So, I'm going to recycle some 2020 metrics I used to judge presidential candidates here. I admit, at this point they might be a bit dated, but I still believe they generally speaking represent a solid approach to how I view politics.
Metric 1 - Overall view of candidate (out of 100)
This first metric is one in which I look at how I view the candidate in general. Generally speaking it gives me an overview of how well suited I think they are for the job. I did modify this one after 2020 to focus more on competence and less on their commitment to the issues, but given yang isn't running for any political office, i think the original weighting is sufficient. That said, let's look into it.
Universal basic income support- 10/10
UBI is a high enough priority for me where I include it automatically in my rankings. That and M4A are both high enough priority for me to do that. And Yang is...the UBI guy. So 10/10 Andrew.
Medicare for all - 0/10
While Yang has previously supported single payer, he has since shifted on the issue, and this is now totally absent from his forward party platform. So I cannot give him credit here. he may deserve some, but I really have no idea what he thinks on healthcare, and given he no longer even mentions it, I believe he deserves that much credit as I'm rating him on his forward party platform here.
Other economic issues - 8/10
While lacking a lot of traditional economic platforms like minimum wage increases, free college, and labor oriented issues that I would expect among progressives, his human centered capitalist philosophy is good enough to mostly counter that for me. After all, his approach to economics would revolutionize the economy in ways I think progressives don't realize and downplay. I would like to see more adoption of traditional left issues here at times, but all in all, he's still a strong candidate in his own right.
Social/domestic issues - 8/10
Honestly, most traditional social issues are missing from his platform. And while I assume he's a fairly socially center left guy like myself, I don't know. Regardless, he has a lot of interesting issues that would reform the system and are probably higher priority anyway. Yang tends to focus more on important issues that dont really fit any ideological mold and are important than on traditional social issues. Still, he also has a couple bum issues too, like high school public service programs. Bleh.
Foreign policy - 5/10
I admit yang is out of his depth here. He doesn't have strong views, and after his Israel gaffes, yeesh. I don't think he's terrible here and it's not really a big deal to me, but it's still part of my metric and I gotta take points off for it.
Ideology - 20/20
There is no one, not even Bernie Sanders, who is more forward thinking in politics today than Andrew Yang. His human centered capitalism stuff? Awesome. He's the only person seriously championing discussing the real issues regarding the economy and post work. And I have to give him credit for that.
Commitment/history - 15/20
By this I mean his commitment to the issues and his history. Essentially how sincere he is. Generally speaking I believe he is sincere, but given his willingness to drop healthcare as an issue, and his NYC mayoral race, I do believe he deserves points off. Still, I believe he's genuine in what he says and we would get good things out of him.
Experience/competence - 4/10
yang has no insider experience, which is a good thing in a way, but also a bad thing. The dude, I believe, would be willing to learn and pick up quickly on any office he seeks, but he still is a newb. So, yeah, points off.
Overall- 70/100
On this metric, he does a decent job overall. I mean, he has weaknesses, but he also has a lot of strengths. For the record, he scored a 72 on this metric during the campaign season, with me giving him higher on some things and lower on other things. And he was the second highest candidate, tied with Marianne Williamson, someone who I also respect ideologically but question the competence of. For the record, bernie had an 88, although if I were to review him again, given my ideological shifts over the past year, I would assume he would get lower too. This metric was originally designed around "Bernie but for UBI" as the ideal candidate, and while I have kind of shifted how i review these things since then, that's what my archetype of the ideal candidate was last year.
I mean, just for reference, if I regraded Bernie now based on whatever evolutions I've made to my views this past year, and given the unique solutions Yang offers that are simply outside of what any other candidate offers, I'd probably give Bernie a 79 now. And most of his points over Yang would be due to simply being more rounded on foreign policy and having more experience. Otherwise he would be virtually tied with yang. And given I actually don't care about foreign policy or experience that much, maybe I shouldn't be using this metric anyway.
Either way that's kind of where my head was at last year with supporting Bernie over Yang. Honestly, looking at it now, and looking at how yang has shifted my standards a bit, I probably should come up with a new metric before 2024.
Still, I have another metric...
Metric 2- A more policy oriented metric
So, I did originally, much like metric 1, consider reusing a policy metric that I used to judge 2020 candidates, but applying them to Yang NOW seems unfair. It's not 2020 any more. Biden is making mild incremental progress on many issues, and while I still rip him, I have to admit he took some issues off the table for me. Moreover, I kind of believe the existence of the forward party has shifted how I think about things, as I have evolved somewhat on issues, so I will be using a different weighting of issues. Like the last one, this will be using a metric of 100 points, and will reflect what I consider to be my highest priorities based on how I weight them.
Universal Basic income - 30/30
UBI being my #1 issue, gets a lot of weight. Originally, UBI and M4A both were 25% of my metric each, but this time around, given some shifts on how I prioritize these topics, UBI is going up to 30%, and M4A down to 20%. Still important, still a clear #2 for me, but yeah. And Yang nails this.
Universal healthcare - 0/20
While slightly less important for me this time around, it's still important, and Yang essentially abandoned it. So I can't give him any credit. For reference, full M4A gets full credit, a public option will get partial depending on how well it's implemented, and incremental fixes will get very little. We need a human centered healthcare system. Seriously yang, get on it. M4A literally matches several of your top ideological concerns.
Free college/Student debt forgiveness- 0/10
Yang was never huge on this, but at this point this plank has been essentially abandoned and has no mention in the forward party.
Political reform-15/15
Here I'm giving us a more broad based approach to political reform, and Yang's forward party emphasizes it greatly. if he had his way, our system would be mostly fixed, so he maxes this category out.
Climate change- 0/10
It's not mentioned, but I do know in 2020, he had a pretty based climate platform. Still, given its lack of mention here, no credit.
Improving capitalism-10/15
This being a new metric, is going to be a bit weird. But I decided to fit in a broad based open minded approach toward solutions that improve capitalism. Whether this include a fiery sanders style progressive agenda like minimum wage increases, stricter labor laws, etc., or a more human centered capitalist approach a la Yang, I try to make it easy for people to offer a bunch of proposals that improve the system in various ways.
Yang spends significant amounts of time offering some reforms revolving around human centered capitalism and streamlining the systems, but when I really think about it, he rarely offers specific fixes outside of UBI. Still, he has some decent proposals on a purely ideological level that are worth considering and grappling with. I have to give him a somewhat decent score here.
Overall- 55/100
When I really go back to what I support as an individual, and what I believe is ideal, and then I look at Yang, it's easy to see that while he's very good on the proposals he offers, he seems to be entirely lacking on other things I care about. Climate change I can somewhat overlook because Biden is doing a lot of the heavy work I find necessary. And Yang, in his heart of hearts, might have more proposals, I mean, if I graded him based on his 2020 platform, I would've given him a WAY higher score here. Because he supported some healthcare reform, he had a robust climate plan, and he offered some fixes I agreed with. If I regraded him RIGHT NOW based on that, he would get a 71/100, which is very high. For reference, anything above a 50 is generally a good score. The original metric was out of 200, and I gave Bernie a 145 (73 on new metric) and Yang a 132 (66) at the time. So 55 translates to 110, and I consider 100 to be a baseline for support, with me hoping to drag people up to the 120-150 area (60-75).
So...this is a pass I guess. Keep in mind Biden only scored like a 90 (45) in campaign mode and only because the original metric included tons of other minor proposals. And PRESIDENT Biden only scored like a 70 (35). And even that's getting watered down. So yang's fine. He's better than the democratic party by a huge margin.
Again, I guess my biggest issue with yang's platform is what happened to the rest of his 2020 proposals? Where is universal healthcare? What about student debt forgiveness? What about his climate plan? Yang has a lot of interesting proposals im excited about, but still, I feel like forward party in and of itself, is missing a lot of more mainstream proposals to flesh this party out.
Of course, given Yang seems to be using this as a pac to reform the political system and push his vision of UBI/human centered capitalism, and not as a general political party to be running against other parties, this is...sufficient I guess. I agree with most of forward's goals. But I also feel like forward isn't fleshed out enough to support all of mine. That's my big takeaway when i really look at this under a microscope. I'll still generally speaking support forward and its goals, but yeah, I'm still gonna be advocating for some standard fare progressivism along side of this.
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