democracy – Treehouse Writers

I read an article in Vox the other day that pointed out that electoral democracy is relatively new in human history.

It makes a good point. According to the article, the United States is the world’s oldest continuous democracy. If you take the adoption of the Constitution as the starting date for that (1789), the U.S. has been a democracy for about 235 years.

And of course, there were a lot of flaws in U.S. democracy even early on. We started with a society where only white men could vote (in many cases, only white men with property) and it took a civil war when we were less than a hundred years old to change our Constitution sufficiently to expand that vote (and add in some other significant rights, including due process of law and birthright citizenship) to Black men.

Women didn’t get to vote until 1920.

Of course, since Reconstruction – which was supposed to make sure that the formerly enslaved got their rights – was killed twelve years after that war in political compromises with the traitors, Black people in most places didn’t get to vote until the success of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. That’s about 60 years ago, for those of you who didn’t live through that time.

It can be argued that the U.S. only approached being a fully functioning democracy in the 1960s. Given that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists have been trying to roll back the rights expanded back then ever since, it’s not hard to see that even in the oldest continuous democracy, the idea that everyone should have a say in who governs is still fragile.

When I look at our current ridiculous political situation that way, I find it easier to cope. Though I must say that even though I left behind the idea of American exceptionalism a long time ago (despite being immersed in it from childhood even in a liberal family), I did tend to believe in the exceptionalism of the changes we made in the second half of the 20th Century.

I thought the victories represented by the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were more permanent than they’ve turned out to be. Continue reading “Protecting Democracy”…

I keep seeing newspaper columnists and others tut-tutting about Joe Biden’s age. Despite the fact that he’s doing a good job – better than I expected even if he isn’t doing some of the things I consider important – some suggest he shouldn’t run again.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are apparently planning to nominate the failed former occupant of the White House who tried to hold onto his job despite losing an election, a grifter who is under indictment for multiple crimes, someone who has proved that he is incapable of doing the job by the complete mess he made of it.

By the way, that con man is only three years younger than Biden, which certainly makes him no spring chicken. If anyone was raising the age question seriously, they’d be discussing it in reference to both men.

As someone a little, but not a lot, younger than both of them, I am aware that older people are at greater risk of health conditions that can keep them from doing a job than younger ones. But that is far from my first consideration when it comes to evaluating someone who is running for office.

I’ve never been a fan of maximum ages for jobs. If you can still do the job mentally and physically, why should you be forced to stop?

I do suspect that one reason people use age as a proxy there is that it’s messy to determine whether someone is still capable of doing work if you have to evaluate them. Plus there’s still plenty of ableism out there, plenty of efforts to push someone aside because they are disabled in some way.

Old people are likely to have accumulated some health conditions. My partner keeps telling me that we’re going to reach a point where we spend all day taking medications, doing physical therapy exercises, and making doctor appointments. He’s joking, but it is true that older people can’t ignore their health the way we did when we were young.

Here are some questions to ask about politicians with health issues:

Can they do their job around it?
If they can’t, will they be able to once they’ve had treatment?
Are there reasonable accommodations that will make it possible for them to do their work?

Based on what I can tell about Senators Feinstein and McConnell, my answers to those questions suggest that both of them should retire.

Joe Biden’s doing fine. Continue reading “Political Ageism”…