Eulogy on build back better

 So, someone on a website I go to had the idea of eulogizing build back better, since joe manchin killed it, and I decided to break radio silence to do a small euology on it.

Build Back Better always sucked. Biden was a compromise candidate who campaigned on the idea that he could get crap done and his proposals were realistic and he knew how to work across the aisle in Washington. However, Biden was naive in this notion. The right had no interest in compromise, and even democrats like Manchin kept watering the bill down, and watering it down, and watering it down some more. So Build Back Better was a compromise of a compromise, of a compromise. And then Manchin killed it, because he never wanted it in the first place. 

Let this be a lesson to all who seem to circlejerk about compromise as a way of life when campaigning. I'm sick of hearing about it. Of course washington has to compromise to get anything done, but the democrats have fallen in this trap of virtue signalling about it as if it's a good thing in and of itself. In the process, they stand for nothing, then fail to pass whatever they claim to stand for. So nothing gets done, and nothing gets passed. Compromise is a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. Let this failure of a bill be a lesson to that.

Can *I* ever be satisied?

 TLDR. Yes.

So, I got in another argument, despite my previous desires to step away from politics, and an issue that came up with them is asking the question if I can ever be satisfied in politics. And, quite frankly, i've been talking about these issues for like a year, and even longer than that, but I've really spent the past year really hammering home on this blog what I want, and how to accomplish it in detail, so I figure it would be nice if I made a smallish post that cites exactly what I want in politics, and even more so, a plan to get there. Since I focused a lot on that. I've made a post like this before, but I feel like this one will be far more readable. 

So yeah, what I want. What will satisfy me politically to the point where I would probably settle for at best incremental change beyond that unless I see another major issue arise that needs dealing with. 

Well, first of all, I want a universal basic income. This is my #1 priority. This is how I would fund it, and these are my own numbers complete with sources in how I did the math to accomplish them. It doesn't have to be exactly like this, I even have a metric where I grade different UBI plans by different metrics, but this is the ideal. Most other plans are imperfect compromises but I would still likely back them unless so egregious in details that they do more harm than good.

Second of all, I want medicare for all. This is my #2 priority. This is how I would fund it. This is based on a combination of Bernie and Warren's UBI plan customized to work with my own UBI. I needed to do this because I understand doing both would impose significant taxes on the population, including the rich, and introduce massive amounts of new spending. And I understand that these two policies come close to what I consider the maximum sustainable spending we can afford, which is why I spent so much effort in funding both of them with my own plans. If, for some reason, medicare for all is NOT sustainable on top of a UBI, then I would default to an aggressive public option like medicare extra for all, which is a more Buttigieg style public option to put us on a "glide path" to medicare for all over time. It would cover anyone not covered, while allowing private insurance. Over time, medicare extra for all would grow into a medicare for all plan, but it would take longer.

EDIT: Reread this recently and want to clarify that medicare extra for all is much more aggressive than Buttigieg's healthcare policy, although it fits the rhetoric of "glidepath to medicare for all." In practice, it's probably closest to Harris's plan, which seemed to actively try to transition us to single payer over the course of 10 years or so. 

Third of all, I want universal free college and student debt forgiveness. I would rely on Bernie Sanders' plan to fund this one. It's relatively cheap, and once you get past my top 2 priorities, accomplishing the others should be much easier. 

I want a robust climate change and infrastructure plan. It doesn't have to be a full green new deal, given what I proposed above, I acknowledge that we can't afford a full green new deal. However, we can afford a smaller plan targetted at doing the most amount of good. I think Andrew Yang's 2020 plan was sufficient here to satisfy me. THe original, non watered down "Build Back Better" proposal Biden supported was good too. 

Those are my top four. The original top 3 I've been for since around 2014-2015, and then adding climate change to that because I acknowledge it's an existential threat.

Beyond that, there are some other nice to haves.

Bernie Sanders had a public housing plan that would help alleviate housing congestion in major cities. Given how housing is, in addition to healthcare and education, one of those things that's spiralling out of control in terms of affordability, increasing the supply of housing is a must. Biden's "build back better" also originally had housing in it, but on a smaller scale.

Free childcare and universal PreK, a la Biden's original build back better bill, also would help alleviate problems associated with another unaffordable aspect of American life. Childcare costs are insanely expensive and I agree it's helping contribute to the labor shortage. While not be top issue, it deserves mention.

Quality of life improvements to the work force that increase work life balance like paid family leave, mandatory vacation time (minimum 2 weeks), and reducing working hours (30 hour work week should be standard about now) are necessary. We should also probably do things like ensure workers have consistent schedules, without being forced to come in on their own time without extremely generous compensation.

$15 minimum wage is nice, but again, a more minor priority given my UBI advocacy.

These are the kinds of changes I want. Obviously, UBI is my top priority. Then medicare for all. Then free college and climate change. Then housing. Then the others. 

As far as non economic reforms, I believe we should be fighting for changes we see among progressives and the yang gang like getting money out of politics, ranked choice voting or other similar system, abolishing the senate, etc. 

Those are the kinds of changes I want. If we accomplished all of my changes, will I want more? Eh, new problems arise so probably. Will I be more incremental and conservative in my approach? Yes.

These above solutions are what I see as greatly improving my quality of life and accomplishing goals consistent with my indepentarian ideology. This is what I'm for. These are my demands. If you accomplish them, I would largely be satisfied with the state of American politics.

The reason I crap on everything Biden and the like does is because he's not for UBI, he's not for medicare for all, or even a public option at this point, he's not for free college or student loan forgiveness. And any time he is for something it's horrendously watered down to the point it turns into a joke. At his best, he met some of my lower priorities a small part of the way, while ignoring most of my demands, including my two most important ones.

That's why I hate on Biden and democrats like I do. I'm not just some leftist who wants "socialism" and has unrealistic demands. I can actually put my actual demands into policy terms, and you could actually translate them into bills you can pass in congress. 

If you choose not to do so, don't be surprised when I hate on you for not doing so.

Can the left ever be satisfied?

 So, this is something that I bring up regarding yesterday's slew of posts, my frustrations with them over the past year, and the recent Halo infinite debacle.

I'll use halo infinite as an analog for this. Look, I've had my issues with game monetization before. I'm the dude who refused to get xbox live back in the day because the idea of paying $50 a year to play a game I already paid for didn't sit well with me. I'm the dude who fought against DLC for years, and spent years boycotting the concept, only to come around toward a handful of exceptions for games I really wanted in the last years the model was really used. I hated a lot of game monetization over time. But, I ALWAYS had clear objections. 

Don't double dip. Don't charge me for a product, and then lock basic features of accessibility behind a paywall. Don't make me pay $60 for halo, then $50 to play online, then $10-15 for map packs to maintain my access to the game. Don't hold back content to sell it to me later at higher prices later on. Give me the whole purchase for one flat fee.

Or, if you go the f2p route, don't make it pay to win. Again, I remember combat arms implementing "specialists" with like 40% movement boosts and 1 hit kill weapons, resulting in people running circles around me and killing me while my f2p gun couldnt even hit them reliably. That said, make the stuff available to get for free. Maybe even implement REASONABLE grinding systems for it, and ensure it's never OP.

Over time, both business models improved, and now they're kind of merging. Paid games dropped DLC and implemented f2p type cash shops to sell cosmetics, and some games started going f2p and focused primarily on...cosmetics. So selling cosmetics is the big thing. Grinding for battle passes is the big thing. And this I'm largely fine with. My issue is with additional fees past purchasing the game to access more content, and with f2p games giving in game advantages to people. I have no issue with game devs making money. It's HOW they make money. And that said, when halo infinite is f2p with paid customization, it makes me happy. 

That's what separates me from the perpetual outrage machine. Unlike the outrage machine, I have solid metrics of what WILL satisfy me. And when my metrics are reached, I'm largely happy. So with infinite I'm like "cool, free game!". But, the outrage machine is now screaming over this, and screaming about how much better paid DLC was, and stuff like that. And I really have to wonder, will these people ever be happy?

I dont know. I surfed r/halo before this crap went down, as I played MCC, and they were always a weird sub who never could be satisfied it seems. Everything about the old halo games was revered as perfect, and everything 343 (game studio that runs halo post 2010) did was bad. They nitpicked them over everything, while ignoring the massive gaping flaws with the old games. And the recent infinite debable is more of that. Remember the good old days of halo 2/3/reach? pepperidge farm remembers. Except...that's the era I found so detestable with gaming business models. So the new model is an improvement, I'm like yes, this, this is what I want, and everyone is screaming about it.

I just don't get how people can get so angry and butthurt over a free game with paid cosmetics. This crap is amazing to me. I dont get why everyone's complaining. Is progression/battlepass perfect? No. But it's close. 

Which brings me to politics. I can be satisfied politically. Basic income of a livable level, medicare for all, free college/student debt forgiveness, expanded public housing, climate change legislation, that's what makes me happy. If a candidate meets me on those things, I would support them and be happy with them. And if I accomplish all of the changes I set out on, I might even become "conservative" in the "I like this, I don't want it to change" sense. 

But then I see the left these days, and I really have to wonder if they can be satisfied. Looking at them, I'm not even sure Bernie would be enough for them. If Bernie did everything he wants to do, all I'd really want after that is UBI. But these guys, well, they seem a bit different. Everything with a lot of them these days is "socialism", and then you have the SJWs wanting their stuff, and I just feel like these guys are in perpetual outrage mode. Also a huge reason I'm not really super thrilled with the strikes, like I support the causes, but eventually it just gets to the point of "oh we got $15? now we want $20, 30, 40", and these numbers might not even be sustainable without tons of inflation. Now, I get it, some of them are anti work and don't want to work in the first place, kind of like me, but any time I propose ways to get there among the anti work people,  I just get screamed at and gatekept by literal socialists claiming I'm not one of them because I support UBI and UBI orietned capitalism is feudalism. Okay, well, what if I said I dont trust these guys without a UBI as their ideas are totally unworkable?

And you know what, I really wonder, if these guys got everything they wanted, if they would be happy. Probably not. Johnson faced this issue himself in the face of the civil rights movement, and how he gave the idpol people everything they wanted and they still weren't happy. If Bernie people got everything they wanted, or SJWs, would they be happy? Probably not. And if you gave them 97% and didn't give them 3% on mostly minor issues, they would scream over the minor issues. Just look at how they treat anyone like say yang who is pro Israel. The level of purity the left demands from people is getting insane, and too much even for me. And even if they gave people 100% of Bernie's platform, they'd still scream because it's not literal socialism or whatever fantasy system they support. 

Idk, it's a huge reason I'm getting turned off from the far left. I have actual goals and visions that are achievable with certain policies. I developed certain goals, and certain metrics to achieve those goals. If you achieve those goals, I would largely be happy and it would be minor course corrections from there baring nothing goes too horribly wrong.

But can the modern left be satisfied? I really have to wonder. And sometimes I wonder if that's why the neolibs don't even take them seriously and mock their demands. Now, the neolibs arent in the right, dont get me wrong. They are worthless and support nothing basically. But, between these two extremes, I have to wonder if they feed each other. Centrists mock the left and dont accomodate them at all, left becomes more extreme. Left becomes more extreme, centrists dig in. 

You get someone like me or yang, the centrists think we're extremists and the extremists think we're centrists. We can't win either way, and we fit in nowhere because everyone is so entrenched and tribal in their own little bubbles. 

Politics in 2021 is frustrating. it's a huge reason I'm largely stepping away from it I think. I just can't handle this environment, where one side of the left is useless, the other left demands insane purity, and no one really represents my actual ideals and goals. It just makes me want to curl up into a ball away from everyone and not deal with any of these people.

Debunking Kyle Kulinski on bernie popularity

 So, Kyle Kulinski is someone I follow a lot if you can't tell, but he's also someone I find myself disagreeing with more and more lately as I trend toward Yang gang and he maintains his Bernie support. He's also been covering a lot of the same kinds of topics as me, such as the fall of the modern democratic party and how it's imploding under Biden. 

However, today, he put out a video arguing that if Bernie were in charge, the democratic party would be in a different more positive place, i would argue to the contrary, and I feel like I should give my reasonings why.

The fact is, it's because 2020 was like 1976 all over again. It was a desperate attempt of an unpopular democratic party to save itself after ousting a rather corrupt, but popular, republican president. It was also a time where the democrats were handed every problem under the sun, that the republicans were dealing with unsuccessfully. Except, now they can blame the democrats for everything, and it doesn't matter what the democrats do, if they can't solve the problems, then they are screwed. That's what happened with Carter, got handed tons of problems and an uncooperative congress, and he ended up losing control of the country and lost to Reagan in 1980. And I feel like we're seeing the same patterns today. 

Here's the thing, Bernie would want to do tons of stuff. And as Kulinski would point out, maybe he would do some stuff. At least the executive order stuff. And it would be very popular among some segments of the population. I myself would probably feel more positive from student loan forgiveness in and of itself, which he could do via executive order.

BUT, here's the thing, if Bernie won NOW, it would be the WRONG time. Much like 1976. If Bernie were in the hot seat, he would be responsible for the overall health of the economy and the whole country, and he would still get flak. He would still be dealing with the same structural issues Biden was handed, and I doubt that he would handle them better. 

First of all, we can just take Afghanistan. Trump set that up, and when the deadline came around during Biden's first year, they weren't ready, because let's face it, there's NEVER a good time to pull out of Afghanistan, and just like Biden got backlash, Bernie would do.

And don't get me wrong, I supported that move. I wanted out. I think it's one of the best things Biden did. But it was a logistical clusterfudge that lost him a lot of support among more normie audiences, and that's what I'm looking at here.

As we know from the dem primaries, progressives are a minority of the democratic party. And while they can arguably win a lot of normies in the center, who long for something different but don't know what it is, winning support permanently relies on improving those peoples' lives.

But would Bernie be able to pass a lot of his proposals? No. He would still have to deal with buttholes like Manchin and Sinema, who would make their careers out of owning the more radical democrats and derailing their agendas. Assuming a 50/50 split, those guys would still hold the party hostage and stop stuff from getting done. He would be "Cartered" just like Carter was by his own party. Except instead of Ted Kennedy, you'd have Joe Manchin. And even if we had a different senate composition, given we won say North Carolina and Maine, two races we should've won statistically if I wecall but we didn't, we still might have some other "moderate" looking to make a name for themselves blocking Bernie.

And then there would be constant harping from the media and the centrist faction about compromise and bipartisanship and working together, and how Bernie is too rigid and principled and won't just cave to corporate interests, and normies will eat that crap up and get turned off.

The problem with America is we have a really dumb populace, many of which have no real principles or are so entrenched in one camp nothing will change their minds, where those who are often swayed tend to have the memory of a goldfish. And while I believe we could, under the right conditions, activate them to be leftists, in trying times like this, it's do or die, sink or swim. Either you fix the economy post covid or you don't. And if you don't, you're gonna get Cartered. Period. 

And this would put Bernie in a darned if you do darned if you don't scenario. If Bernie compromises, he gets nothing done since corporate interests eat him alive. And if he doesn't, the media will destroy him for it and he will be labelled a horridly ineffective president. 

And then you got inflation. What did Carter in on the economy? Supply shortages and inflation, sound familiar? This is the guy who dealt with an oil crisis and did the good thing by telling Americans to conserve energy and put their sweaters on. But Americans don't like the government telling them to make minor sacrifices for the common good. They want it all and they want it now. 

We're having that kind of crisis RIGHT NOW. We are still reeling from COVID, and Americans refuse to take their medicine, LITERALLY. They won't take a vaccine to protect themselves from the virus, and they seem to just demand the entire economy be open now. They don't care about the minimum wage workers, and if they're exposed to COVID and die. Americans are selfish. They just want theirs, screw you. They want their amusement parks and restaurants and movie theaters and nail salons, and they want them NOW. 

So worker shortage? They don't want to hear it. While some are sympathetic to the worker shortage, many people are pushing "no one wants to work any more" narratives to shame workers pushing for better conditions. They're literally fighting against decency. And while many workers struggle and reel from COVID, and Bernie's policies would help them, people would claim the ensuing inflation from reopening the economy too fast with supply chains screwed up and too many jobs for the amount of workers actually available is due to Bernie's policies. They're already doing it with Biden. They think $1400 checks and unemployment expansions are stopping people from working, despite Trump implementing similar policies, and despite there being no evidence that's the case. So, the republicans are going to weaponize malaise over the economy and lay the blame squarely on democrats. We shouldn't have shut down, they'll say. We need to cut social services to force people back to work, they'll say. They'll run on returning to the good old days and point to the democrats being unable to work through this crisis as it is, to sabotage and undermine the left.

And you know what? I bet a lot of corporate democrats would too. The reason Bernie is popular still is because he is a different ideology and still has distance from the administration in office. If he were in the hot seat, the reverse would be true, and corporate dems would use the failures of the Bernie administration, even if it's not functionally different from the Biden administration, to say "see? we told you Bernie can't get things done, if we were in charge blah blah blah". And it would work. it doesn't have to be true, but it would work. They would be able to scream too far left, and force everyone back to a right wing consensus. And left wing ideas would be unviable for the country going forward. Again, they're already claiming this with Biden to some extent, although centrist dems still are largely owning the situation right now and it's the left saying "see I told you so."

Again, if you're in office in a time like this, it's sink or swim. Someone like Bernie or Yang might be good if the timing is right, and he comes in at just the right time, and saves the day. Post 2008, we needed someone expansionist economically like Bernie or Yang. The problem was wages were too low, unemployment was too high (and even if the unemployment rate is low it's not really low because drop outs), people can't get a fair shake, and oh great now we had to shut down half the economy because a virus is ripping through us, so we need these massive spending plans now.

But as the economy shifts to low unemployment and inflation, the counter is true. Now, the real solution is, IMO, for the fed to increase interest rates to reduce "job creation" to match the supply of labor as it exists, which COULD cause another recession, but that's how we solved stagflation under Reagan, so yeah. The point is, Reagan was able to lay the blame on taxes and spending and government. And the GOP can do that again now. it doesn't matter if it's true. It's largely not true. But it's the conventional wisdom and conventional knowledge and the public is quite frankly too dumb to know the difference.

Even if we had Yang. Say we implemented UBI in 2021. Okay, the republicans and probably a lot of moderate dems, assuming Yang was able to pass such ideas, would turn against them. They would claim that we're spending too much, and it's too much stimulus, and it's too inflationary, and because of UBI no one wants to work,a nd that's why we have inflation and job openings and blah blah blah. It would be a PR disaster for UBI. Not because UBI is a bad policy mind you, but because the narrative can shift that fast given the conditions we're dealing with.

The fact is, you don't want to be that guy proposing massive expansionary policies during a time of high inflation. Because the inflation will be blamed on those policies. Even if those policies are good.

That said, I'm kind of glad Bernie or Yang aren't in office right now. If anything, I almost kind of sort of wish Trump won. The GOP would still deflect blame, and blame democrats shutting down state governments as the reason for all of this, but the country would sour hard on Trump and the republicans ideally. Maybe not. And then again the centrists would push for more centrism or something and not learn a thing. So maybe it's good for Biden to win. It discredits neoliberal politics as unpopular among the left AND the right. Either way, I'm just trying to keep things real.

Look, I might not be AS huge on bernie as I used to be, as my politics are more pronounced toward the Yang Gang and the anti work movement these days, but I still think that his vision of America is better than what the two parties offer. But if he governed right now, it would be the worst possible time. Sometimes certain time periods are like hot potato and sometimes its a blessing in disguise to lose elections at times. If Ford won in 1976, I wonder how the country would be different today. It's tempting to wonder what would happen if the dems won in 2016, or the GOP last year. Or what would happen had Bernie won. But the time for Bernie to win was 2016. Going into 2020, I think Bernie getting handed the current mess would've been a disaster. The fact was, despite executive orders, he wouldn't be able to get anything through congress, and the entire political establishment would be pointing out how everything he does is bad and if they were in charge things would be different, and it would just be bad for the left. All it would do is set back the actual left by years if not decades, and guarantee that the same status quo parties that we hate would maintain their iron grips on power.

And despite Bernie bros calling Yang a right winger, no, yang is in the same camp as Bernie on this one, ebcause like Bernie Yang's platform would introduce large amounts of stimulus to the US economy that could potentially be blamed for the current crisis we're in. You just dont want to be the UBI or new deal guy during rampant inflation. That's just a recipe for conservatives winning and then blaming democrats for everything.

With that said, yeah, bernie would be better, but he probably wouldn't be meaningfully more popular. Even if he had higher approval rating, it still wouldn't be higher than the low 40s right now.

Really the last one: on the anti work movement, and being "anti work"

 So, this is the one thing that does fire me up, and since it relates so strongly to my string of burnout posts, I figured one last post on this would be worth discussing.

So I came across this article today about the state of the anti work movement, and I see a lot of myself in this.

Essentially, it notes how the anti work movement didn't actually arise overnight, but came to being after work has failed a generation of people. many of us have been coerced into giving up large parts of our lives for a pittance, and many people aren't happy.

Traditional labor activists, they still believe in labor, and believe in work, and simply support striking to improve conditions. A lot of leftists are also in this camp. Marxists believe capitalism alienates people from their labor, but they still believe in labor.

But, the failures of capitalism have done something else to this generation of people, and that is, they alienated a lot of people from work completely. And quite frankly, I'm one of these people.

The demand start small. You want better pay, you want better working conditions. but I think workers are coming to terms with the concept that after they spend so much time fighting for incrementalism, they still have to show up for work on Monday morning. And now their boss hates them for organizing for better conditions.

This is, by the way, why I'm burned out even with the left on traditional labor stuff. Much of what they support is just incrementalism like this. Yay, now pay is $20 an hour instead of $15. But hey, I still gotta spend 40 hours a week working.

So now, people are starting to wake up, and realize the rat race isn't all its' cracked up to be, and that people are alienated and turned off from it. It isn't just a matter of finding your passion, or improving working conditions, it's work itself. People are starting to realize their position as a de facto slave in society, and starting to fight back against it. Not everyone, but this stuff is taking off. If anything positive comes out of this crapshow it's this. And I honestly believe, as one of these people, once you start seeing the farce of work as it is, there's no going back. That's the thing about plato's cave, once you leave, you can't go back. You don't want to go back. You can't go through the motions, because it's so fake, and you realize it's fake. It's like going back to some kid's amusement park as an adult and being like "yeah, this sucks, why did I ever enjoy this?", maybe the nostalgia is there deep down, but you can't just go back and relive it in the same light.

I've kind of realize this about certain things in my life. Once you leave the cave, there's no going back. That illusion of a simpler reality is gone. 

If the great resignation wakes people up, good. It's the one hope we actually have in my opinion of building a better society. Incrementalism isn't going to do it. Traditional politics isn't going to do it. And maybe the reason I'm so turned off from the mainstream is precisely because I am this burnt out and bitter anti work person who just feels alienated and ignored by the mainstream. 

I don't want to spend huge portions of my life working. I really don't. I see work is the ultimate waste of time. It's time stolen from me I can never get back. And the fact that people aren't more outraged by this fact, and that this isn't the #1 issue that all of us, regardless of class, creed, or political affiliation, to solve, just..baffles me. And then I see people pushing all these other causes and I just don't care. How can i, as long as this giant weight is hanging over me? 

The real progress this generation has to make, it's regarding these issues. The modern work week is a relic of the 20th century. We should strive to minimize the amount of work that exists in society, so that we can be free to spend our time, actually doing things. The fact that we spend the same amount of time, if not more time working, than our grandfathers and great grandfathers who lived around 80-90 years ago, is just sad. We shouldn't have to live like this any more. And despite my malaise, this is the one thing I have an insatiable will toward resolving. Because it's something that impacts us all on a personal level.

We all have to wake up in the morning, and spend at least half our time working, for a majority of the days we exist. It's sickening. We should be protesting against THIS great sin of humanity. And the fact that these politics are still so not mainstream, is why I can't tolerate mainstream politics. 

This is also why I'm an indepentarian. Rousseau was right when he said," man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." Indeed we are. And the one issue that I do care about, is liberation from that. And the best way we can do that is by supporting basic income and medicare for all, and that is what I shall focus on. The way to free people from labor is to ensure their basic needs, forcing the market to adapt and automate jobs, and driving the price of labor to what it really deserves. After all if people have to inconvenience themselves taking hours of their time to serve someone else, they better be paid for it darned well.

One last message: the power of "enlightened self interest"

 So, the traditional divide in american politics over the past century or so seems to be this. The right is essentially individualistic and self interested, the left is essentially collectivist with less emphasis on self interest. And it's a crap divide, and it's one that is unfavorable to the left.

I don't believe that human interest is "evil" per se, but I do believe it's self interested. At the end of the day, people care about themselves, their families, and maybe beyond that their local communities and close circles of friends, but that's it. People only have limited mental bandwidth and expecting people to care about everything and everyone is something that just doesn't compute for most people. Me, being autistic, my bandwidth is even more limited. I care more intensely about fewer things, but all people only have a limited amount of bandwidth for caring. 

That said, most people trend toward the right. The idea that people get more conservative as they get older is a nod to this, and might actually be summing up my malaise to some extent. I'm in my 30s now, I have less bandwidth to "care", so I just...don't. Honestly, I don't really believe my values changed, but I will say that how much I care about advocating for them has. I've focused more intensely among my top priorities, and have kind of stopped caring about so called lesser priorities. I could see, as people get older, get entrenched in jobs, and have kids, that that becomes their world and any challenge to it scares them. So they seek to preserve what they have. Of course, being a millennial, and living in this dumpster fire of an economy, I just...haven't done that. Instead I got a fire under me about how this economy sucks and needs change and I ran with it. But still, over time, I've become more narrow and focused on what that means, what the core issues are, and how to solve them. I can't afford to get bogged down on everyone else's issues. THis means that I'm not driven to the right, but maybe I am some sort of yang-esque center. 

But, in a sense, that's what I believed all along, and I'll get to that in a bit, before that, I want to go back to outrage culture on the left. The left has this obsession with caring. Even Rush Limbaugh noted this when i was a conservative in his books. he pointed out that a big thing about the left is they need to constantly circlejerk about how much they care. They gotta wear those little pins for cancer or AIDs awareness. They gotta hashtag everything about BLM. And encountering leftists online, everything is a purity test of caring. You're supposed to drop everything and care about the latest flavor of the month, or you're a bad person. Even progressives do this. Like screaming about israel and brown kids being bombed. is the treatment of palestinians awful? yes. Can you expect people to want to perform activism surrounding that constantly and purity testing people who might see the issue in a more nuanced way? No. After a while, outrage culture leads to backlash culture, and backlash culture leads to the right gaining more dominance as people focus more on self interest and "screw you I got mine" mentalities. And people eat it up. And this is, in my opinion, why the left seems to struggle so much in politics. Because they come from a disadvantageous position of lofty causes that dont connect to the every day lives of people, and people stop caring, start getting annoyed at the self righteousness of people who do care, and it just leads to the right gaining more support.

So, how would I, as an ex conservative, counter this? Simple, what I liked to call "enlightened self interest". There is nothing wrong with being interested in yourself. But, we need to have a left wing movement that actually furthers most peoples' individual self interests. And this is why I'm so big on UBI and medicare for all. Basic income is a policy that structurally would benefit roughly 60-80% of the population. Sure, the top 20-30% would lose under it, but those are the richest 20-30% of Americans who pay the most money in taxes. Most people, including most of the middle class (as defined by the literal middle, none of this nonsense about an 80 percentiler being "middle class"), would benefit from these proposals. In an immediate way. They would see themselves getting more money in the long term. it would be positive for them. And it would fit yang's idea of modern and effective governance. People might hate paying taxes, but they like getting money, and if you get more money than you pay in taxes, then you should support the policy. And given the prevalence of anti work culture in modern years (the one good thing to come out of this crapshow), maybe UBI could appeal to those with anti work goals. Not everyone would be a winner here. Those upper class suburbanites the democrats love to pander to will be horrified and vote republican, but if we can get the rest of the working class on board, it won't matter. 

Same with medicare for all. Many people hate the healthcare system and its full of holes. If we get universal coverage we might see not just the poor get covered, but the middle see clear benefits as the cost of their coverage decreases significantly. No more insane copays and deductibles and everything else. This is kind of why I'm for M4A even if expensive. People are paying anyway, it's a matter of how. And medicare for all could do a good job reducing costs for most Americans with, once again, only the rich paying more.

These are only a few ideas, but this is the sort of stuff the left needs to embrace. Because you could sell it to people as "hey this directly benefits you." It makes your life materially better, in a direct way, and the only people it backlashes against are the top 20%, who are the most wealthy in society anyway and would remain so even after higher taxes. 

If we did this, there would be no need to keep the left in cycles of perpetual outrage and caring that turn people off. After a while, I just get to the point that all of that caring is energy wasted that could've been spent more productively. If we do things this way, we can ensure that most people will be better off. We can eliminate poverty, a lofty goal, while being able to go to normie voters and say "hey, this appeals to you, vote for us."

Honestly, I think this is what yang does right that everyone else on the left gets wrong. Hillary's big slogan was "I'm with her." As in, im gonna give up my own interests to vote for her in an abstract way even if I dont benefit from it. Bernie once asked if you're willing to fight for someone you don't know. A noble sentiment, but one that I don't think will work long term.

Yang is basically like, hey, how much better off would your family be with $1000 a month? What if the government was much simpler? What if things actually worked? He is the perfect blend of left wing humanitarianism combined with the self interest of the right.

It's not left or right, it's forward. And policies like UBI are forward. They combine the best elements of both sides to create what should, in theory, become the ideal approach to do things. Sadly, due to extreme factionalism, I feel like this is getting lost as culture wars and constant outrage over abstract issues wins the day.

Maybe if politics focused more on this sort of stuff, I wouldn't be so darned burnt out. Or maybe I would, as autistic burnout is common and happens. It remains to be seen, but yeah. 

Anyway, I expect this to be my last post for a while, unless I have some other random thing I want to talk about. Even if burnt out, i feel like doing this blog for the past year has accelerated my own personal growth politically. I now know where I fit in in a post 2020, post bernie electoral environment. And while I hate the environment, at least I found a home and some sort tenets to get behind.

I still might post once in a while if I have something to say. But honestly, I'm just so burnt out on most politics right now that I expect I'll be taking a long break after this. Heck, maybe I'll do one more before I leave as it's another topic worth discussing.

Addendum to being burned out: I wonder if this is how Reagan won...

 As you guys know, a big topic of interest for me is the last party realignment, and how Ronald Reagan came to power. And given the sheer amount of "malaise" I'm feeling over politics, I have to wonder if these kinds of attitudes are what led to the rise of modern conservatism. 

Looking at the 1970s we can see the same patterns repeating. First, we have the civil rights era in the 1960s. This led to a period of massive change, and one that divided the party. The feds imposing civil rights on the south alienated them, driving the south from the democratic party.

The party also experienced other problems, as the establishment failed to maintain control over their party. Humphrey was essentially the chosen one, and alienated the progressive base of the democratic party, which further contributed to his loss.

In 1972, no one really wanted the democrats, and nixon had a solid grip on electoral politics. And the progressives banded together and promoted McGovern as a nominee. He won, but the party establishment hated him, so they sabotaged him. He was "too far left" as he proposed *gasp* basic income, as well as a lot of extreme (for the time) social policies. People love to point out the UBI as the reason for his loss, but in reality, IMO, it was the social stuff, and the sabotage from within the party, and just the fact that people liked Nixon.

But then, much like today, supply shortages sent the "good" (It wasn't really "good", as UBI advocates even back then were saying tons of issues existed undernieth those growing wages and 4% unemployment) economy into a spiral of inflation, and people just starting being frustrated. As the nixon administration went down in flames and no one really liked Ford, Carter won in 1976, only to be handed every problem under the sun, from the hostage crises, to the USSR invading Afghanistan, to the economy, to the energy crisis, to the fact that his own party was against him, and nothing got done.

It was a period of malaise. People just lost faith in the government. because it was doing things but it wasnt really doing things, if that made sense. And people didn't feel positive effects in their lives as a result. They just saw the problems.

With Biden in office, and facing supply chain crises and a so called "labor shortage" from covid and the economy being knocked all out of whack, democrats are flailing in approval ratings. Biden isn't doing anything. he's passing token bills but those bills dont make peoples' lives better. And the left hates biden for being moderate, and then manchin and sinema are just clogging everything up. 

No one is happy. Everyone is freaking out calling for ideological purity. While some calling for purity is a good thing, as the different factions of the party want different things and often see the world in fundamentally different ways, it's getting a bit much, as even people who kind of sort of support a side aren't welcome because they don't support every aspect of it.

I really have to wonder if, back in the 70s, after being subjected to constant crises and outrage for a good 15 years, if by the time we got Reagan, if people just didn't care any more. The left doesn't like to admit it, and seems to work against this on a fundamental level sometimes, but human nature is selfish. Most people are first and foremost interested in their own well being, including myself. Now, I understand this. This is why I don't expect people to "care". I base my views on what I call "enlightened self interest", branching my own concerns, with those of the community, bringing individualism and collectivism together in a way that works. but the left...doesn't do that. They just keep people on a perpetual outrage cycle of expecting people to constantly care, and it just...doesn't work. 

I could see the boomers, having spent their entire 20s and 30s in a crapshow, basically turning around in the 1980s and saying screw it, economy is back to normal, economy is growing, I'm making money, this is fine. They hated the wokies because they were constantly screaming as they always do. And maybe people just really liked Reagan despite him structurally setting up the future generation for failure because he brought a sense of normalcy back to America. 

I don't think Reagan's path was the right one. I've been convinced that small government conservatism can't work. But the left isn't working either. In my opinion, we need Yang, or someone like him. Someone who is for some level of government involvement, but who simplifies it and makes it work. Yang's principle of modern effective governance appeals to the ex conservative in me because I understand how conservatism has a point in saying that government doesnt work. if your entire approach to government is based on incremental band aid ism and bureaucratic solutions that people can't feel, yeah you're gonna lose support. I don't want the old left back. The reason I supported bernie was to get back to a starting point, and bring to an end the era of conservatism. But it seems like instead the left is repeating its past mistakes and turning people off.

If we're not careful, trump could win, and the right might push an ideological victory yet again, relegating the left to being that alternative party of demonized and unpopular ideas no one wants to touch for the next 40 years. It scares me, but it can happen. The reason I feel malaise is because I don't feel like the left represents me any more. But obviously I'm not a right winger either. It's literally only the forwardists who are remotely close to my politics.

Burned out on politics, tired of "caring"

 So, we're getting to that time again, where I just get turned off from politics and feel the need to isolate myself more and not focus as much on it. I went into a slump like this post 2016, and I'm feeling a need to do it again. Back then, it was because Trump won, I lost all faith in both parties, and the politics of the day was painfully boring and I just wasn't willing to engage with the topics. That's kind of a side effect of my autism. I can care passionately about issues I hold dear, to the point of obsession, but literally everything else...no. I just can't. 

And I feel like, outside of advocacy for some forward party stuff, I'm getting to that point again. Politics is exhausting these days. I feel like it's just a perpetual outrage cycle where people get hyped up and polarized over the latest issues of the days, and then they just castigate anyone who doesn't share the same exact values or concerns. And given the general mismatch between my politics and the rest of the left these days, I just am getting to the point that I just can't any more. I'm finding engaging in politics increasingly exhausting over the past few months, and I'm just to the point I'm out of craps to give. 

The fact is, almost no one represents me. The democratic party is divided into four factions, and I'm part of that alienated, disenchanted outsider faction. I've gone over my issues with the moderate neolibs to death. How they seem to love the status quo and are the true conservatives in this country (with the right being reactionaries), and how they don't want to solve any issue in a meaningful way, only to act surprised when their approval ratings tank when they struggle to pass a compromise of a compromise of a compromise of a bill that was another compromise and was never good in the first place. 

Then you have the progressives, who are on the opposite end of this cycle. I rolled with these guys from 2016-2020, but as I've been pointing out, I become increasingly out of sync with them. Quite frankly, our priorities are diverging, and they're becoming more obsessed with ideological purity around "socialism" and seem to scream and castigate people over the silliest reasons like not supporting an immediate end to all 'regime change wars", supporting israel on twitter, and other things. Even stuff I largely agree with like unions, just the amount of vitriol and outrage I've seen toward people who just dont care enough is outrageous. I literally got into an argument with a vote blue no matter whoer tonight who basically weaponized labor concerns against me decision to vote third party, going on about how because of me, the court skews right and now unions cant force people to pay dues, and I'm just do the point I DONT. CARE. like, labor unions are well and good, but they're not my ideal approach to getting gains from an anti work perspective. Union supporters are still jobists, and they largely believe in "the dignity of work" and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I'm more like "let's abolish work and give people money" and that just doesn't have a role in the modern left. 

Speaking of which, the amount of hatred I see toward yang for daring support a UBI that *gasp* removes parts of the fundamentally flawed welfare state, is outrageous, and I'm sick and tired of being told I'm a right winger every time I mention I support yang or UBI because he's a neoliberal libertarian shill or something. 

Like, a big condition of my support on the left was that they would shift the overton window where UBI BECAME something that is able to be openly discussed and supported. And it kind of is, because of yang. But now this same left is turning against it and tribalistically defending a flawed welfare state I really dont believe in and only really accept as an alternative to literally nothing like the right supports, and yeah. I'm just getting turned off.

This isn't even getting into the idpol obsessed people. Who seem in their own little world and scream at anyone who doesn't care about THAT stuff enough. While lecturing people about how choosey POC are in supporting candidates and how they gotta make everything about them.

If the left had their crap together and built, you know, a cross faction coalition, bringing progressives, outsiders, and even POC together, appealing to all of their concerns to some extent, while making compromises on more minor issues if necessary, that would be fine, but instead they gotta scream everything isnt literally perfect, and therefore everything is bad. Honestly, there's only a handful of issues that for me are non negotiable. UBI, universal healthcare, and free college/student debt forgiveness. Even on the last 2 I can compromise on in terms of the overall policies and degrees to which stuff is supported, if, in exchange, it means my UBI gets supported in an uncompromised form (because I've done the math and understand balancing all of these things is hard financially). As long as you support some version of them.

But, instead, the modern left seems to be about being forced to care and circlejerk about issues that you don't really care much about, and being bullied and shamed if you don't. 

I'm just tired, man. Like, it's getting to the point I have zero energy to discuss politics. If I try, I just get frustrated too much. And it's taking a clear toll on my mental health.

I can't, in good faith, continue to advocate for even issues I care about dearly, in this kind of mental state. Because I'm not debating at my best in the first place, as I have no energy to, and even worse, I'm not really representing my views well. I understand this is purely a me problem. i know the counter arguments exist. But I'm out of energy. I have full on dillahunty syndrome. And I just get angry and lash out instead. 

I'm sick of politics, man. I still might post here if I have something more to say worth saying, but other than that, I just cant any more.

News that surprises no one: most latinos do not like "Latinx" verbiage

 So, in news that surprises no one, "latinx" terminology goes over with the latino community like a lead balloon. I don't really have a lot to say about this, I just wanted to bring it up because I just find it to be a hilarious instance of identity politics eating itself. On the one hand you have the anti racist people who are so hardcore on letting POC speak and not imposing their cultural norms on them, and then you have the more anti sexist people doing crap like this. And when the different idpol factions start conflicting with each other, wars break out. We saw it with dave chappelle recently with him using black identity politics against the trans community to pull a form of suffering olympics, and in the more distant past, I remember the 2008 primary was a dumpster fire of this stuff. 

I mean, this stuff is a joke of an ideology. It means well, but in practice it just leads to hyper factionalism and purity testing. It's just stupid. Like, spanish is a highly gendered language, and these guys trying to push a form of politics that's gender neutral ironically just comes off as colonialism in the first place. I mean, let them speak their language. Who cares if its gendered. All trying to force this stuff does is alienate people. And I'm just tired of it. As I keep saying, trying to police cultural norms on people that are not popular does is piss people off and alienate people. We need fewer over culture warriors trying to convert people like an inquisitor trying to convert people to christianity, and more focus on actual bread and butter issues. not to say we cant influence culture subtlely. But all engaging in these kinds of fights does is turn people off.

Envisioning a "free to play" society

 So, this has actually been something I've touched on in places other than this blog, and has entered my mind again in the wake of halo infinite and its controversy over it being free to play and having lootboxes. And maybe, given how many people are losing their crap over it being free to play, this post will come off as alienating to some, but as someone who actually really LIKES the free to play model when it's done correctly, well, yeah, I like the concept.In a lot of ways, I actually think my ideal society would be run like a fairly designed free to play game, rather than a paid game.

As we know, I consider myself an indepentarian. I believe that poverty is a form of economic coercion, and that wage labor is slavery. Without having enough resources, guaranteed to you as a right, you are not free, you are coerced to work (grind, in gaming terms) for the purpose of acquiring property to survive. Now, it could be argued, in the past, such a system was needed. After all, if everyone didn't work, there wouldn't be enough, and society couldn't afford laziness because that would lead to people starving. That's a perfectly fair way to look at things. And that's why we have such statements as "he who does not work does not eat." It isn't a divine command like some who believe in the bible treat it, it's a common sense statement of look, we need people to work in order to produce things we need. If you want to not starve to death, you have to pitch in.

But, some time in the past 200 years, things have changed. Modern capitalism led to great economic growth, and technology has allowed us to do far more with less. But rather than using this technology and economic growth to work less, we instead seek to force people to provide higher levels of goods and services while keeping them under the same levels of economic coercion. At this point, the idea that we need everyone working just to survive is madness. We're just creating jobs that don't need to exist for the purpose of providing them an income to buy things we need because we still see it deep in our being as fundamentally unfair for people to not work. Those who work become resentful toward those who don't, and thus, the key thing keeping us creating jobs seems to be to ensure we're all miserable. And to make numbers on spreadsheet go up.

But let's face it, the economy has exploded in the past 200 years, and as COVID has proven, we could afford to work a lot less without a major impact on quality of life. Maybe some higher luxuries like restaurants and movie theaters might be harder to come by, maybe that video game you want gets delayed a year. Oh well, isn't it worth it to ensure a more just world? Right now, we have a society of slaves, where lower class people are basically forced to work in service of much more entitled middle and upper class people. Think about it. The people screaming about going back to normal generally aren't going without basic needs, but luxuries. They want to eat out. They want to get their nails and hair done. They want people to be forced to work, to serve them. And to me, it's sickening. In some ways I like how the pandemic changed how many of us think about the economy. More remote work, less unnecessary luxuries, and while let's face it luxuries are nice, I'm not really one to suggest that people be forced to be slaves to provide them. If anything, I want people to be free to live as they want. 

In some ways, I suggest rather than have the current paid model, we move to a free to play model.

Paid games vs f2p games

The traditional model of gaming is this. If you want access to the game, you pay for it. Period. if you don't pay, you can't play the game. Period. I mean, it makes sense. You want a product or service, you pay for it. it's only fair. I mean, the developers aren't working for free, if you want to play a game, you need to give them money to buy it. How can you give games for free, isn't that an unsustainable business model?

Well, maybe not. But before I get that far, let's draw comparisons to a work based society here. THe logic behind a paid game is the same logic behind a "no work no eat" society. If you want something, you need to contribute. Period. otherwise why would we provide this good or service to you? I mean, we need to expend effort to make this stuff, why should you get it for free? 

But, as we know, paid games tend to have issues. They tend to shrink player bases, as there's a paywall stopping people from playing your game. And as the price goes up, often times these business models are subject to DLC and subscription models which are kind of coercive in the sense that you need to keep paying more money to get the complete product. Ultimately, the product, rather than offering a flat rate, tends to extract as much as they can from consumers, often with backlash.

Which brings us to f2p games. Free to play games started out in the 2000s or so, when the internet started being widespread. They made the base access to the game free, so that it's free to play, but then monetized other stuff. Cosmetics were always a huge part of it, but on top of that, they often monetized in game advantages and stuff. However, this was largely deemed unfair, and these aspects were largely removed from the business model as time went on. Nowadays, modern f2p games are run on cosmetics, rather than pay to win elements. And even paid games often include similar cash shops, often at the expense of DLC. So now games are cheaper, and now free. The game quality has largely stayed high, and they are often monetized purely though cosmetics or maybe in game grinding toward elements that impact game play, in ways which are deemed fair. 

This has actually been good for the industry in my opinion. It has made games cheaper, and often free. THis has grown their player bases, leading to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to play them to play them, and some people tend to go for paid items. Developers make money by offering cash shop cosmetics and other such items, which often do little to impact game play, but tend to make the user feel good. Ultimately, most people who play f2p games are free loaders, but a smaller number of core players who pay for such voluntary content often drive the sustainability of the whole game.

A free to play society

Essentially, when I argue for an indepentarian society, I argue for a society based around similar principles. Rather than require every member of society be forced to participate or lose their access (which in the modern world means poverty and death), I suggest we make the basics of society free. Everyone should have access to the basics and be able to freely participate as much or as little as they want. So how do we get the sausage made? Offering positive incentives. Obviously, starting out, a basic income oriented f2p society is going to be barebones, a lot like an early f2p game from the 2000s. Free players can play but they don't really get a good experience. You'll be given enough to be kept alive and relatively comfortable, but if you really want a good experience, you need to work. If you want to eat out on the regular or get your nails done, you would still probably need to work to get extra money to afford such things. Given our current labor needs, and the fact that society still needs a relatively large labor force, this is fair. And those who work would gain access to the "pay to win" experience of being able to afford much nicer houses, and clothing, and food, and luxuries, etc. 

However, as time goes on, and labor needs go down, perhaps the basic experience could be raised to ensure everyone a much higher living standard, with those who work being willing to do so for more abstract rewards. I never imagined we would get to a point where in halo infinite despite such a high quality free to play game people take their skins that seriously they complain about them literally as hard as a more flawed game's issues like battlefield 2042, but here we are. But perhaps if we have several generations of the f2p basic income society I want, things will advance that much and concerns that seem stupid and petty now like grinding for cosmetics becomes the most pressing issue of our society. That would be wonderful. But sadly, I probably wouldn't be able to even grasp these debates given my current 21st century mindset much. 

Anyway, people always ask the question about who would work if we gave people a basic income. I counter by asking who would pay for freaking cosmetics in a f2p game? people do. And apparently they do it enough to make it a viable business model where even AAA developers are offering free games or at least free modes to paid games in some cases. 

My ideal society would work in a similar way. Everyone gets the basics, and then depending on the labor needs of society, we incentivize people through positive incentives to work. And while some might not work, many will, and as long as enough choose to voluntarily work under such a system, I don't see the problems with it. We get to solve poverty and make everyone's lives better, and it seems to me that the challenges and debates that would be had under such a society seem so petty and minor compared to the real issues we face in modern society. 

That isn't to say people will always be happy. Maybe some people would deem the tax system too unfair, or dislike free loaders, or think the cost of luxuries is too high or something like that. People are people, and I'm to the point of thinking people will always find something to complain about. Again, I dont think people become conservative as they get older as much as society changes to make people relatively conservative compared to it. It would be possible where given society changed enough in the direction I support it changing I would become the out of touch boomer while people would complain about something I deem petty while I talk about how I walked 5 miles in the snow to go to school. 

Conclusion

Anyway, I just felt like this was a good analogy through which to explain my indepentarian principles and how we can move from a society where everyone has to work, to one where everyone doesn't. I dont necessarily believe if people werent coerced to work that they wouldnt work. Rather, I think it depends on the incentive structure offered. Some absolutely would work regardless of coercion assuming we balanced incentives right. And I do believe that much like a f2p game can provide high quality experiences to gamers for free while still making money, on the large scale, we could do the same thing with society as a whole. The real question is changing peoples' attitudes to be accepting of such a society. Which is where we have our work cut out for us. Oh well, that's what this blog is for. To try to enlighten people to my way of thinking. Hopefully if you read this I changed your mind or at least got you thinking. 

Why the left's fight against "racism" seems futile to me, aka, why culture wars don't work

 So, I've been thinking about what I said in my previous post, and the post I made almost a month ago about people fearing the downfall of democracy, and I think I kind of came to a new realization of why I dislike the left's approach to fighting racism and blah blah blah..

It's essentially because I don't truly believe culture wars work through the methods they're trying to make them work though. 

As I've noted before, the SJW left is a lot like the religious right. They seem to want to impose their cultural views by force. They want to teach their ideas in schools, they want to punish people who don't support their ideas. They don't believe in free speech or freedom of expression. If you're racist, you're a bad person, and bad people need to be punished to stop them from being bad. It's an extremely authoritarian mindset and rubs me the wrong way on multiple levels.

You know, after I left the religious right in 2012, I went through a period where I was a bit of an anti culture warrior too. I believed that religion was one of the major things wrong with the world, and that if no one was religious, we would be able to have more reasonable discussions about things and progress as a society. I no longer believe that. 2016 onward have kind of beaten that out of me, as I watched the "intellectually superior" political left devolve into the same kinds of tribalism I expected from the right, and for the right to start finally breaking away from religion and back toward a more secular form of "fascism" under Donald Trump. Not to say we completely got rid of the religious aspects, but I kind of realize that if we solved the issues and made everyone not religious any more, it wouldn't solve the problems.

Also, I always tried to avoid using the same kinds of tactics SJWs do in trying to promote my ideas. The last thing I wanted to do was to galvanize the religious right against me on the basis that I want to "persecute" them. No. I might have thought their views were wrong and downright harmful to society, but I understood that they had a right to hold them, and that if I took away their right to do so, I would be the bad guy, and they would rightfully lash out against me. 

Now, that isn't to say I'm not willing to step in at times and preserve the rights of OTHERS when they come in conflict with peoples' religious rights (ie, yes, you have to provide employees with birth control as part of your health insurance, yes, you have to bake gay people a wedding cake, yes, you have to get vaccinated to ensure that people don't die from being exposed to your cooties). But, I'm not going to do so lightly. I'm not gonna act like I'm trying to actively stamp those ideas out of existence,. That IS persecution, and that is wrong. 

Racism, by the way, always felt under the same kinds of ideas that religion did for me at this time. Racism is a harmful view, but people have a right to be racist. And express racist views. And while I don't like those views, I believe that preserving peoples' right to be racist is a necessary component of free speech. I mean, if you really support free speech, you have to support the right if people you don't like to express their views publicly, without retaliation. 

That said, it really frustrates me to see the left in such an authoritarian way. And I can honestly say, I don't believe this approach would be harmful. Okay, so imagine you are like a fudnamentalist christian, and the left tries to push organized efforts to ban discussion of religion. Say you can't discuss those ideas on social media or you get banned. Say you cant express them publicly or you have people calling up your employer to get you fired, or you're trying to otherwise punish people for having these views.

Are you going to change your mind? Think about it, think of whatever views you hold dear, are you going to change your mind, if someone tries to forcefully stop you from having such views? No. At best, you might force those ideas underground. But you're not gonna eliminate them. You're just being an authoritarian ###hole who punishes people for having those views.

At worst, what might happen is such attempts to censor views might cause you to backlash and find solace with others who think like you, causing them to polarize themselves against you and organize, becoming a potentially dangerous counter force to your side of the aisle.

Well, congratulations, that's what you guys (SJWs) are doing with racists. You're not really making people less racist in trying such authoritarian tactics to force racism, you're polarizing people against you. You're driving them to Donald Trump. And places like voat instead of reddit. All this deplatforming nonsense just drives people deeper into their own echo chambers where they tend to develop their own alternative networks and social structures, which will just amplify those views. Being not represented in mainstream corporate media forced them to make their own corporate media in the form of Fox News, and more recently Newsmax, OAN, and the blaze. And honestly? I think a lot of fence sitters are so turned off by a lot of the behavior the left engages in that people who would otherwise be moderate, become more extreme. Because they dislike the left trying to repress them. They might not even have hardcore racist views themselves, but, they don't like being told what to do so they end up turning against the left as a result. 

I even saw a meme today where the SJWs went full stupid where they said "when you expose a racist student, you stop them from attending a university that will allow them to become a racist healthcare worker, teacher, lawyer, real estate developer, politicians, etc."

There is so much wrong with this statement.

First of all, you're talking teenagers and young adults who were indoctrinated by really bad influences in their youth. I see racism a lot like I see fundamentalist religion, as I keep pointing out. it's not really something that people get in a vacuum, or that they're going to always hold, etc. it's indoctrination. That said, what breaks indoctrination? Uh, going to college. Forcing people to confront views they otherwise wouldn't. Challenge them intellectually. So, by kicking out racist students, you're stopping them from learning, which means they will continue to be racist. Congratulations, you played yourselves.

Second of all, will the person kicked out of college actually change their tune by being kicked out? Hell no, you just made an enemy for life. We already have an anti intellectual problem in this country, where the right doesn't trust educational institutions, and this problem will just reinforce it and make it worse.

Third, they're gonna have to get a job anyway. You just forced them down the income and prestige ladder, basically to punish them. You do realize people need to work in society and this is coercion right? of course you do, you're trying to make it where they can't get a job and instead impose economic violence on them for having crappy views. But say they do get a job. Well, now your fast food worker is gonna be racist. Or your car mechanic. Or any other blue collar type job. And we all know white blue collar workers lean toward trumpism on the whole, so, once again, congratulations at just reinforcing that. 

So, what's my solution? Well, to a large extent I don't have one. I understand these ideas are here to stay, and I believe in working around them in order to minimize their damage. The thing about forcing a culture war is it doesn't work, and creates a backlash, while violating core principles we hold as a nation. We have to be tolerant of others, even those who are intolerant (yes, I hate the paradox of tolerance and believe it to be a hypocritical and harmful ideal). We gotta live with the fact that people will have crappy views. And if we want to encourage people to get out of those views, we need to do what new atheists believe we gotta do with religion. We gotta educate people. Instead of trying to punish racist people in college with kicking them out, why not subject them to mandatory critical race theory type classes? This is on the college level of course. Make them take credits in sociology to graduate. Ultimately, I believe the solution to the race issues is to deprogram people indoctrinated into that crap. And that relies on education, and engaging people in order to try to change their mind.

But we should NEVER EVER try to go the punitive route of trying to deplatform them and take away their rights. 

I guess a final reason I dislike culture war stuff is because I see it as a lot of effort for not a lot of return. The main role of politics should be to implement POLICY. We vote for leaders not to virtue signal about identity politics, but to pass policies that solve issues. And while I guess idpol can be important in politicking around these issues, ultimately, what matters is POLICY. And that said, when i look at politics, while I might make intellectual cases for shifting our values on things (I do it a lot with the anti work stuff), ultimately, I back up my values with policies. UBI, medicare for all, free college. All things that would make people much better off in an immediate and straightforward way. I feel like the left goes more for ideas that arent really felt by much of the population, and then they lose them as they end up being divisive. Nah, i'd rather go straight to solving problems.

On a policy level, I believe the best approach to racism is defensive. We preserve the rights of those who are underprivileged. We pass policies protesting people from discrimination, along with the basic color blind economic policies that benefit everyone, but in reality will benefit POC a lot more because, you know, poverty and lack of material security. 

I'm not gonna try to impose piecemeal policies with like a 30% approval rating that are divisive like racial quotas, or affirmative action, or reparations. We don't want to get in a battle where we're called out for taking opportunity away from whites to give to other people. That's dumb, that's how you lose people. You make it cost your typical average joe something and they'll turn against it. Because ultimately, most people care primarily about themselves and their own situation. Again, SJWs try to force people to care, and even sacrifice their own priorities on the altar of white liberal guilt, and that doesnt work.

People might not like my enlightened centrism and moderation on this topic. I tell them tough crap. I am a bit of a centrist on these issues these days. Maybe center left as I acknowledge the issues to some extent, but yeah, i'm not really die hard on solving it at all costs. Because I kind of believe the costs of doing so aren't worth it. If we force people to not be racist, they lose their freedom of speech and expression, opening the door for more attacks against other ideologies we don't like. Not to mention creating a polarizing counter movement which isn't good for the country. If we try to force people to give up something to solve the problem, the majority of people will turn against it.

The thing that gives my ideas strength, IMO, is that they're universal, and I can make a case to a majority of people that they will benefit from them. I can even calculate how much better off people will be under my UBI plan than they are now in a lot of instances. And those who do pay into the system are not just a minority, but they're arguably the most demonstrably materially best off among us. As you make more money, you pay more in taxes, and the top 20% pays in net. 70-80% benefit, 20-30% pay. That's fair, under utilitarian principles. 

And yeah. I know, I'm starting to ramble now. But that's how I see things. All things considered, I don't believe the left can win a fight against racism as they are. They're just going to end up driving it if anything and make the problem worse as their methods are heavy handed and polarizing. The downside of trying to cast racists out of polite society is that you're just concentrating them all in one place and making them a political force to be reckoned with. Which NO ONE wants. So stop it. You guys might not want to hear it, but you gotta live with these people. The goal is to educate them and minimize the impacts of their harmful views, not take the bull by the horns only to get bucked.

Discussing David Pakman, Andrew Yang, and white supremecy

 So, David Pakman and Andrew Yang had a sit down recently discussing his forward party. It was a pretty decent interview, if anyone wants to watch it. However, there does seem to be some drama extending from it, and I kind of get the impression David Pakman is kind of fanning the flames of it.

Essentially, when he was discussing his forward party and trying to appeal to the right, David Pakman asked him if right wingers with crazy ideas would be welcome into the forward party. Yang responded basically saying that everyone is welcome. So Pakman asked him more specifically what about white supremacists, are they welcome if they agree with yang on core issues, and he basically said people can disagree with him on lots of stuff, but if they agree on the core issues, they're welcome.

Of course, the left lost their crap over this, claiming that Yang is supportive of white supremecy and blah blah blah. This forced Yang to respond with a tweet disavowing white supremacy and saying white supremecists aren't welcome in the movement, because you know, grace and tolerance. And then yang went further calling this a" manufactured controversy...dragging down our public discourse" and flinging accusations of racism "isn't the path to enlightenment." Pakman is now asking "well is Yang mad over the question?"

So, what I want to do here is discuss the answer, discuss the outrage, the backtracking, and give my own answer on this question.

First, Yang's first answer. I see where he's coming from. And to cut straight to my own answer, which would be similar to the first answer, this is how I feel about it. I don't agree with people on everything. And I understand people are going to disagree with me. I certainly don't approve of hateful ideologies like white supremacy. But say I ran on basic income and a white supremecist supported me. Would I tell them I don't want their vote? Not really. And here's why. 

I DON'T SUPPORT WHITE SUPREMACY!

Like, period, end of story. And here's how I view running for office. You run on a platform. You support certain ideas. You build a coalition of voters. Now, those voters might not agree with you on a lot of things. I mean, let's look at the reverse when I look at who I support. Even the people I agree with most, I'll only agree with say, 70-80% of the time. That's your Andrew Yangs, and your Bernie Sanderses, etc. By the time you get to establishment democrats, you're talking 40-50% of the time. Republicans? Eh, like 10-20% of the time at most normally. 

Politicians have their views, and voters have their views. If a white supremacist wants to vote for someone who they agree with on a few core issues, say, UBI, or ranked choice voting, I don't see a particular issue with that. I mean, isn't it better to maybe try to draw them away from white supremacist political campaigns like say, Donald Trump, and neutralize the impact of their harmful views by getting them supporting candidates who aren't white supremacists? I mean, that's kind of how we have been able to suppress a lot of these harmful views over the past 75 or so years. People don't like to talk about it but I mentioned it recently. We've always kind of had a fascist streak in the population in this country. And the way we've been able to neuter it is by pushing the overton window AWAY from it. And getting those white supremacists to vote for politicians who aren't fascists. That's exactly what FDR did. He saw the rise of fascism in Europe and Bolshevism in Russia, and he realized in order to save democracy, he needed to promote a version of liberal democracy that actually worked for the people. And thus, we got the new deal and social democracy. 

And while that paradigm wasn't perfect, I mean, FDR's coalition was largely racist, it did stop us from descending into fascism or communism. But then the racists got butthurt when the democrats decided to crack down on segregation and the like, so they joined the republicans, and the republicans wooed them with dog whistle politics. Again, it was kept low key, and other issues were put forward, like anti welfarism. But ultimately, the republican party has, until recently at least, been able to at least keep up the appearance of not being racist and pushing for color blindness. Even Trump tries to use tokenism to give the impression of not being racist. 

I mean, as I see it, a lot of people are going to have the views they're going to have. We can try to change peoples' views, i would suggest doing so through reason and evidence, but if we can't, I think the best strategy to deal with white supremacy is distraction. And if we can encourage white supremacists to spend their time campaigning for issues that actually would help America at large, and they're willing to leave those politics at the door in the process, well, I don't see a problem with white supremacists supporting yang. Isn't it better that they support forward thinking ideas, rather than trying to promote their crap? Now, if they try to use the party as a springboard for their horrid ideas, yeah no, yang should shut that crap down, and I would too if I were running a campaign, but that isn't really what's happening here.

The left is essentially trying to purity test Yang. As we know, the SJWs are obnoxious in promoting their brand of politics. And they like to shove their ideas down everyone's throats and "cancel" people if they don't submit. And I see that as what's happening here. The left made a big uproar over this, like, well, we don't want THOSE people in the coalition, and if you welcome them, you're bad people.

Okay, fine, cool, you can drive them out of the movement. But where are they gonna go? To their own movement. And what are they gonna base their movement around? White supremacy. And who are they gonna be fighting against? YOU! If you want to concentrate all of the racist people all in one party, so they can create a coalition based around racism, which will just fan the flames of racism and more culture war nonsense, all the SJWs need to do is keep chasing people with any impurity on these issues out of their movement.

And this inflames tensions, causes polarization, and is one of the reasons why politics has such a crapshow in the past 6 years or so. When we ended up with Hillary vs Trump, we ended up in the worst timeline imaginable. We ended up with a worthless milquetoast centrist dem obsessed with social issues, and we ended up with an actually popular republican who pandered more openly to "racists" and "deplorables." And this essentially led to the crapshow that we have today. Trump's populism is popular, and even breathed life into a dying GOP. And well, now the democrats look like they're dying as the party seems obsessed with social issues and can't do crap to improve the lives of its citizens in a meaningful way. 

And this is actually why i have become a "moderate" forwardist, and have been checking in and out of politics over the more recent years. Because this sucks. Culture wars suck. making the defining issues about race and culture is just so...useless. And everyone as at each others' throats, and honestly, both sides are guilty. I don't like trumpers. But SJWs are pretty much just as toxic and obnoxious these days.

And honestly, I'm sick and tired of how prominent these issues are. I feel like they take over everything and we can't get anything done.

And to get mad in Yang's place, and understanding the frustration he feels, because it is a manufactured controversy, and quite frankly, the left needs to stop witch hunting yang, or anyone else for that matter, who doesn't fully agree with their ideology. 

Honestly, we can either continue along the path of culture war BS that will lead to unnecessary polarization over nothing, or, we can address issues, and create coalitions that diminish the impact of harmful ideologies, while moving us in a more positive direction on other stuff.

That said, should we be open to white supremecists voting for someone like yang? Sure, given they leave those politics at the door and don't fan their flames or feed them in some way. I'd rather they vote for forward party principles than white supremacy. 

And the same applies to the other side. yang has been careful to avoid giving any power to the culture wars. he seems to understand the issues with them and wants to stay out of them and remain neutral. Which is a good move. but it seems like the left is obsessed with making yang constantly take their side when he just wants to stay out of it. It's kind of pissing me off. Because that's what the left does. They must try to force people to agree with them, and they will castigate anyone who doesn't.

Honestly, this strategy is one of the reasons why the internal politics of the left is such a crapshow. I really do feel like sometimes it's either wokeism or social democracy. The left will explicitly push away socially conservative but economically progressive independents because they don't want THOSE people in their party. And as someone who is more moderate on the social and more left on the economics, I feel like they don't even want me. They've basically written people like me off. I'm one of those central Pennsylvanian dumb####s they don't want in the party, and they're ignoring, in order to bring in more moderate suburbanites who live in near Philly. 

But, what's in most central Pennsylvanian cities? Lots of poverty. Lots of crime. Lack of jobs. They're exactly the normal people Yang tries to appeal to. Except, you know, he treats us like humans and tries to solve our issues rather than purity testing for woke ideology. 

Honestly, it's a crapshow. This shouldn't even be an issue, and bravo for Yang finally lashing out at these guys. They need to shut up already. We got other issues to worry about and quite frankly they're a lot more important than culture war nonsense. 

Yang gets it right. He's being neutral on the cultural stuff. He's focusing on the issues that he finds most important. He's trying to be open to everyone and avoid controversy. But then you got some people who try to force him to take a side. it's really kind of sickening.

I think I'm done with "progressives" too

 So, this is probably a long time coming given my trajectory over the past year, but I think that just as I'm done with the democrats, and Bernie Sanders, I'm also done with the "progressive" movement too. This is kind of painful to write, but after reading back the response to Kyle Kulinski's post on doomerism, and dealing with other progressives online recently, I think it's gotten to the point I formally cut ties with them. 

The fact is, I just don't fit in the modern progressive movement any more. My ideology runs parallel to theirs, but it's fundamentally different. Before I say anything else, let me just say I feel like I need to do this, mostly because I'm sick and tired of progressives taking pot shots at me, and Andrew Yang, and how they act like it's their way or the highway. If progressives were more open and accommodating to those with differing perspectives, this post would not be necessary. A long standing belief I've had on the progressive movement is that I really believe we have more in common with each other than we don't. But, at the same time, it's become apparent to me, starting from around 2019 when the Yang-Sanders dichotomy started to form, to now, that some serious rifts have been beginning to form. And quite frankly, the progressives are the ones who took the first shot. 

Purity testing

A big issue I have with the left as a whole is the purity testing. Now, I admit I'm not innocent in this. heck, the reason Ive been able to remain in the progressive ranks for so long was quite frankly because progressives and I have a common enemy, and that is the democratic establishment. We also have some very similar goals, often supporting things like Medicare for all and free college. Support for those two things are why I tied my wagon to the progressive movement for so long. Because I've been saying, since around 2015 (and I have no changed in this sense), that we need a new new deal. We need to fix the country, and it isn't just a little change we need around the edges. We need major change. And quite frankly, Sanders rose to prominence around that time, and I globbed onto him. But my major change was based on three things. Basic income, medicare for all, and free college. And basic income wasn't even discussed in the mainstream then, so basically I just decided to join up with them for the healthcare and free college and worry about the rest later. But the dems and Hillary pushed back in 2016, and this caused me to ultimately support Bernie and become associated with the progressive movement out of certain priorities.

And a lot of us became paranoid of the democratic establishment, who would use dirty tricks to bully us into supporting them without offering us anything of value in return. But, since then, things have gotten out of hand. When Yang rose to prominence in 2019, I really had to rethink my loyalty to the progressive movement. And while I ultimately did go back to supporting Bernie, if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't this time. I'll get to that later. But honestly? Yang was not recieved well by progressives. And the core reason was that he was not Bernie. He was a bit more mixed on medicare for all. He didn't support full on free college. He supported UBI and human centered capitalism, but he was fairly moderate on other stuff. This alienated a lot of Bernie people.

But, to some extent, they just didn't understand the brilliance of Yang's ideology, and I did. Yang meant well with his UBI. I could understand why some progressives didn't like it, but their reaction was....less than hoped for. Instead of, like me, saying, okay he has these flaws but this is a good idea, they seemed to come out against UBI in general, arguing Yang was a right winger and a neoliberal shill who wanted to demolish the welfare state (oh what a tragedy that would be assuming we got a UBI out of it /s), and how his plan was evil. Rather than an honest exchange ideas they just instinctively bashed it because it wasn't Bernie and attacked it. As someone who considered myself progressive AND Yang gang, I was baffled by this, and frustrated. UBI is one of the most progressive ideas we could implement. Why were these people against it?! For a while I just didn't get answers for that. 

I thought these were just one off wannabe larping socialists and that most progressives liked UBI, but these attacks gotten to me over time. And it wasn't just on this topic I ended up having issues with progressives, it's a lot of them.

I'm kind of moderate on social issues and foreign policy. But if you're not the most extremist leftist on all of these things, you're bad. We've discussed my many issues with the SJW community before. The anti war community is just as bad, how the far left wants to end all wars and pull out of everywhere and they see the US as an evil occupier and blah blah blah. Again, more moderate/reasonable on this. but those philosophical differences matter. And the fact is, the progressives have these long laundry lists of policy positions you're supposed to hold and they scream and get uppity if you don't adopt LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. They have zero tolerance for impurity. I can be purity testy on my top few issues, but then on most I'm willing to compromise and work with others. I focus mostly on economics, and stick to my top issues, but progressives are never satisfied and keep screaming about people over anything. If you are "lukewarm" on black lives matter, you might as well say you're for Hitler. If you support Israel at all like Andrew Yang does, you're bad bad bad. No tolerance or nuance for any difference at all. It gets too much. And I guess that's why the Kyle Kulinski enforcer idea isn't going well with me. He wants to create more flak for impurity and while I understand his frustrations with the progressive movement, it just gets too much for me given I don't align with them on exactly everything.

Differences over policy priorities

Beyond not being enthusiastic over purity testing progressives, I'm starting to realize that I have different policy preferences. I recognized as early as 2019 that we can't have it all. While we can probably spend A LOT more than we do on social spending, we have limits. We have to prioritize what we're for. And the progressive movement has just chosen a different approach to economics.

The fact is, they just genuinely don't support UBI. They say they do, but whenever the subject comes up they reflexively attack it, saying it destroys welfare, and while they theoretically support their super special UBI plan, that plan isn't feasible in practice. We can probably spend an additional, roughly $5 trillion in additional social spending. Bernie's agenda is around $4.4 trillion, consisting of priorities like the green new deal, housing, medicare for all, etc. He supports large expansive programs, but obviously, if you are going to support a UBI, you might have to trim them a bit to make them work. And I spent much of the past year on this blog working out those numbers. And push comes to shove, I WILL compromise on other issues to make UBI work. I even looked at whether I would prefer UBI + moderate ideas or M4A + compromised UBI. I preferred to support UBI. So UBI is my priority #1. But the "progressive" movement just craps on it constantly and it's basically "well if we can fit it in AFTER everything else", and lets face it that after will never come. Because they'd spend tons of money on medicare for all and a green new deal and then turn around and say "UBI? we can't afford that!" And that's because we simply have different priorities. I admit many are overlapping which is why I tended to align with them, but there's some real significant ideological differences driving these differences too.

Differences over ideology

At the end of the day, I just different with the progressives on ideology. Bernie Sanders, in running for president, was a bit of a standard bearer for progressives, and presented a full ideology that his supporters have expanded upon. And that ideology is a lot more like 20th century liberalism a la FDR, combined with some "socialist" influences. As such, preserving existing safety nets, both old and new, is sacrosanct. Sure they want to expand them, even offer universal safety nets in a lot of areas, but they simply don't support a UBI, or at least prioritize it high enough to essentially support it. As such, their approach has many of the trappings of 20th century liberalism I find unattractive. Like supporting bureaucratic safety nets that often aren't universal, and proposing what I amount to band aid fixes.

All in all, all of the fixes, without a UBI as a core program holding everything together, amounts to a bunch of band aids that alleviate symptoms of capitalism, but not causes. It's like having a Thanksgiving dinner of all sides, and no main course. Sure the stuffing is there, and the vegetables, but where's the turkey? Something is just missing to me without a UBI.

Now, the more "socialist" factions kind of act the same way, but they see UBI as a "side dish" so to speak and promote socialism. And I don't find socialism to be worth investing in. Not only does it alienate the American people, but it isn't just some magic wand to wave away every problem. Economic democracy is nice, but market socialism doesn't alleviate poverty in and of itself, or free people from economic coercion. And more hard line socialists seem to want a command economy full of universal basic services, government bureaucracies, and potentially work requirements. So while they want to replace capitalism with their own system, it just isn't appeal to me and I end up coming off as more moderate with my indepentarianism and UBI and wanting to opt out of social systems and free from coerced participation. 

But even without that. Social democracy is a step up from neoliberalism or conservatism, but it's only a starting point. We were trending toward that in the 1960s, and some people decided you know what? This isn't good enough, we need a UBI. The fact is, as long as income is tired to work, poverty will always exist. Because being coerced into the labor force is, in my opinion, the root of all evil under capitalism. There will never be enough jobs, businesses will fight like hell to stop them from paying enough, they'll fight like hell to squeeze as much out of their employees as they can, and the regulatory state is slow and limited in how it responds to this. And quite frankly, people shouldn't be forced to participate in the system anyway, and I see trying to do so as de facto slavery. From a secular/state perspective, none of us asked to be born, so why should we be coerced to work in a system that seems to create jobs for its own sake to push us toward excessive levels of wealth we can never enjoy because we're working so hard?

Thats where I differ from social democrats. Social democrats are still believers in work and what essentially amounts to a flawed version of capitalism, they just believe in reforming it a bit more from other liberals. And while those changes are good, implementing too many of them will make implementing a UBI prohibitively expensive, so it's a matter of this. Should we have UBI plus more mild other proposals, or a bunch of more extreme proposals that help but don't solve the core issue?

I've done the philosophical and policy driven work on myself, and I've ultimately chosen the Yang gang route of UBI plus more mild other stuff. I'd prefer left libertarian human centered capitalism over basic social democracy or socialism. 

 Conclusion

I want to make clear that I still praise progressives for having better ideas than most of the competition and meaning well, but I'm not quite on the same page as them. And given how purity testy these guys are and how ideologically rigid both they are, and I am, I think we're just becoming increasingly incompatible. We're similar, which is why I've supported them up to now. But the differences are coming to a head with Yang establishing the forward party and virtually every progressive im talking to repeating the same crap about UBI being bad while advocating for welfarism or socialism, and yeah, I'm just done. The fact is, while I'm open to a lot of progressive goals, I'm more willing to compromise on them, and I am less pure than them. As far as they go, they are increasingly hostile to the one goal I absolutely won't compromise on, and yeah. Different ideology, different priorities.

I still respect them, but I'm more a forwardist/yang gang at this point. And the ideological and policy driven work I've shown on this blog over the past year shows. I've clearly gone in that direction, and my politics are far more compatible with yang than the traditional left at this point. This is not to say I agree with yang on everything. Sometimes he is too moderate, and I wish he would adopt more progressive proposals like medicare for all, free college, and climate change legislation. But still, i can live without them, or with compromised versions, if I get UBI. And honestly, that makes my ideal ideology more in line with Yang, than Bernie in the first place. That said I have changed. In 2020, I went for Bernie over Yang, but if I had to make the same decision 1.5-2 years later, i'd go for yang with a smile on my face.

I still might vote for progressives if Yang gang aren't available though. I mean, progressives are still better than neolibs or right wingers. But I have to go my own direction, and I'm drawing the line in the sand for 2024. If you don't support UBI, and someone else runs who does, I'm gonna vote for the UBI guy. Even if the other person literally adopts Bernie's entire platform. It's just what I believe in.