I don't think this is a partisan left/right issue. Both sides tend to feel relief when term limits push the other guy out. On balance, personally and in theory, I'm not offended by incumbency, but there are a number of issues that could be addressed to improve democracy in practice, things that would level the playing field out, especially in the US, where corporatization of the electoral process has reached dysfunctional proportions. Get the money out of politics, you need all kinds of rules to limit, identify and track the sources of political/election spending. Independent judicial review of electoral districts/boundaries/voting rules. This needs to be taken out of the hands of elected officials and formalized to a set of codes of practice for establishing the borders of electoral districts - American gerrymandering is an absurd, gross, obvious, blatant, flagrant, mendacious abuse of electoral process. I could post an essay on this alone, but I'm going to try to make better use of everyone's time. It could be fixed. It also would help to have strict time limits around campaign periods and the use of public office for campaigning. Campaigns are already too long, and too many incumbents are campaigning all the time, on the public dime. And more than ever the USA needs a more robust public broadcaster across Radio/TV/Web/Socialmedia.
People need access to fair coverage over a just long enough period to make a choice, not a ceaseless barrage of propaganda and talking heads, and a vote should be a vote of relatively equal weight no matter where in the country/county/district it is cast. If after all that, the people want to choose the devil they know rather than some new devil, fine. Term limits don't really fix the major problems in American electioneering: Big money, private media, and rigged boundaries.
.........................................
|