He should have resigned and endorsed someone who shared the same platform. He's going to be 88 years old when he finishes his next term for fucks sake. We need term limits for congress ASAP (for both sides for whoever thinks this is a partisan issue, just don't bother).
this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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He seems like a genuinely good person, but term limits should be a thing. A person should not own a Senate seat for 20-40 years because the locals are lazy and vote in incumbents by default. It doesn't matter if it's McConnell or Sanders, Senators should have two term limit. I don't care how principled he is, 82 is too fucking old. Retire and hand the reigns over to someone else.
You're not wrong. But in THIS instance, with this progressive senator, retiring before he's ready to would just be unilateral disarmament. Democrats are often guilty of kneecapping themselves in service to norms and morals...
Characterizing the voters as "lazy" is really failing to understand how bad legislators stay in office. We need to reform our electoral systems to make legislators more accountable to democratic oversight, not impose arbitrary limits that take the power away from the voters.
With term limits, the Congress would lose institutional knowledge. When a new member of Congress came in, they would only have lobbyists to give them introductions, teach them the ropes. Legislation is a difficult job that requires professionals, not just a bunch of newbies. We would be absolutely signing over the Congress to complete corporate control.
More democracy is better.
Less democracy is worse.
This is largely bullshit. It's hard because the people with 30 years made it hard for new people. Congress can change their own rules and make it easier. They already have legislative aids and lawyers that handle the minutiae of writing the laws.
It's also far more likely that the corporate lobbyist is influencing the senator they've known for 30 years more than the one that showed up yesterday. States have term limits and it doesn't make them slaves to lobbyists.
Stop shilling for the status quo.
Shilling for the status quo? I've got a whole laundry list of changes I'd love to make, some much more significant than term limits, to make legislatures more responsive to democratic oversight. Please see my response to Zaktor for just a few.
There's this claim, probably kinda BS, that it takes ten years of practice to get really good at something. I'm always suspicious of nice neat numbers like that. But I think it gets repeated a lot because, ultimately, anybody who has become an expert at something kinda squints at it and says "yeah that sounds maybe right" - because it's close enough, it's on the right order of magnitude. Expertise takes time. Laws are complicated. If you have a twelve year term limit, and become an expert at year ten, you get two years to do something about it - but only a small fraction of the legislative body left has your level of expertise to work with you.
Always demand more democracy, never less.
Legislators don't write the physical laws they vote on. At best the decide some key points or suggest ideas. They have people with that expertise that actually do the writing, not just lobbyists. The sole purpose of representatives is to represent their constituency, which they get worse at as time goes on.
12 years is plenty of time to have institutional knowledge, and legislators could always just hire past senators as advisors. This is a bad argument and I don't know why it gets repeated. Lobbyists invest in relationships with officials and don't want to have to start fresh, that's why they invest money against term limits.
https://www.termlimits.com/myth-busting-101-lobbyists-love-term-limits/
So I did some digging... USTL is one of several shady, fake-grass-roots organizations operated by Howard Rich, a wealthy libertarian, and funded by his collection of wealthy libertarian friends, who clearly want to reduce the effectiveness of government, and make it more susceptible to their influence. The lobbyists investigated the lobbyists and found that they don't support the thing they are saying you should support.
If you look deeper at the specific bills highlighted in that article, neither one is about term-limits versus no-term-limits. They're both about restructuring existing term limits. We had a similar ballot measure where I live. It's a fairly complicated issue, and not a good example.
Perhaps the most famous term limit in the US is the Presidential one, imposed because FDR was doing too many good things. By actually doing things to help people, he had become insanely popular, and won a fourth term - democratically, because the voting citizens approved of his actions, as it's supposed to work. That's when the corrupt capitalist wing of Congress decided to put a limit on democracy, and honestly, that might be one of the most significant "beginning of the downfall" moments we can point to in US history.
Another big supporter of term limits is the Heritage Foundation. If you can judge somebody by the friends they keep, how about legislation? It's always the right pushing for this idea.
There's a lot, and I mean a whole lot, we should be doing to reduce the influence of money on politics. Fully publicly funded elections; banning many current shady lobbying practices; improving our electoral systems to be more democratic; making it illegal for legislators to take bribes, no matter how subtle. Lots. But taking the choice away from the voters is not a good option. It's a generally good rule of thumb: if your solution to a problem is to reduce democracy, you've got the wrong solution.
EDIT to add: https://hartmannreport.com/p/how-term-limits-turn-legislatures-6b2
If you look deeper at the specific bills highlighted in that article, neither one is about term-limits versus no-term-limits.
I'll grant the California bill wasn't really about instituting term limits and the source is likely worthy of scrutiny. But the Arkansas bill is plainly about increasing term limits and it sure looks like there were a lot of non-individual entities giving in support of it. I can believe the National Education Association is doing it for liberal civics reasons, but I'm pretty skeptical the Arkansas Farm Bureau and Entergy Corp just really believe in disempowering lobbying.
That’s when the corrupt capitalist wing of Congress decided to put a limit on democracy, and honestly, that might be one of the most significant “beginning of the downfall” moments we can point to in US history.
What a wild way to describe codifying a longstanding tradition against a consolidated and calcified executive instead of relying on unwritten rules. The capitalists didn't invent term limits to stop FDR. They existed as a de facto custom since George Washington stepped down (and he was right to do so). Most heads of state have term limits and when they're bypassing them it's practically always a step towards authoritarianism not because they're just too important a leader.
But taking the choice away from the voters is not a good option. It’s a generally good rule of thumb: if your solution to a problem is to reduce democracy, you’ve got the wrong solution.
Oh please. These aren't a limited pool of uber-men with unique ideas and unique abilities we're denying the public. For every Bernie Sanders there's 10 absolutely corrupt train wrecks who DON'T get voted out. We're a nation of 330 million people, we don't need to believe our senators are precious unicorns who would be stolen away from the voters because they've been ruling the country for over a decade.
There are some very good arguments against term limits, namely that lame-duck terms have no accountability and encourage "what's next" influence trading, but this idea that DEMOCRACY is being reduced if we eliminate a single option every decade is complete great-man garbage.
Listen. I really, really like Bernie, but, man... You are 82 years old. What the fuck are you doing?
I've avoided saying anything about Biden's age because of how singularly vicious centrists have been about Sanders' age for most of a decade.
I figured Biden's age is why centrists decided to cool it on the ageism about Trump.
Guess they're only ageist against politicians to their left.
He’s only one year older than Biden. If Sanders acts like he’s too old to serve another term, it’ll make Biden seem too old as well.
And Trump is only three years younger than Biden. But for some reason, Trump is just some young buck to Republicans when they talk about age.
Man, I hate that that's a pretty good point. I think he could certainly retire without it being for age reasons, but gerontocracy gotta support each other.
Ok but the other side of this argument is that folks like Chuck Grasley and Mitch McConnell won’t leave either.
I’m really just over the idea of 80 year olds being our leaders, and I’m not the only one who feels that way.
The average age of the people in the US political system never ceases to amaze me.
Let him cook
All power to him, but I hope he spends the next 4 years preparing a successor or 2,3, 4 so his message will live on
We have aoc at least. Are there any other names that are as popular as them two currently?
Why are you being downvoted
I see upvotes now. Maybe they thought I was being facetious or reductionist? I was just asking a genuine question. Bernie and AOC are the household names I know for people in government that are actually trying for us. Wish there were more as popular.
He needs a successor in Vermont. Warren's been steadily building up the stature of other progressives in Massachusetts (presumably Ayanna Pressley will eventually take her seat), but I don't have a clue who the next Bernie would be in Vermont. I think we're just going to start from zero when the time comes.
I hate that the government is full of deteriorated octogenarians. BUT Bernie Sanders is the last one that should leave.
It’s Vermont. How likely is it that a republican’s going to be elected if he doesn’t run? I can’t even process why Bernie wants to be working when he’s 88 but that’s what he’s setting himself up for.
I don’t like being governed by people who are 40 years my senior. Bernie is no exception. Time to pass the torch.
How likely is it that a republican’s going to be elected if he doesn’t run?
How likely is it that his replacement will be a progressive, given the party's years of anti-progressive fuckery?
OK so what's the logical conclusion here? Bernie has to stay in office until he literally dies because his seat might go to a Democrat?
I mean, kind of. Socialist/the progressive left have a toehold in our government. Bernie sanders has done a shit ton to drag the Overton window towards the left (see healthcare for just one example) both in his run for president and his time as a senator passionately arguing in favor of leftism. Our country is designed not to build coalitions with anything but the two ruling parties. It's a good thing though that there are people like AOC, who, while not as radical as Bernie and has some questionable positions, are able to become the new guard.
The very fact that you can think of people who qualify as the new guard just tells me that Bernie has more of a legacy in place than he might think. He went from giving speeches to completely empty chambers to there being an entire 'squad' of politicians that share his views. That is progress. That is a major accomplishment that he should be thrilled about!
I get that people like him, and I'm sure he doesn't feel like he's too old, but I'm firmly of the mind that age limits in government are necessary. Being a spry 82-year-old is still being an 82-year-old. He can find a progressive millenial or gen z-er in the state of Vermont to throw his weight behind for the future. If he can't, well frankly that's his fault and not a valid excuse to be yet another dinosaur clinging to power.
No, just that he may be holding on for essentially that reason.
He’s the exception to the rule. He hasn’t lived a life as someone born after 1980, but he’s actually listened to those people and he understands the barriers they face.
My only hope is that, if he starts to slip, he remains sharp enough to know it’s time to step aside, and he doesn’t pull a Feinstein.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent senator and former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, announced on Monday that he will run for a fourth six-year term – at the age of 82.
In a video statement, Sanders thanked the people of Vermont “for giving me the opportunity to serve in the United States Senate”, which he said had been “the honor of my life.
In 2016 he surged to worldwide prominence by mounting an unexpectedly strong challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, from the populist left.
Announcing another election run, Sanders stressed the need to improve public healthcare, including by defending social security and Medicare and lowering prescription drug prices; to combat climate change that has seen Vermont hit by severe flooding; to properly care for veterans; and to protect abortion and reproductive rights.
“We must codify Roe v Wade [which protected federal abortion rights until 2022] into national law and do everything possible to oppose the well-funded rightwing effort to roll back the gains that women have achieved after decades of struggle,” Sanders said.
Addressing an issue which threatens to split Democrats in the year of a presidential election, Sanders said: “On October 7, 2023, Hamas, a terrorist organization, began the war in Gaza with a horrific attack on Israel that killed 1,200 innocent men, women and children and took more than 230 hostages, some of whom remain in captivity today.
The original article contains 637 words, the summary contains 235 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!