this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45996578

Democratic members of Congress know they have an age problem—and it’s hurting them.

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[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 0 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

It's as simple as this(if only to me anyways). Experience DOES matter. Let me attempt to explain where I'm coming from, no promise I'll succeed

Forging relationships and networks with hundreds of people and organizations is incredibly valuable to getting things done. Doing something for a long time generally makes you better at something.

When that something is talking to people and convincing them of things you are trying to accomplish, being known to the levers that you need to push and pull lets you get better results.

I'm personally not opposed to much better cognitive checks before, and also beyond a certain age for all public positions that have real affect on how everyone else will have to live, but there are centenarians with full and complete faculties, not many for sure, but knowledge is power, even if the flesh is weak that knowledge is still very valuable.

If if I'm not wrong, then arbitrarily throwing away close to a century of experience just because of a number, and not competency is crazy to me. I fully admit I don't know how to responsibly design and implement such a thing though. It could easily be abused/corrupted so that's a problem to figure out unfortunately. But I do think it's possible to design such check from people much better than myself. And yes I realize nothing is perfect but that's okay because life is change and any system needs to be able to adapt to changes of modernity

That being said there are also other things we could do. One thing I've always thought would be good is we could revive the concept of an Council of Elders and give it some influence on the processes we employ our leadership. Something like an appeals approval thing or oversight committee with some type of usable lever they can flex when needed. I don't really know how it would work, just thinking out loud a little here. Kind of like a jury but not too much with power. I'm from North America and First Nations here still have long way to go to before past injustices are reconciled but I think as a nation we should include more of their cultural traditions in the way we govern the country.

I think I'll stop this stream of consciousness here since most people have probably dipped anyway and I'm running out of steam anyways