Trumpled (Alternative Leading)

[PaulP]

The US Constitution stipulates a minimum age for presidential candidates. A maximum age requirement is long overdue, although the reasons for its omission from the requirements should surprise no one.

[Baggers]

No, they’re not outliers.  Golda Meir was 71 when she became Israel’s PM, Indira Gandhi was 63 when she began her second stint as India’s PM, Margaret Thatcher was 54 when she became UK’s PM, Charles de Gaulle was 68 when elected as France’s President, Fidel Castro was 33 when he became Cuba’s PM, Xi Jinping is 73, William Pitt the younger was UK PM at 24, Queen Elizabeth was 96, Pope Francis is 87, Gabriel Attal was France’s PM at 35, Kim Jong Un became North Korea’s supreme leader at 29, and there are so many more leaders, good and bad, outside your age range.

Age is largely irrelevant to leadership.  Intelligence, principles, decisiveness, morality, knowledge, ruthlessness, compassion, etc are far more important.

Agree, 100%, David.

Though anecdotal, my maternal grandfather (engineer) upon retiring went back to uni (aged 71) and got a degree and continued working, all faculties in tact, until his late 80s. My paternal grandfather was working (architectural landscaping design) right up to his sudden falling off the twig at age 77 due to a fatal heart attack. My own father was working, running his business, all faculties in tact, until a bad fall in the shower and contracting sepsis and passing 8 days later at the age of 86.

How many actors/writers/scientists/managing directors/political leaders/doctors etc., are/were still effective and productive into their 70s and 80s? Folks who are most effected by age are those who have worked physically hard for decades, but when their bodies can no longer handle the rigors of hard physical work their experience becomes valuable in management.

Most people do not succumb to dementia illnesses before their late 70s/early 80s with diabetes, genetic predisposition and heart disease the greatest risk factors. Unfortunately, in the case of Biden, his lifelong management of a cognitive ailment combined with an obvious development of dementia has made his tenure impossible and now, an embarrassment.

[Lods]

Biden is speaking in Michigan and going quite well.
He's giving it to Donald Trump in a big way.
It's his best strategy.
Make the contrast.
"I may be old...but the other guy." :

[Macca37]

Measured year on year Biden's mental and physical decline have become so obvious that they cannot now be hidden from the public.

If he refuses to step down and is fortunate enough to win the upcoming election, I'm sure that some time next year the further decline caused by dementia will force him to resign.

[Thryleon]

I think the meat of my post has been glossed over by the ages.  The politicians DJC listed actually support my point.  Most of them lived through the similar hardships (or more challenging) that gave them unique experience.  Ignoring the antiquities, autocrats and royals (non genuine examples of people groomed specifically for those roles by other leaders of people) you have a generation of leaders mentioned who lived through world wars, great depression and faced legitimate relative hardships to the common person.  Roof over heads, food on the table, health care, education for kids and work.  We are facing a bunch of silver spoon career politicians who grew up in an era where the great dream of society was much more freely and easier forged.  The kids today are looking down the barrel of repeated adversity, climate issues created by an exploding global population, better educated, with tougher propositions and with better incomes but finding it tougher to get to a place of prosperity than any generation that has come before it in such an affluent position.


How can those leaders relate to these people?  Albanese grew up in commission housing.  Yep, do that today and you face a lifetime of poverty if you can escape that cycle at all.  Will they own a house in future? Afford health care?  No.  The guy I was speaking to yesterday at work lives with his partner and child, was relieved to be able to leave the lease at the house he is renting for almost $500 a week in Caroline Springs because the vendor and real estate agent have finally arrived at the idea its unfit for habitation. He works in technology and has a good well paying job,  his Mrs works and their attempt to save a dollar by moving out ended up being spent in commuting but now he's back to searching for a place to live in with resources income wise that albanese would have dreamt of yet somehow can't make the ends meet properly to afford housing.  Ignore the 70 year old returning to university for a moment.  The anecdotal people in their 70's I know of are all on heart and blood pressure medication and spending more time trying to work out how to navigate the technologies at hand and saying how bad at it they all are that is what drives every day life for the majority of young people.  That's not to say they aren't useful because that seems to be the inference.  They can be advisors ministers and what not but in the main role? They come across as unrelatable.  Even if they have the traits to lead, it's a sermon of out of touch leadership.  Albanese is 20 years older than me. His time growing up was remarkably different to mine.  Let alone those 10 years my junior like my work colleague who is trapped in a rent cycle with a dual income household and wondering where they can move to in order to soften that blow.

The decisions being made directly impact the kids struggling today but it comes from boomers who have the luxury of retiring going to uni and flexing into another space because they paid their house off 30 years ago and don't understand what having a mortgage until your retire looks like and then wondering what retirement might look like if you retire at all. 

That's ok. Those leaders will get their almost half a million a year pension. 

The revolution is coming folks.  Guys like my colleague are not the minority they're the majority.

[ElwoodBlues1]

I think the meat of my post has been glossed over by the ages.  The politicians DJC listed actually support my point.  Most of them lived through the similar hardships (or more challenging) that gave them unique experience.  Ignoring the antiquities, autocrats and royals (non genuine examples of people groomed specifically for those roles by other leaders of people) you have a generation of leaders mentioned who lived through world wars, great depression and faced legitimate relative hardships to the common person.  Roof over heads, food on the table, health care, education for kids and work.  We are facing a bunch of silver spoon career politicians who grew up in an era where the great dream of society was much more freely and easier forged.  The kids today are looking down the barrel of repeated adversity, climate issues created by an exploding global population, better educated, with tougher propositions and with better incomes but finding it tougher to get to a place of prosperity than any generation that has come before it in such an affluent position.


How can those leaders relate to these people?  Albanese grew up in commission housing.  Yep, do that today and you face a lifetime of poverty if you can escape that cycle at all.  Will they own a house in future? Afford health care?  No.  The guy I was speaking to yesterday at work lives with his partner and child, was relieved to be able to leave the lease at the house he is renting for almost $500 a week in Caroline Springs because the vendor and real estate agent have finally arrived at the idea its unfit for habitation. He works in technology and has a good well paying job,  his Mrs works and their attempt to save a dollar by moving out ended up being spent in commuting but now he's back to searching for a place to live in with resources income wise that albanese would have dreamt of yet somehow can't make the ends meet properly to afford housing.  Ignore the 70 year old returning to university for a moment.  The anecdotal people in their 70's I know of are all on heart and blood pressure medication and spending more time trying to work out how to navigate the technologies at hand and saying how bad at it they all are that is what drives every day life for the majority of young people.  That's not to say they aren't useful because that seems to be the inference.  They can be advisors ministers and what not but in the main role? They come across as unrelatable.  Even if they have the traits to lead, it's a sermon of out of touch leadership.  Albanese is 20 years older than me. His time growing up was remarkably different to mine.  Let alone those 10 years my junior like my work colleague who is trapped in a rent cycle with a dual income household and wondering where they can move to in order to soften that blow.

The decisions being made directly impact the kids struggling today but it comes from boomers who have the luxury of retiring going to uni and flexing into another space because they paid their house off 30 years ago and don't understand what having a mortgage until your retire looks like and then wondering what retirement might look like if you retire at all. 

That's ok. Those leaders will get their almost half a million a year pension. 

The revolution is coming folks.  Guys like my colleague are not the minority they're the majority.

Lou Reed summed it up well...
Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I'll piss on 'em
        that's what the Statue of Bigotry says
        Your poor huddled masses, let's club 'em to death
        and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard

[Lods]

I think the meat of my post has been glossed over by the ages.  The politicians DJC listed actually support my point.  Most of them lived through the similar hardships (or more challenging) that gave them unique experience.  Ignoring the antiquities, autocrats and royals (non genuine examples of people groomed specifically for those roles by other leaders of people) you have a generation of leaders mentioned who lived through world wars, great depression and faced legitimate relative hardships to the common person.  Roof over heads, food on the table, health care, education for kids and work.  We are facing a bunch of silver spoon career politicians who grew up in an era where the great dream of society was much more freely and easier forged.  The kids today are looking down the barrel of repeated adversity, climate issues created by an exploding global population, better educated, with tougher propositions and with better incomes but finding it tougher to get to a place of prosperity than any generation that has come before it in such an affluent position.


How can those leaders relate to these people?  Albanese grew up in commission housing.  Yep, do that today and you face a lifetime of poverty if you can escape that cycle at all.  Will they own a house in future? Afford health care?  No.  The guy I was speaking to yesterday at work lives with his partner and child, was relieved to be able to leave the lease at the house he is renting for almost $500 a week in Caroline Springs because the vendor and real estate agent have finally arrived at the idea its unfit for habitation. He works in technology and has a good well paying job,  his Mrs works and their attempt to save a dollar by moving out ended up being spent in commuting but now he's back to searching for a place to live in with resources income wise that albanese would have dreamt of yet somehow can't make the ends meet properly to afford housing.  Ignore the 70 year old returning to university for a moment.  The anecdotal people in their 70's I know of are all on heart and blood pressure medication and spending more time trying to work out how to navigate the technologies at hand and saying how bad at it they all are that is what drives every day life for the majority of young people.  That's not to say they aren't useful because that seems to be the inference.  They can be advisors ministers and what not but in the main role? They come across as unrelatable.  Even if they have the traits to lead, it's a sermon of out of touch leadership.  Albanese is 20 years older than me. His time growing up was remarkably different to mine.  Let alone those 10 years my junior like my work colleague who is trapped in a rent cycle with a dual income household and wondering where they can move to in order to soften that blow.

The decisions being made directly impact the kids struggling today but it comes from boomers who have the luxury of retiring going to uni and flexing into another space because they paid their house off 30 years ago and don't understand what having a mortgage until your retire looks like and then wondering what retirement might look like if you retire at all. 

That's ok. Those leaders will get their almost half a million a year pension. 

The revolution is coming folks.  Guys like my colleague are not the minority they're the majority.

I agree with a lot of what you say there Thry. I will make the point though that a lot of young folks (non-boomers) who didn't grow up in the 50s and  60s tend to have a bit of a rose coloured view of our life and struggles.
If you think it was all beer and skittles think  again.
They weren't all Happy Days.

[ElwoodBlues1]

The revolution in Australia would be the young "Greens and the Teals " running the country...be a disaster.

[Thryleon]

I agree with a lot of what you say there Thry. I will make the point though that a lot of young folks (non-boomers) who didn't grow up in the 50s and  60s tend to have a bit of a rose coloured view of our life and struggles.
If you think it was all beer and skittles think  again.
They weren't all Happy Days.

lods I don't want to diminish it at all.  That's not the point.  It was very different to live in that time and of course no one ever has it easy.  Struggles are always relative, but the struggles need to be relative.  These days the struggles seem to be less surmountable and im starting to hear people complain about the sort of thing that hits everyone but they're from the upper earning parts which is a worry.  They're not worried about the cost of technology, phones, streaming services.  They're cutting those. It's food, energy, housing, petrol, commuting, supermarket shopping, healthcare and in suburbs that are not affluent even though they earn well.  Very alarming signs for society.

I dont think people ever have it easy, but there was a roughly 50 year period where things were easier.  It ended about mid 2000's. 

[Macca37]

Thry, I am of the Silent generation, the generation whose taxes provided free university education for the Baby Boomers.  In the 1950s only the wealthy could afford to attend Melbourne University.  Workers did not receive the adult wage until they reached the age of 21.

Banks required a minimum 25 per cent deposit and a two year history of saving before approving a housing loan.  Their valuation of a property was always under the purchase price, requiring the applicant to take out a personal loan with the bank, usually in the seven to nine per cent range.  I knew engaged couples who put off marriage for years while trying to save for a housing deposit.

Single women in the Australian Public Service had to resign when they married.  In the early 1960s my wife had to say she was single in order to get an office position.  Newly wed women were knocked back because it was expected they would soon become pregnant and would have to leave.

It was almost impossible to get a bank loan for a car.  Cars were expensive -  the purchase price of a 1960 VW Beetle was close to the average yearly salary.  Hire purchase at exorbitant rates, with three years of comprehensive insurance rolled into it, added to the financial burden.

I could go on detailing the high cost of clothing and goods, but I think you get the picture.

The point I wish to make is this:  yes, I get the problems faced by people today struggling to make ends meet.  It is history repeating itself.