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Australia1284 Posts
On April 29 2026 03:55 Falling wrote:I have a theory that the age problem would mostly go away in the house of representatives with more competitive races. Solve gerrymandering and most of it goes away. Our parliament average age is 52 vs House of Representative is 57.5 but has been 58. We do have have 2 over the age of 80 out of 343 seats vs 17 over the age of 80 out of 435 (not counting the one that just died.) But over the last ten years sometimes our oldest member was 77 vs late 80s in the States. So with competitive races, my theory is that it naturally scales younger. However, the Senate might not change without some sort of age limit as there are only two positions to vote for and many States tend to favour one party for long periods of time. Our Canadian appointed Senate averages 65 though historically 64, which is very close to US' 64-65 average. But importantly, Canada does have mandatory retirement at 75, which would cut out 14 Senators. (Sidenote. Oh, wow. Chuck Grassley is 92.) On the surface, the averages don't maybe seem like much, but on the outer edges of elderly American politicians, you wind up with such bizarre cases that I can think of no equivalent Canadian example. Maybe with more competitive races, you would avoid cases like Kay Granger who was found in a memory care and living assistance home by Dallas Express. https://dallasexpress.com/tarrant/exclusive-where-is-congresswoman-kay-granger/And Feinstein was looking pretty rough by the end with prolonged absences due to health issues. This doesn't touch presidential elections but they are such singular events that is hard to know if the battle of the geriatrics Biden vs Trump is a pattern or an outlier that will resolve naturally.
Hmm I don't think it's that simple to solve, either with more competitive races, or even an age limit (ok the age limit would TECHNICALLY lower the age, but probably not improve actual performance).
I think most of the problems with the actual apparatus of US elected officials/elections comes down to the role money/fund raising plays in campaigns. The fact that politicians spend more time trying to raise money than trying to persuade regular voters to vote for them means the actual pool of elected officials look like what the people/organisations with the money to splash into politics want, and not what the average voter wants.
I think the age of these officials reflects that the very rich want. People who are too set in their ways to push for much significant change, grew up soaked in cold war propaganda that favouring corporate interests is basically 'fighting communism' and maybe look like the CEOs and owners that have all that money. Possibly might even have been in politics so long that they are a known quantity, and again, aren't going to rock the boat.
More competitive races I'm not sure is going to change much, since they still have to run that race the same way. Bernie has shown, exceptionally, that people CAN avoid this funding model for a campaign, but how well does this scale to small elections over all electorates? He was basically the only guy doing it, in a big nationwide election, I'm just not sure the everyday people collectively have the money to donate to smaller campaigns everywhere.
An age limit will technically lower the age, but I think you would just end up with younger (late middle age, or early elderly) people who are a bit fuddy duddy and unlikely to push for change. Because none of the underlying power structures or incentives have changed.
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On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 08:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:My biggest issue with the way GH handled his "legitimate government" topic wasn't with the semantics of that phrase. I'm happy to listen to whatever definition someone wants to use and operate within those boundaries, although sometimes I may not personally have an answer to every related question or hypothetical. My biggest issue was how he purposely slow-rolled the discussion + Show Spoiler + to the point where he knew people were going to get tired of him dodging the meaningful part of the conversation: is it sufficient to just call Trump's 2nd term "not legitimate", or should there be some kind of action taken to reinforce those words, and if so, what actions has GH taken (or what actions will GH take in the future) when he encounters illegitimate governments? It was silly when GH said he wouldn't answer those questions of substance until someone supported him, and then after Acrofales explicitly wrote out his full support, GH still wouldn't address the actions that ought to be taken, instead saying that one person was no longer enough and that we should all take a poll. The goalposts kept moving so that he'd never have to actually talk about the topic he brought up in the first place, even after Fleetfeet showed him an example of how to structure his flowchart. Given how frequently GH mocks and gawks at the rest of us for talking the talk but possibly not walking the walk, I found his virtue signaling (Trump's second term is illegitimate but GH doesn't want to do anything about it) to be hypocritical. Furthermore, given how much crap he gives many of us for engaging with a few other posters who are bad-faith or frustrating to talk to, GH didn't really give us a good alternative today. I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position. Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here.
Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before?
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On April 29 2026 08:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 29 2026 04:20 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 23:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 19:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 17:43 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 16:21 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On April 28 2026 13:16 Fleetfeet wrote:On April 28 2026 09:06 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2026 08:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:My biggest issue with the way GH handled his "legitimate government" topic wasn't with the semantics of that phrase. I'm happy to listen to whatever definition someone wants to use and operate within those boundaries, although sometimes I may not personally have an answer to every related question or hypothetical. My biggest issue was how he purposely slow-rolled the discussion + Show Spoiler + to the point where he knew people were going to get tired of him dodging the meaningful part of the conversation: is it sufficient to just call Trump's 2nd term "not legitimate", or should there be some kind of action taken to reinforce those words, and if so, what actions has GH taken (or what actions will GH take in the future) when he encounters illegitimate governments? It was silly when GH said he wouldn't answer those questions of substance until someone supported him, and then after Acrofales explicitly wrote out his full support, GH still wouldn't address the actions that ought to be taken, instead saying that one person was no longer enough and that we should all take a poll. The goalposts kept moving so that he'd never have to actually talk about the topic he brought up in the first place, even after Fleetfeet showed him an example of how to structure his flowchart. Given how frequently GH mocks and gawks at the rest of us for talking the talk but possibly not walking the walk, I found his virtue signaling (Trump's second term is illegitimate but GH doesn't want to do anything about it) to be hypocritical. Furthermore, given how much crap he gives many of us for engaging with a few other posters who are bad-faith or frustrating to talk to, GH didn't really give us a good alternative today. I was and still am happy to continue with you if you take a position supporting or opposing your opening premise. I didn't say you had to support your premise that "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government". I welcome you to give us your working definition of "legitimate government" regarding your position. Again, this isn't some radical request by me, this is basic conversational conventions for effective communication "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence means we no longer have a "legitimate government" in your eyes" This is obviously (to me) DPB offering to take what he understands to be your position as 'truth' for the purpose of furthering the discussion. Your response to this seems to be asserting that DPB's understanding of your position is ACTUALLY DPB's position, and then asking him to elaborate on 'his position' in this context and also explain the phrase 'legitimate government' that he used (which, actually, you used first). Are these tactics you're using within, or without the scope of 'basic conversational conventions'? + Show Spoiler +You're correct with all of this.
It's his "opening premise", not mine, and I was happy to engage with it. He brought it up, not me. In fact, while I was able to elaborate on my interest in considering how effective a president is (responding to GH's comment about a naked crack addict), I freely admitted that I don't have an immediate, good answer as to what line delegitimizes a presidency, but I was content to work off the premise he had suggested to move the conversation forward (GH wrote "Trump having a 2nd term instead of a prison sentence should be enough for most rational people imo" and I accepted that). That premise was fine with me, + Show Spoiler + which is why I followed up with all the questions that GH repeatedly refused to answer, which then prompted others to call him out. Typically I'd ask if you or someone else could try rewriting the questions/engaging as someone that actually personally agrees Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure. That's because if you're going to actually concede the point to move the conversation forward, you have to actually do so in your phrasing. I'll just demonstrate myself what that looks like in this case: What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate? Keep in mind, you're not obligated to accept the premise "Trump's government is illegitimate by any reasonable measure" to continue the conversation. But if you're going (to even pretend for the sake of moving the conversation forward) to agree, your questions have to change to something like what I just showed to reflect that. I believe I am communicating this issue clearly at this point. What are your answers to those rephrased questions? [What do we do about that? What is the action taken that follows the government no longer being legitimate?] We need to work on that together while organizing with other like-minded people. I come at it through a Black Radical Tradition lens but the general tenets (the details of which being what we need to work on together among like-minded people since this is a bottom up project) of what needs to be done are pretty universal from what I understand. -Civil Disobedience and Non-Cooperation -Parallel Institutions/Mutual Aid Networks -Non-Reformist Reforms -Symbolic Defiance: Basically, publicly treating the government’s symbols, laws, or leaders as irrelevant or void -Legal and Constitutional Challenges (My interpretation on this is probably a bit of an outlier but I would include appealing to the international community for help/condemnation of the US's illegitimate government in this) Exactly how any individual can help most effectively necessarily varies based on a variety of factors, but those are the general things I believe we need to be working on. It's not a comprehensive list. Rather than be critical of anything I've said (don't worry, there will be time for that), let's keep a bit of a brainstorming energy going and we can all contribute our own ideas! Thanks for this! Appreciate the direct response and engagement. I'd suggest simply supporting/enabling louder political voices. Propaganda's part of what gets us here. Could you describe what you mean by this a bit. I don't know that I've seen you do so before?
Sure.
There's a stigma regarding socialism or socialist movements in general. I don't believe that's rooted in truth, and the pervasive message that 'capitalism bad' exists in the general consciousness close enough to the surface that it shows up often in popular culture. Currently popular US figure Brennan Lee Mulligan is known to go on anticapitalist rants frequently, musical artist Blackalicious is an example of a musician who touches on the subject lyrically, etc. Luigi's assassination being celebrated has anticapitalist flair. There's no shortage of examples, those are two more or less at random. Anti-capitalism is not a wholly unpopular message, where socialism has stigma associated. I don't care what the thing is called, I care about what it's calling for.
Social media platforms allow free speech and are responsive to profit/view-maximizing methods, which can be exploited to forward anti-capitalist messages. On a minimal level this is exploiting engagement methods - literally liking/upvoting/commenting/whatever. On a broader level, providing a gateway/backdoor to your preferred politics through content creators that aren't primarily political on the surface (Youtube shorts from Blackbirdcoop stand as an example, though not necessarily an anticapitalist one) which is a powerful tool to 'trick' people into agreeing with socialist methods while circumventing the stigma.
It also gives clearer pathways to collaboration.
TLDR we know a lot of the mindfuckery that leads people to believe flat earth. If you can make people believe flat earth, surely you could make them believe socialism. Weaponize it.
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EPT
