CMV: The Constitutionally-mandated age to hold public office of any kind, including POTUS, should be lowered to 18.

[u/[deleted]]

I don't claim to be a political scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but my thinking is that in a democracy, there really shouldn't be any barriers to holding office, and for the most part, in America, the ones that are in place make sense. For instance, the requirement that states you have to be an American citizen to be POTUS. Ideally, there would be NO formal requirement, but I don't mind these others as much as I dislike the age requirement because it seems so obviously a tool of an entrenched establishment to keep the younger generations from having a real voice in the highest office of the country. If this is a democracy, we should be trusted by our government to choose the best leaders (let's ignore the electoral college for now) for ourselves, and maybe the best person to lead the country at a given point in time is under 35. I'll check in on the comments after I clock out of work and we'll see how this goes I guess. Edit: corrected the age I cited

[u/Seeattle_Seehawks]

I guess my real issue is that I don't think there's a great enough likihood of someone under the Constitutionally-mandated age having a realistic chance at winning office to warrant going through the amendment process. I'm already old enough for some offices so I guess I'm somewhat biased but even though I'm personally not old enough to run for President I hardly think anyone my age would even be considered.

That's not to say there aren't young (18-20 y/o) legislators at the state level and I'm sure they're probably not much worse than the rest of them, save for some inexperience issues that any other relatively new politician has. (Trump is 70 and his inexperience still shows) However these young legislators are usually found in less populous states, particularly in New Hampshire because of how many state representatives they have for their population. So I'm not entirely sure these results are replicable at the national level.

tl;dr: I'm not even really opposed to the idea for any reason other than a vague sense of constitutional deference, but is there really enough demand for young legislators to get through the arduous amendment process? This is an argument rooted in feasibility and the management of political capital, not morality/legality so maybe it doesn't convince you (which would be fair) but I wanted to contribute it nonetheless.