So, as I keep saying, I just can't give up purity tests entirely. Supporting some weird centrist movement that doesn't stand for anything is disagreeable to me, and is my motivation for rejecting both the democratic party and Forward. So, I'm going to try to create some purity tests. I might use these, or some variations of these, for baselines for support in 2024. I know no one will ever meet my purity tests 100%, but if I can get someone who is like 70-80%, that would be good enough for me. Essentially, I'm likely to support whatever candidates score highest on these various rubrics. And I'll also be using examples from 2020 to calibrate them to my liking to best explain my true feelings.
So here's some metrics I'm thinking of:
1) The abridged "big three" metric
So, if I really think about what I care about most in politics, it's the three priorities that make up my original "new new deal". I developed the original platform for this "new new deal" back in between 2012 and 2016 as I realized the economy is seriously screwed, and we need a whole new way of doing things. And I ended up settling on three priorities. 1) UBI, 2) Medicare for all, 3) free college/student debt forgiveness. This was essentially the purity test I applied in 2016. And of course, Bernie Sanders achieved a perfect score on 2/3 of these things (missing only UBI), while Hillary Clinton was more 0.5/3 (she supported a watered down version of free college and that's it).
In 2020, this metric really became more strained, as I was split between Andrew Yang, and Bernie Sanders. Bernie had free college and medicare for all, but yang had UBI and medicare for all. I felt very conflicted but largely sided with Yang since I mostly recognized the ordering priority was such that UBI was higher than free college. But, when Yang dropped medicare for all, I felt myself to be more split and was not sure if UBI was really worth abandoning Bernie's entire platform for, which did have additional unlisted priorities like minimum wage increases and a jobs program. I ultimately went for Bernie, but it didn't matter as the race was over by the time my state voted in the primaries.
Post 2020 though, I did shift enough where I once again decided that UBI IS more important to me, and if I had to redo that decision, given my ideological shifts away from Bernie and back toward Yang, (especially given Yang supported moderate variations of healthcare and student debt forgiveness, not to mention climate legislation), I probably would have went for Yang.
So...how would I structure this metric?
I'm thinking along the lines of 1/2, 1/3, 1/6 roughly. Or to round it a bit:
UBI- 50%
Medicare for all- 35%
Free college student debt forgiveness- 15%
UBI is worth as much as the two latter priorities. That makes sense to me. And of course, I'll give partial credit for flawed or watered down proposals.
Like on UBI, a good UBI plan will get 50 points.. A flawed implementation (like Yang's freedom dividend) might get like say, 35-40. An NIT might get half credit at 25 (for example, Howie Hawkins' plan). And something like Kamala Harris' Lift Act or the child tax credit might get like 10 points.
With healthcare, single payer or a beverridge type system would get 35 points. Something like medicare extra for all or its corresponding medicare for america act in congress might get like 25-30. Something more watered down would get fewer points depending on what's presented.
And of course, I support free college with no preconditions and full on student loan forgiveness. Partial credit will be given where it's deserved.
Just to give an idea of how candidates would perform with this metric:
2016:
Hillary Clinton- 5% (watered down free college only)
Bernie Sanders- 50% (medicare for all and free college)
Jill Stein- 60% (M4A and free college, and a vague promise for UBI)
Comments: gee, no wonder I supported third parties, Hillary was terrible by this metric and Bernie and Stein were decent.
2020:
Joe Biden- 15% (UBI- 0%, M4A- 10%, Free college/student debt forgiveness- 5%)
Bernie Sanders- 50% (UBI- 0%, M4A- 35%, Free college- 15%)
Andrew Yang (stated platform)- 80% (UBI- 40%, M4A- 35%, Free college/student loan forgiveness- 5%)
Andrew Yang (public options shift)- 70% (UBI- 40%, M4A- 25%, free college- 5%)
Andrew Yang (weak healthcare plan)- 50% (UBI- 40%, M4A- 5%, free college- 5%)
Howie Hawkins- 75% (UBI- 25%, M4A- 35%, free college- 15%)
Comments: I think this better represents my politics now. My metrics at the time always gave Bernie an edge, but again if I had to redo it, I would likely support Yang. I feel like this better represents my priorities.
Overall comments: This metric is useful, and provides a very short snapshot on my three biggest purity tests, but I do notice that its selection is a bit limited. In 2020 climate change became a much stronger priority of mine in part due to my spiritual awakening, and I did actually subconsciously look at ideas like a green new deal and minimum wage increases, which could have tilted things toward Bernie at the time. So this is not really a comprehensive metric. It's a nice simplified snapshot, but it's kind of dated.
2) More expanded metric
Back in 2020, I did use a more expanded metric at the time. But, in retrospect, I did end up giving too much credit to priorities other than my big three, meaning that it would be possible for a Sanders or Hawkins type candidate to abuse my metrics and come ahead, even if my own ideology is more Yang-esque. I was doing this in part because I recognized UBI was an unreasonable purity test and that I was trying to offer replacements, in hopes that the democrats would bite, and it was very softbally toward Bernie. Like, he basically had like 145/200 almost having a perfect score outside of UBI. While Yang's mishmash of UBI combined with more moderate ideas led to like a 125 or so instead. Yet...I prefer Yang and his UBI centric platform these days. So, I kind of want to offer a modified version of my original metric. However, I'm going to be honest, I've been having serious problems actually figuring out what it should be and it should be weighed, so I'm going to do something different here.
I'm going to start out with 200 points. This will cover the three priorities above, plus climate change, and from then on, I'll add 10 points for every other significant proposal that I think is valid.
For my first four priorities, this is how I will weigh it.
UBI- 100
M4A- 50
Free college/student debt forgiveness- 25
Climate change- 25
And then for every policy I like after that, I will just add something like 10 points. Maybe 20-25 if it's a really good one that I feel like deserves more attention (say, someone comes out with something like a 30 hour work week), but other than that, eh...10 points sounds fair. 5 policies can replace medicare for all, 10 policies can replace UBI. That feels fair to me.
Examples of other policies I was thinking of:
Housing- 10+
Ranked choice voting- 10+
Work week reduction- 10+
Mandatory vacation time- 10
Minimum wage increase- 10
Labor law reform- 10
Free preK- 10
Paid family leave- 10
Job guarantee- 10
etc.
And generally speaking, this will give me flexibility. It will allow me to evolve this metric as time goes on and other candidates come out with various priorities that come to light. I mean, I tried thinking of having a fixed version like 2020, but I feel like I'd either make my top priorities too diluted or I would miss something that would motivate me to vote.
So, as platforms evolve, I will make this metric more solid based on the suite of ideas offered by the varying candidates and weigh them accordingly, but it gives me an idea.
If we were to measure 2020 candidate for example, we might get something like:
Bernie Sanders- ~160ish (M4A- 50, free college- 25, climate change- 25, housing- 10, minimum wage- 10, labor law reform- 10, job guarantee, 10, prek- 10, family leave- 10, etc.)
Andrew Yang (with M4A)- ~155ish (UBI- 80, M4A- 50, Free college- 10, climate change- 25)
Howie Hawkins- ~170ish (UBI- 50, M4A- 50, Free college- 25, climate change- 25, JG- 10, min wage increase, 10, etc.)
Joe Biden- ~85 (M4A- 15, Free college- 15, Climate change- 15, min wage- 10, labor laws- 10, free preK- 10, paid family leave- 10, etc)
This is an approximation. I would have to go back through every 2020 platform to make an accurate measurement which is tedious, but it does give you an idea.
One potential issue is that if I just make EVERY SINGLE ADDITIONAL PROPOSAL 10, then it could be possible for someone to have a bunch of minor proposals I like just end up overwhelming a candidate that focuses more on my other priorities (like say, Yang).
Perhaps what I could do instead is put a cap on points to be derived from additional proposals at say, 50. That would give us more consistency. Just to rerun the above:
Bernie Sanders- 150 (M4A- 50, free college- 25, climate change- 25, additional proposals- 50)
Andrew Yang (with M4A)- 190 (UBI- 80, M4A- 50, Free college- 10, climate change, 25, additional proposals- 25?)
Howie Hawkins- 200 (UBI- 50, M4A- 50, free college- 25, climate change- 25, additional proposals- 50)
Joe Biden- 85 (M4A- 10, free college- 10, climate change- 15, additional proposals- 50)
That actually looks...better. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, tons of additional proposals will not add up to fully replace a UBI for example for me. But people should still get additional points.
So, we'll see, this one is a work in progress. I'll figure it out at a later date when I get a better feel for what awaits us in 2024. I will say I'll remain firm on my big 4 here, and perhaps I could modify the above standard to include climate change. We'll see.
3) Metric aimed more at overall policy positions and characteristics associated with candidates.
Here, I might bring back a variation of my other 2020 metric.
Just to give you an idea of what that looked like:
10 points- UBI
10 points- M4A
10 points- other economic positions
10 points- social positions
10 points- foreign policy positions
20 points- underlying political ideology
20 points- conviction or consistency in aligning with my own political ideology
10 points- experience
I might reweigh some aspects of this, but this is how I would score candidates NOW. Back in the day, for reference, Biden had a 40, Yang like a 70, and Bernie like an 86, but if I were to do this with a more human centered capitalist focus, I would end up meausing them differently.
Bernie Sanders
UBI- 0
M4A- 10
other economic positions- 10
Social positions- 10
foreign policy positions- 8
Underlying political ideology- 15
Consistency- 20
Experience- 10
Overall- 83/100
Bernie doesn't always align with me and he doesn't support UBI, but he was a very strong well rounded candidate for me.
Andrew Yang
UBI- 10
M4A- 2-10
Other economic positions- 7
Social positions- 10
Foreign policy positions- 5
Underlying political ideology- 20
Consistency- 5
Experience- 3
Overall- 62-70/100
Yang got WORSE from 2020 mainly because his latest u turn with the forward party, let alone M4A in 2020 reflected on him badly here. And honestly? The weighing of things is just...wrong. I mean, I see the point in valuing consistency, and I brought back this metric specifically because Yang's stunts lately have made me once again recognize how having a consistent or slow changing brand is important. The original reason I added that to my metric was because of centrist dems faking left, but it also tends to hit Yang hard because he ends up revising his platform yearly with wild changes from year to year. Just look at his evolutions from say, 2019. He backed off of M4A, he then ran for mayor of NYC on a totally different platform which lost him a lot of credibility. Then he started forward and brought back SOME of his concerns, and then he threw out that platform and merged with an ex republican movement.
I mean, this dude changed from 2019-2022 like I changed from 2010-2014 or so. Ok maybe not THAT extreme. I went from a tea party supporter to my current brand of politics in that time frame. So that's like, total 180, but still. If youre rapidly evolving on the job, i cant really throw my support behind that person. Who knows what they'll believe next year? I mean, that's kind of why i always respected Bernie. Dude has been for the same thing since he entered politics in the 1980s and he's barely changed. And even me in recent years, you can read stuff I wrote in 2016 and see a clear line of continuity to my views. I would say I evolved a little since then, but it's been a lot slower, with my views being far more consistent. I have nothing against yang evolving. But he does so too fast.
Beyond that, other issues with this metric. Should i really weigh UBI and M4A as equally important? Should all social or foreign policy positions combined, or other economic positions be worth the same amount of points. How much does ideology matter? I mean, this metric was well meaning, but if I'm going to use it again, it needs calibration.
But before I get too far ahead of myself, let's do Biden and Hawkins
Biden
UBI- 0
M4A- 2
Other economic positions- 8
Social positions- 8
Foreign policy- 10
Underlying ideology- 10
Consistency- 5
Experience- 10
Overall- 53/100
Biden actually did better this time. Probably because I scored him a little higher on some things. Ive come to appreciate neoliberal foreign policy positions for instance, and I might have just calibrated some things higher. 53 still aint great, but I had him down to 40 back in 2020.
Hawkins
UBI- 5
M4A- 10
Other economic positions- 10
Social positions- 10
Foreign policy- 0
Underlying ideology- 15
Consistency- 20
Experience- 3
Overall- 73/100
Hawkins has lost favor with me for being a radical leftist on foreign policy. After seeing Ukraine ive just decided the far left is deranged and threw in with the neolibs on that topic. They seem to hit the right balance between soft and hard for me. But other than that, he wasn't a bad candidate.
I mean, all in all, this metric isnt bad. Sanders came out unequivocally on top, but I did design it when I was a bit more of a sanders fanboy. Honestly, metrics like this played a part in me backing sanders over yang. Yang just has too many flaws and weaknesses by this metric and some are deserved. It has less to do with his platform and more to do with him. So in some ways, maybe keeping this in a modified form might be best. I do think some things should be weighed a little differently, but, we'll see. This was my 2020 filter. Honestly, most dems sucked at this and scored between 35-55 points, although I might be a little more generous now. Yang scored around 70 and was 2nd more or less. Warren and Tulsi got in the 60s somewhere. Williamson also got 70. So basically, Bernie was the only one who did excellent on it. Yang and Williamson stood out, and then beyond that, it went downhill fast. So it was a tough metric, but it really showed how Bernie was such a unique candidate. But ultimately, I do think it valued consistency over actual policy a little too much. Maybe necessary in 2020 to filter out "fauxgressives", but come on, it's a standard no one can actually meet outside of Bernie.
Conclusion
Honestly, this is just a brainstorming session. I was trying to make some purity tests for 2024 that I will use to measure candidates and prioritize them based on their conformity to it. But...ultimately, I think it's too early to really say for sure. 2024 is a long ways away and while January 2023 is when I'd say the battle for 2024 starts, honestly, it's a whole year before we even start the primaries and almost 2 before the election. We have time. Still, I do want to develop an idea of what I was doing.
If I had to take one of the above metrics and use it, I'd probably take option 2. I think my first one is a bit dated and too limited, and the second one would add climate change as well as give additional room for growth. Option 3 I think needs a total overhaul before I'd use it again. It feels like a softball for Bernie, and I'd like to modify it a bit.
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