaker for Republicans? They have decades of evidence to the contrary.
See also: finally, this heinous act will make Republicans see the light and abandon the assholes manipulating them!
Because Democrats have absolutely no idea who they are dealing with. They have never understood just what the GOP is and what their goals are. They reject all evidence as anomaly that can simply be handwaved away with “we have to vote”.
Its supporting evidence to me. Neither should be in office.
Imagine what a cakewalk it would be if the Democrats could scrape up a viable candidate under 65
Or this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Ossoff
Wow, I’ve never heard of him but he does look good.
- Bachelor’s from Georgetown.
- Master’s from the London School of Economics.
- Experience as an Investigative journalist in Africa and the Middle East.
- Interned in the Senate under civil rights icon John Lewis.
- First ever millennial Senator.
- Progressive (by American standards).
Definitely well qualified.
The only downside is that he’s pretty unknown, having only been a senator since 2021.
Nope, against 2nd Amendment.
Fuck the 2nd Amendment.
No u
Is he trying to abolish it or what? lol
He just has the audacity that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t preclude gun control laws.
Just straight up ignore it iirc
He polled terribly in his 2016 run. His popularity improved during Trump’s presidency, especially during the impeachment hearings, but the Republicans will hammer him on his relationship with the alleged Chinese spy Christine Fang
I honestly don’t care what the Republicans say, he’s a great representative and that’s what we need. Look at what they’re saying about Biden while he’s doing a pretty great job. It doesn’t matter.
I’m just saying it wouldn’t be a cakewalk with Swalwell. Honestly I don’t think it’s possible for any candidate to have a sweeping victory like Reagan vs Mondale anymore. The voters loyal to Trump at this point are just frothing at the mouth for a dictator. That alone should give any Democratic nominee a cakewalk victory, but we all saw how close the 2020 election was. The Republicans will use Christine Zang to whip up the MAGA base and that will be enough to make it close, at least without a double-digit surge in voter turnout. But again, if defeating the literal fascists isn’t enough to bring out the non-voters, then I can’t believe there exists a candidate who can motivate the independent and progressive non-voters to come out and vote with the liberals and centrists.
Reagan vs Mondale was a once in a lifetime thing. It was right in the middle of a huge political realignment. The Southern Strategy was paying dividends for the Repubs and states like NY and California had yet to switch to being solid Democratic states. As a country we’ve always been hugely divided, that election was just an anomaly.
Right. Hence why I don’t think there will ever be a cakewalk of an election.
Trump had private meetings with Putin and does Putin’s bidding, do you really think they’ll have a leg to stand on? A bunch of them went to celebrate the 4th of July in Russia. You keep saying her name over and over and I had to look her up. They got nothing.
Trump had private meetings with Putin and does Putin’s bidding, do you really think they’ll have a leg to stand on?
No, I don’t. But that doesn’t matter to the republican voters. And that’s where I think the original assertion that the democractic party would have a cakewalk in 2024 with a candidate who is under 65 falls apart (let’s be honest, by definition a non-viable candidate can’t win, and Trump changed the definition of viable in 2016).
You keep saying her name over and over and I had to look her up. They got nothing.
You and I know that. But when Swalwell was seeing his approval ratings going up during Trump’s first impeachment hearing, this story is exactly what the republicans drudged up against him. And loyal republican voters will bring it up again if he runs for president again. And they’ll have no problem saying they have to vote against Swalwell because of it.
I like Swalwell. I would vote for him in the general if he’s the nominee based on what I know right now. But I’m saying I don’t think there is any candidate who could unify the progressive, liberal, centrist, independent, and non-voters enough to make the election a cakewalk. It should have been a cakewalk in 2016, but it wasn’t. It should have been a cakewalk in 2020 but Trump actually received more votes than in 2016. He actually won the second most votes in the history of the country in 2020! And he’s out here spouting literal fascism, while actively being prosecuted for like 100 felonies, including trying to subvert our democracy (ie fascism) and he’s trouncing the other republican primary candidates! He’s polling over 50% in the primary, and the second place candidate has less than a third of that!
The democrats could run literally Jesus, and I still think it would be a close election due him being a Jewish immigrant who hangs out with poor people and prostitutes (bunch of welfare moochers who just want free stuff and promote crime, think of the children), preaches we should sell our belongings to fund clothing, feeding, and sheltering the poor (communism!), and the whole love your neighbor thing (ie he’d probably tell Israel to chill out and be nice to the Palestinians, so that would totally ruin the Evangelicals’ plans for armageddon and the rapture).
democrats don’t want to win all the time, then they’d have to do stuff and keep improving
No one over 70, period. Go home. Retire. Make way.
It’s all about the slime of political relationships and whom you know for politicians, not actual work capacity.
Age limit tied to Social Security retirement age and joining the military, voting, smoking, and drinking tied to the same age (18 or 21, take your pick). We either need to say people are of the appropriate age to do these things, or not. This cherry-picking bullshit has to go. Also, term limits. The constitution wasn’t meant for a congressperson or senator to be in the same seat for 40+ years.
I totally agree with the sentiment but a small nitpick I have is that you lumped voting age in with the possibly lethal choices of military enlistment or being able to purchase alcohol and tobacco. Those last three should be together, I agree, and that age (IMO) should be the earliest age of least potential harm done, i.e. probably not right out of highschool when most people don’t have a good foundation and can easily fuck up their life with one bad choice. Voting should definitely be available at age of legal maturity, though. If society says you’re old enough for your parents to kick you out with no repurcussions they’d damn better let you at least say you’d like that one guy, who wants to make things easier for homeless 18 year olds, to be in charge.
I disagree. I understand your viewpoint, but we need a more clear cut way to determine someone’s “maturity” to make their own decisions. Voting can be indirectly lethal (using the term very loosely here). Ask one of the women who couldn’t get an abortion and died from delivery complications, or the recent study that said the rollbacks the last president made for pollution is estimated to have caused tens of thousands of deaths, or lack of COVID restrictions enforcement. It’s also currently arbitrary whether someone is tried as an adult in the case of a teenager that commits a homicide. So is the ability to give consent for intercourse, and that has a remote possibility of lethality too (delivery complications, STDs, etc.).
If only there was some sort of system by which voters could choose who their candidates are. Like before the general election parties could have internal elections to decide the candidates.
They could call it like a “First election” or even a “Primary election.”
At this point it is economically unfeasible for anyone under 40, unless you are an affluent trust fund baby, to pay all the money required to run for a presidential campaign.
This is why it’s always skewed towards old white men (hint: they can afford losing millions).
Literally no one ever has paid all of the money required to run a Presidential Campaign.
Sounds like you can easily run for president then, eh? Hypothetically speaking, if you were forced by gunpoint to run, what’s stopping you in particular?
My criminal history wouldn’t play well with voters. Small time drug possession, misdemeanor. It’s since been expunged (hence me having my current job), but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t come up.
Fun fact: I was actually offered the opportunity to run for state gov by my states party, and turned it down due to aforementioned criminal history.
I don’t know what fucking fantasy reality you live in where no criminals run for office; we the attorney General of Texas, George Santos indictment, Americas mayor Rudy Juliani indictment, fucking Trump. We can keep going on literally forever listing criminal pieces of shit who have been in government positions.
Your argument here is failing.
You’re describing situations that the public very much is aware of.
I’m not concerned with getting in trouble. I was concerned with winning the election and I know who my potential constituents would have been and their feelings on marijuana possession.
It’s on the ballot to be recreational in my state so maybe I’ll revisit after that passes, as the optics would improve significantly.
I’m not interested in running an already-uphill campaign with an albatross around my neck. Consider that, as a potential candidate, I have superior knowledge of my electorate than some random dude who doesn’t even know where I live.
Judging from the Republicans presidential candidates debate, the selection is limited to idiots, stupid idiots, and dangerous idiots.
That’s who their voters want. You’re mad at republican voters. I don’t know why people don’t realize that.
I am constantly angry at ignorant, uneducated, rural retards. Yes, you are correct.
Keep in mind that includes Bernie Sanders.
And that would be okay.
It’s so weird how everyone expects progressives to be just as hypocritical as moderates and conservatives…
Bernie would 100% be down for it and immediately pivot to outreach or something else if he could hold office.
He’s been saying he’s not more important than the movement for decades now
Bernie is an ineffectual, failure of a career politician who can’t get anything done, not even rally the support of his own party, let alone the whole country. He’s a dinosaur who has been too long in politics and lives a few rungs above us all on the ladder and has no idea how we really live.
We need someone young and capable to rally behind, forget Bernie.
About a hundred of his amendments made it in various bill proposal. A bunch of which became laws. You can’t really blame him for the broken party system in which he’s not even taking part. One man can’t single handly fix congress
If he can’t fix the broken system then he’s useless to us
Gee, I had no idea that it was his responsibility alone to run this government.
Maybe you’d should read a book on political movements.
While I agree he didn’t do much from a legislative point of view, calling him a failure is missing the fact that he represented a voice that’s rarely heard in American politics, which might have paved the way people like AOC or Fetterman. Also the fact that he still holds the same views after 30 years is something that can serve as an antidote to cynicism. He’s an inspiring figure to many, and inspiration is important in politics.
but he alone didnt change legislation (in a democracy) therefore he’s a failure
The ignorance of this comment is astounding
Yes just like the anti-abortionists failed again and again until they succeeded in taking away rights. Building a movement takes time, especially if it’s not flush with corporate money.
We need someone young and capable to rally behind, forget Bernie.
Literally what Bernie has been saying for 20 years champ, glad you agree with him
Yet HE ran for president and failed. If Bernie wants young blood, why the fuck was he running?
What he said…
Raising awareness for the progressive cause, and motivating the youth to participate in politics. Not just voting in the general, but voting in the primary and running for office.
You’ve got really strong opinions about him, but don’t seem to know anything about him.
It really seems like the two of you agree on a lot. You’re just really uninformed…
Who, pray tell, should have run in his place on his platform?
It is a failure of our system that a populist candidate without his name recognition would have no chance against the incredibly well-funded corporate shill neoliberals/conservatives we usually have to choose between.
I’m by no means obsessed with the guy, but one thing really solidified my respect for him: before I ever knew who he was he always would show up in a random documentary if US government was ever spoken about, and he was always on the “right side” of whatever the documentary was about. Then in the run up to 2016 he shows up and I’m like “holy crap it’s that guy!”
Correct. Bernie needs to retire
As long as you take Bernie with you. As a liberal I hate the hypocrisy of calling for term limits, while rallying behind Bernie, an ineffectual career politician who can’t get shit done and is all nice soundbites. He’s also a dinosaur.
IMHO Bernie is best suited to be an advisor or advocate, if he wants to continue.
For sure. He’s got great ideas, but he doesn’t have that thing that makes people want to rally behind him. Like I mentioned, he couldn’t even get his own party’s nomination, which means he would have gotten wrecked in Presidential election.
he couldn’t even get his own party’s nomination
Tell me more about politics please.
Speaking of shitty ass cancerous Kentucky politicians, whats brother Racist Rand been up to? Sucking Putins old dick?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now in their 80s, the Democratic president and the Senate GOP leader appear to be giving political cover to each other as they fend off questions about their advanced age and health issues.
Notably, McConnell, R-Ky., 81, hasn’t joined Donald Trump, 77, and other Republicans who have attacked Biden’s age, health and mental acuity as he seeks re-election.
McConnell’s public health incidents have come as Republicans are ramping up attacks on Biden’s age and mental fitness, a subject voters are expressing major concerns about heading into the 2024 election cycle.
A Wall Street Journal poll out this week found that 73% of registered voters believe Biden is too old to run for president, while 60% said they think he isn’t “mentally up for the job.”
Returning to the Senate this week after the monthlong summer recess, McConnell sought to project a business-as-usual attitude and calm his colleagues’ nerves about his latest health scare.
Immediately after McConnell spoke, one of his former top aides, Steven Law, who runs a McConnell-aligned super PAC, gave a presentation touting strong GOP fundraising numbers — which Hawley described as “a little surprising for the setting.”
The original article contains 1,375 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
You could have stopped after the first sentence. That’s the whole enchilada.
