No Shame in Retiring

Sometimes the most impactful way you can help others, is to step aside.

Americans are too beholden to incumbents. There is a familiarity and a comfort in being represented by someone you know. Their years of accomplishments. All that they’ve done for you. The longer the career, the longer their resume.

However, the job of a politician requires that we evaluate them on how well they can perform their job in the future, not on how well they did in the past.

People are treating Sen Diane Feinstein’s situation too delicately. There is no shame in her stepping aside. It does nothing to diminish her impressive career or numerous achievements. Resigning is the correct move for her constituents, for her party, and for the Senate to be able to get back to normal operations.

Our society has a habit of viewing retiring or stepping aside as weakness. We act as if it suggests a lack of strength to not keep going simply to prove that you can. True strength is in acknowledging when it is time to move on and allow the next generation of leaders to take the reigns.

We need to celebrate lives lived and accomplishments made, not mourn subtle and quiet finales.

Sen Feinstein hasn’t been able to perform her duties for eight weeks. Her powerful position on the Judicial Committee has made her absence all the more significant and disruptive. 

The discussion needs to go beyond what is happening at this moment. It is easy to say that someone should resign once significant issues occur. It is harder to say that she shouldn’t have run for reelection and that when she did, people shouldn’t have voted for her.

This is why we have terms. Each election is a time to reevaluate the people who are representing us. A time to compare each candidate for how well they can serve us in the future.

It was clear during the 2018 election that Sen Feinstein was no longer the best choice for the Senate. She was not prepared for what Congressional politics had become with Trump in office and her memory was becoming a concern. 46% of voters in California agreed with that assessment.

Americans can’t keep voting on name recognition alone. People need to do their homework. Voters need to research the candidates and investigate the concerns that have been raised by their opponents, the news, and society.

We also need to recognize the importance of making room for modern perspectives in our legislatures.

Unapologetically far right MAGA politician Matt Gaetz and far left progressive social Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have joined together to present legislation that would prohibit members of Congress from buying and selling individual stocks.

There have been numerous instances of Congress members committing what is, for all intents and purposes, insider trading. Congress often has access to information on regulation long before the general public. Information that politicians have been using to make millions.

One of the most recent examples was a Congress member selling stock in First Republican Bank before its collapse and using those funds to buy stock in JPMorgan Chase, which is the bank that acquired First Republic. Profit made through the economic disruption that is hurting every day Americans.

These cases of such outrageous abuses of power and position have rightfully angered the public. All of the public.

• 70% of Democrats

• 78% of Republicans

• 80% of Independents

There is significant public support for banning stock trading by Congress, as shown in a poll by The Trafalgar Group. A rare issue that Americans from all walks of life can agree on. Which is exactly why politicians typically so diametrically opposed can come together on a bill.

But that isn’t the interesting viewpoint of this particular bill. 

Both of these politicians are still relatively recent additions to the federal government. Both members are still early in their careers, while both being past the new member phase where their time is spent learning the job and the world of DC. 

Gaetz and Ocasio-Cortez are at the point where they’re ready to take the lead on major issues. They want to bring forward the ideas that drove them to the job in the first place. They’re both pushing forward the issues that younger generations are asking for.

Public support is high for stopping Congress from trading stocks, but if you’ve been a member of Congress for twenty years, you can easily fall prey to seeing Congress members trading stocks as business as usual, not a problem that needs solving.

This is why term limits are so important. When people stay in office for over twenty years, they are preventing modern ideas from getting into our government. Politicians hit points in their careers where they become more of a hindrance than a driving force.

A well functioning Congress has members from all three phases of political careers:

• Ramping Up

• Proving Their Worth

• Leadership and Mentoring

This is why voting for an incumbent is not always bad. You need a steady stream of junior politicians entering Congress with each term, but you also lose efficiency each time you replace a seasoned candidate with a brand new one.

Representatives have very short terms of only two years. Given the steep ramp up time to congressional politics, one term is just enough time to get a handle on the position and the processes. It takes a second term to truly get to work.

This is why voters must ask themselves: 

• What does another term look like for this candidate?

• Are they still relatively new and this next term could be when they get into full gear, pushing agendas and drafting bills?

• Are they in their prime, a powerful leader, their presence an asset for finding solutions and making progress?

• Is the candidate no longer capable enough for the position or are they making decisions that go against the public’s interest?

In turn, every single politician should regularly be asking themselves if they are still in office to serve the people, or to serve themselves and their own pride.

If you aren’t able to reliably meet your commitments for the foreseeable future, if you are holding up important committee work, work that has a fundamental impact on the country, then you need to step aside. 

Another announcement involving AOC this week was that she has joined the growing number of Democrats calling for Feinstein to retire. 

The topic on when to resign often gets bogged down into debates over ageism or loyalty. Both perspectives which miss the point. 

Age by itself means nothing. Either someone is healthy both physically and mentally, or they are not. 

Continuing to support someone who is no longer able to perform their duty out of loyalty, is in turn being disloyal to our citizens, our government, and our nation.

It isn’t wrong to ask Senator Feinstein to retire. It is exactly what America should be asking.