Subject: OT: Less depressing political news
Author:
Posted on: 2017-11-08 11:20:00 UTC
Danica Roem is now on track to be the first openly transgender US state legislator after winning a seat in Virginia. Her opponent was, ironically, the most anti-LGBT member of the legislature, who'd, among other things, proposed an anti-trans bathroom bill.
- Tomash
I sadly don't have a list.
It's been a pretty good election for the Democratic Party, really. Hopefully it signifies a move away from Trump-style populism.
Meanwhile, we had an election recently down here in New Zealand. That ended in pretty much the weirdest way possible - right-wing incumbents National got ~46% of the vote, but the loosest of our loose cannons, Winston Peters, decided to screw them and go into coalition with our Labour Party instead.
I'm still not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I'm glad that National's out - screw them and their wrecking of our national parks - but I'm not keen on Winnie having so much influence. I'm just hoping the new government can get some good things done in the next three years.
I'm confused. The small anti-immigration socially-conservative party is in a coalition with ... democratic socialists? How is that even supposed to work? Am I just projecting American levels of partisan gridlock on everyone else's governments?
- Somash
New Zealand First has a lot of policy that aligns with Labour - closing corporate tax loopholes, introducing guaranteed benefits for students, removing GST from things like food... that sort of thing. You can find their policy page here, if you're at all interested (which you probably aren't).
The other thing is that Winston implicitly campaigned on a promise of change, with slogans such as 'Had Enough?'. On top of that, he appears to be starting legal proceedings against some National Party members - something to do with the way he and his party were treated when he was in coalition with them.
Believe me, there's plenty of small-minded partisanship in New Zealand, too. Some of the rage from National supporters was almost as bad as Republicans' response to Obama's election. Our system of government encourages it less, though. People can vote for the bigger small parties and have a reasonable expectation of that vote actually mattering to the makeup of the government, unlike in the US, where FPP turns every single election into an us vs. them between the far right and the moderate right, with no room for anyone else.
... she's 33, and kicked out a 73-year-old. As a resident of the country where the anti-EU/age graph looks like this:
... I think I'm entitled to say that the gerontocracy can go boil its head in a duckpond. Someone in their seventies has absolutely no business making laws on behalf of a population where the people who will have to live with them the longest are the ones who most disagree with their positions.
hS
Do you support an age maximum on being elected to office?
If so, what?
(I can see decent points each side could raise on this, so I was wondering what you think)
I would certainly be in favour of some kind of mental health check - dementia screening, for example. But I wouldn't say that older people can't be effective members of the government.
What I do support is more engagement of younger people with politics. More possibility for younger people to run for election with a hope of winning, and more young people getting out and voting. The latter is widely regarded as what caused Theresa May to throw away her majority - Jeremy Corbyn managed to get young voters to actually come out and vote.
If the people who are going to have to live with the consequences for longest decide that age and experience is more valuable than what a younger candidate is offering, great - that's how democracy works. But America was offered a choice between Trump and Clinton, both around 70 (and Bernie at 75!); Britain was presented with May at 60 and Corbyn at 68. In ten years, all of them except Mrs May will be beyond the point where today's policies really affect them (except in terms of healthcare, but HAHA they're all rich anyway so who cares about the poor amirite?); why were they the only options for making those policies?
hS
(and yeah, some sort of standard dementia etc. check isn't the silliest idea)