[Clubber]

As I see it, the incentives for longer terms would be the politicians are allowed to plan for longer time frames. Whether they do or not is another story. I would say this more applies to term limits as politicians can keep getting elected for essentially a life term.

The incentive for shorter terms, is you can get rid of the bad ones faster, whether we do or not is another story.

>And yet, the evidence is overwhelming that, in real life, the majority of voters do not keep track of what politicians are doing.

Of course, a constant barrage of the latest transgression of the culture war, and endless discussion of unsolvable wedge issues adds a whole lot of noise to this tracking mechanism. There is also a whole lot of spin, "he really didn't do that the way you say because ... the other party," etc. There's also not a lot of reporting on what bills are actually passed either.

IMO, we've gotta start voting out the incumbents until we start to have a government we feel comfortable ruling over us. It's the only power we really have.

[nescioquid]

The idea that politicians are corruptible chiefly through election campaigning is one thing. I rather have the impression that the corrupt environment is what attracts many candidates in the first place -- make it to congress, then rake it in from all the privileged information of the industries you're regulating, not to mention the unreasonably lucrative speaking engagements you're owed when out of office.

No amount of screwing around with term limits will somehow suddenly reduce corruption and make the U.S. a functioning democracy. No amount of voting out the incumbents will change much -- the parties significantly predetermine who you get to vote for in the first place, of course.

[Clubber]

>No amount of voting out the incumbents will change much --

The theory I have is it will, over time, destabilize all the back room deals and self preservation mechanisms currently in place built over decades of incumbency. I can't really think of another option.

>the parties significantly predetermine who you get to vote for in the first place, of course.

I agree. Having said that, there is nothing in the constitution that even mentions political parties, they were an invention to gain power during the Washington administration, and they are highly effective. Would it be any worse to elect some third party representatives just as a protest vote?

"I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating."

- Boss Tweed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_Farewell...

[nescioquid]

You are essentially saying that if only we voted less frequently, we'd somehow have more democracy and less corruption.

This would increase the influence of the two major parties even more (candidacies would be more rare, after all, so even more is at stake for each election). Why would extending a term suddenly make a politician less concerned about their own power and wealth and suddenly start actually doing things for their _constituents_?

I think the root of the problem is that somehow we ended up with a congress full of people whose last thought is for their actual constituents. There are a lot of insightful observations on how this came to be, but none of them point to term limits or length of terms as being the cause.

[Clubber]

>You are essentially saying that if only we voted less frequently, we'd somehow have more democracy and less corruption.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying we should vote out the incumbents until we have a government we are happy ruling us.

[nescioquid]

Fair enough -- terribly sorry to have conflated your argument as being tacitly in support of the idea of the article.

FWIW, I basically agree with voting out these present incumbents, except that I think the major parties are irredeemable, so what's the point? I'd love for an election to show everyone voting 3rd party and no one voting for the duopoly.

[soco]

Well as seen first-hand in some post-communists countries, many politicians do plan long-term - but not in a way you'd wish. They plan to build themselves into everything and suck profits from every money vein that country has. That's long-term planning too and it's happening as we speak. So yes I'm here with you, incumbents, hopefully real and not only front-ends, are still the only way we have to push for change.

[lkrubner]

We compared Hungary and the USA here:

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/thesis-1-there-is-one-corre...

[eqNotEq]

Look we have plenty of long term officials in Congress.

It’s a train wreck. Their plans enacted insulate them from real work and threaten the public with repercussions for not doing the work they won’t.

It was tried. This is the result; another nostalgia obsessed group of elites an gerontocrats bleating story and words of power that are nonsense.

We should ban old people from roles that impact the next generations they won’t be around for.

It’s tacit ageism against the youth but no one will call it that.

It’s shocking how kowtowed we are by people we’ve just seen have no ability to support themselves without abusing workers. So much for American memes of self sufficiency. Their self sufficiency is still based upon dumping on lower castes.

[soco]

We're voting right now in Switzerland about giving voting rights in some areas to 16yo. A common rhetoric against that is calling them "manipulation mass for the left". Of course that's conveniently ignoring the manipulation mass of the conservative right, the 70+ which vote having a completely different horizon in mind.