So, first real 2020 election post. Some of you, or really, most of you at this point, have probably heard of Kamala Harris. She's a democrat from California running for president on the democratic ticket, and has an EXTREMELY progressive platform. She supports (supposedly) medicare for all, she has a "lift act" which is basically a tax credit that's like a watered down version of a UBI. She seems like a perfect candidate in some ways. She's young, she's charismatic, she has left wing positions, she basically sounds like a Bernie Sanders type.So what's the problem?
The problem is, she hasn't always been like this. She has a very questionable record as prosecutor filled with many questionable actions including defending convictions on innocent people and arresting people for truancy. Less than an hour after defending medicare for all in CNN's town hall, she walked it back and said she was open to more moderate plans, which really gets to the crux the issue. She's saying she's a progressive, but then she walks it back and seems more moderate behind the scenes. Speaking of CNN, why is CNN giving her a town hall when they're known to attack Sanders for supporting the same things? Why are they still treating Sanders as a nonstarter for 2020 despite him being second in the polls? Why is Time Warner, CNN's parent company, donating to her? I mean again, they were totally for Clinton in 2016 and express a blatant pro corporate pro centrist bias. Why is Harris so agreeable when Sanders isn't? Heck even Wall street seems okay with Harris but not Sanders. Harris is a centrist to them, but people like Warren and Sanders are too far left. If Harris is for the same things more or less, why does this dichotomy exist? It seems like while Harris sounds very progressive, she ISN'T very progressive. It sounds like as the democrats start to embrace medicare for all, they're starting to walk back what Medicare for all means and will likely abandon it for Obamacare 2.0.
This is scary. I should be ELATED the democrats are moving hard left. And part of me is. But keep this in mind, the only reason this is happening is because of the popularity of people like Sanders, and Warren, and AOC, and all the voters and Bernie or busters who wouldn't take Clinton's crap in 2016. We should be ecstatic that the democrats are quickly shifting hard left where even "moderate" candidates are adopting virtually the entirety of Bernie's platform. But at the same time, something seems off. The fix still seems to be in against Sanders, and they're pushing candidates who have few previously progressive platforms who are suddenly coming out and moving far left, and most of the elite class is seemingly okay with it, but they still hate Sanders. I smell a rat. I'm guessing there's a bait and switch going on where the democrats will promise to adopt Bernie's platform, but THEIR candidates are still in charge, and will adopt Bernie's platform only to walk it back in office.
This puts us in a tough spot, which brings me to the next point:
Bernie or bust 2020?
The problem with candidates like this is that while they are likely fake as heck, protest voting against them could backfire. In 2016, it seems apparent protest voting worked. We stopped Clinton from winning, and showed there's a demand for progressive policies previously ignored by the democratic party. The democrats were so brazen with their refusal to endorse progressive policies that it's quite clear it created a significant backlash forcing democrats to the left.
The problem is now they ARE left, or at least pretend to be. The party is quickly moving left, despite media outcries a few months ago about how centrism wins elections. They clearly are trying to accommodate our concerns, and failing to vote for them COULD cause them to push to the center again, especially as people like Howard Schultz are threatening to leave the party, causing the democrats to lose that way.
That said, I've identified four tiers of democrats running for 2020, and have different stances on them.
Tier 1: Bernie Sanders
Yes, Bernie gets his own tier. Im sorry, but NO candidate seems to match Bernie in platform, messaging, ideology, and consistency. He is, in my opinion, already my clear 2020 choice.
Tier 2: Flawed progressives
These are people who I deem extremely progressive, and likely mean it but might be flawed. These include people like Elizabeth Warren who is very hard on wall street, offers a lot of progressive ideas, but sometimes won't stick her neck out and endorse certain policies Sanders does. They seem honest, but they are at the same time a clear downgrade from Bernie, with obvious compromises in ideology or policy that Bernie does not have. They are not my first choice in the primary but I will definitely back them for the general.
Tier 3: Fauxgressives
These are the ones to worry about. Kamala Harris fits perfectly in this category. These candidates have progressive records, but might not be consistently progressive and seem to be "pivoting" left to win Bernie voters, without actually holding the same convictions. The problem with these candidates is while they seem very far left, they seem to have connections to elite groups and show a possible willingness, either implicitly based on past positions, or explicitly, to walk themselves back to the center. I can't rule out voting for them in the general, but I also can't rule out a third party vote depending on circumstances. It really depends on the candidate, their circumstances, and how they handle criticism. I'm not sure what I think yet of many of these candidates. I definitely won't support them in the primary though.
Tier 4: Centrists
These are the Joe Biden style candidates who are outright not progressive. They have centrist positions and do not see eye to eye with progressives. HRC was in this camp in 2016 and I do not plan on supporting these guys in either the primary or the general election. If you don't even try, you definitely won't get my vote.
Conclusion
That said I would encourage people to approach 2020 with optimistic caution. There is much to be excited about going into 2020. Most candidates are moving way to the left and endorsing Bernie's platform. This is a cause for celebration, because this is exactly what Bernie or busting in 2016 was intended to accomplish. However, one must be cautious as many candidates in 2020, like Kamala Harris, do not necessarily seem sincere or consistent in their endorsement of their policies. I really really REALLY want to like Harris and be excited for her
candidacy here, based on her on paper policies. But when I see this kind
of backpedaling and this stuff happening more behind the scenes, I'm
not quite as comfortable with her and wonder if she's bought and paid
for. I would encourage everyone to look deeply and thoroughly into the candidates' records, their statements, and their past and present policy positions IN ADDITION to their platforms. It seems like this is going to be an exciting primary in terms of on paper platforms and positions, but that said, only unique policy positions, are really going to make people stand out. The biggest thing that will likely differentiate the candidates isn't going to be policy or ideology, at least not on paper, but their character, history, and record. Choose wisely.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Update 2019: How my views have shifted
So yes, I'm still alive, and may or may not be posting more now that we're entering 2020 election season and I'm a bit more interested in what's going on in with the future of the country, and feel like we can actually get into substantive issues again that advance progressive causes. The last 2 years have been a mess, and a have been a massive cringefest for me in general. Not just on the republican side, but the democratic side. Things are finally starting to improve, with Nancy Pelosi actually standing up to Donald Trump over the wall, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez changing the culture of the democratic party, and the 2020 primary candidates appearing to be closer to Bernie Sanders so far then Hillary Clinton, but beyond that, things have been a mess, and I would say that while my views have not shifted MUCH since 2016-2017, there are some subtle differences.
Social issues: not much changed, but more skeptical of the social justice movement
I hate delving into these kinds of issues, but I feel like I'm forced to, because it's all most people have been willing to talk about the last 2 years. My core convictions haven't changed on this issue, but my opinion of some aspects of the social justice movement have soured a bit. By social justice movement, I dont mean all moves toward social justice, but specifically, the social justice warriors I mentioned previously. Now, don't get me wrong. Im STILL for social justice, still want equality of races, genders, but honestly, the people, man. You cannot express opinions on these subjects that dissent from their standpoint without being accused of being a racist, sexist, or bigot. Privilege shaming is used a lot, and they use empathy in order to manipulate people. You're not just expected to have socially progressive positions, you're expected to loudly and obnoxiously share your socially progressive positions all the time, and failure to do so or make those your number one priority get you shamed. They will call you "selfish", because it's like "how dare I decide my economic well being and not wanting people to be in poverty is more important than racial and feminist issues?" Not that those issues aren't important, but let's be honest, people in politics are attracted to different causes, and some people have pet causes they put over others. And that's okay. Not everyone is going to discuss universal healthcare or basic income as their top priorities. Likewise, not everyone is gonna prioritize eliminating racism and feminism. Not everyone is gonna focus on green policies that end global warming. People have different concerns, and what matters in the end is that we're all on the same side. That we can come together, with our unique causes, and cobble together a comprehensive progressive platform that addresses all of these issues, with all of us contributing to it.
But therein lies the problem. This isn't a reciprocal relationship, and hasn't been since 2015 or so. The social justice warrior crowd has been perfectly happy to say, you know what, screw universal healthcare, screw economic progressivism, you HAVE to support the democrats or else. They expect me to be fully on board with them, but they're not fully on board with me. Mainly because they've been trying to appeal to the Howard Schultz types who are now freaking out the party is moving left and threatening to leave themselves. They're perfectly happy to get on board with social justice as long as they can screw over lefties and keep their taxes low and their business priorities front and center. But they do so at the expense of progressive economic issues. My real opponent here isn't the social justice types. I'm perfectly willing to work with them and agree with them in principle. There is no real conflict in views, just a conflict in tone and attitude. My problem, is with the centrists allied with them who have had a choke hold on the democratic party for far too long. As long as those two groups are working together, don't expect me to be on the same side. Politics is about coalition building. I'm perfectly willing to work with these people on mutually beneficial goals. Heck I outlined my ideas on that a few years ago.
Anyway, back to the social justice warriors. The problem with these guys, beyond their apparent affinity with siding with centrist democrats, is the fact that they are a hive mind. it's almost like a cult of caring. They expect everyone to turn off their rational brains and just be in solidarity with various causes with no dissent. I find it creepy and manipulative. And they are being manipulated by the neoliberals in my opinion via the democratic party and two party system. It's fine to have empathy. You kind of need it to be able to understand how your ideas affect others. It's another thing to be ruled by it to the point you miss the big picture and discourage dissenting opinions.These guys are getting to be too much of a hive mind that witch hunts anyone who does any perceived sleight against them. And that's a problem.
Again, totally love social justice, and I will once again reiterate to anyone who is even thinking of pulling the racism/sexism/privileged card that you can be for social justice without being an SJW, and that I'm for social justice, but not social justice warriors. One is a set of ideas, the other is a group of loud, obnoxious people. Please get that straight to understand my position there.
The thing is, I highly value my independence and freedom of thought. I left religion and conservatism 7 years ago and set myself on a course of developing opinions based on reason, evidence, and various academic theories. I'm not perfect, but I try. What I will not do is shut down my rational thinking centers to conform to a group behaving as a hive mind, that is potentially being manipulated by a group of rich people who use their politics to divide and conquer the democratic party.
Economics: slightly more socialist, otherwise nothing has changed
I have shifted a bit on economics in the last 2 years. If you recall, around then I was investigating the concept of democratic socialism. Not the same kind of socialism that most people are afraid of by the way, a far more moderate variety that tends to revolve around reform rather than revolution, decentralization rather than centralization, democracy rather than tyranny, and libertarianism rather than authoritarianism. That said I have worked some of that in my views the last two years. On top of supporting just social democratic policy that regulates and compensates for capitalism's flaws, I now support worker cooperatives within a market economy. Yes, I did say I still support markets, you can put your pitchforks down. I support worker owned businesses within a market system. You can call this a version of democratic socialism or market socialism.
I feel like this is a necessary step in expanding my ideology. Say in the future we automate all of the jobs, and we compensate with this for basic income. Okay, where do we get the money? From the people who own the means of production, the business owners. Okay, as we know that requires MASSIVE taxation. How do we accomplish that? By taxing businesses at exorbitant rates. But wait, if we do that, won't the rich just hide their money and go overseas? Dang it, they got us there. How do we solve this? We solve this by broadening the ownership of businesses. If workers own the businesses, you're not gonna have a handful of rich people moving the wealth overseas. Because they will also own the wealth. When their jobs are automated, they won't be let go and told to find another one or starve, they will own the business and share in its profits. We can still have UBI, universal healthcare, etc. This is still NECESSARY in my opinion, but honestly, the only way we can truly get to a post work world is one where ownership of businesses are shared by the people who work at them. Note this is different from the STATE owning businesses which happens in the communist dystopia everyone fears.
So how do we accomplish this? Well, Germany has something called codetermination where the board of directors are partially elected by workers. Their version still allowed for private control even among the largest businesses, but if we made a version that is more aggressive, we could accomplish majority worker control for large businesses while still allowing small scale startups and entrepreneurship to create new wealth and incentivize people to create new businesses.
I think this fills a necessary hole in my ideology that was previously unaddressed, and it seems like a fitting and necessary evolution from my views 2 years ago.
Foreign policy: much more skeptical of interventionism
So, in becoming more socialist, I've also come to the point where I think US foreign policy isn't just bad for the US, it's bad for the world. I read a book recently called "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. It's a book about the history of the US from a socialist perspective. And let's be honest, when I read this, I have to wonder, are we the baddies? We get involved in foreign wars not really for good reasons, but to expand our own interests. We act in an imperialistic way not caring about people on a humanitarian level like we claim to, but we get involved to expand our access to natural resources.
This isn't to say said book is always right. It is heavily biased and leaves out more noble motives for our behavior, and tends to see us in the worst possible light possible. But it does make me think and makes me far more critical of our interventionism across the world. I am all for us using our military to defend ourselves and our allies from potential, but I am coming down far harder on the concept of regime change and interventionism than I previously did.
Another area in which I have shifted on foreign policy is my opinion of patriotism. Much like with my grievances against parts of the social justice movement, it's come to my attention that often times appeals to patriotism are used to suppress discussion and rational thought. Howard Zinn's book discussed how back during World War I, people were arrested and jailed for daring speak out against the draft. I find this to be scary. I also find the concept of Mccarthyism scary in which people with certain views are deemed unamerican and witch hunted. Speaking of McCarthyism, the democrats seem to be doing a lot of it these days. To them, anyone who doesn't toe their party line, whether on the left, or on the right, is with Russia. Trump is with Russia, Jill Stein is with Russia, "Bernie bros" are with Russia, if you're not with them, you're with Russia.Yeah no. To once again preserve my independence of thought, I'm gonna flat out say those appeals don't work on me. You can be critical of the democrats, or even the country, without being aligned with a foreign power. You should not be pressured to change legitimately held positions, because of a threat by a foreign power. This is tribalism intended to oppose freedom of thought and should be vigorously opposed.
Honestly, my views of patriotism are closer to Al Franken's:
I don't buy into mindless symbolism and "America is always right" rhetoric. I support freedom of thought, rational discussion, and being free to criticize the country or organizations with it without being accused of being some "useful idiot" to Russia. Rather, I support identifying issues with our country as is, and fixing them, to make us better. This is true patriotism. What the democrats want seems to be closer to mindless jingoism.
Overall: Still the same person more or less, just slightly evolved
My views have been relatively stable since 2014 or so. I have mostly evolved since then not in my core convictions by in responding to major events and letting my internal moral compass evolve and build on my previously established views. I have become, arguably, slightly more left wing. I take political compass now and am closer to -7, -7 rather than -6, -6 like I was in 2016. But ultimately, my views haven't changed much, it's more that the world around me has changed and I've acquired more information and I've been forced to adapt to it. So going forward, expect more of the same more or less.
Social issues: not much changed, but more skeptical of the social justice movement
I hate delving into these kinds of issues, but I feel like I'm forced to, because it's all most people have been willing to talk about the last 2 years. My core convictions haven't changed on this issue, but my opinion of some aspects of the social justice movement have soured a bit. By social justice movement, I dont mean all moves toward social justice, but specifically, the social justice warriors I mentioned previously. Now, don't get me wrong. Im STILL for social justice, still want equality of races, genders, but honestly, the people, man. You cannot express opinions on these subjects that dissent from their standpoint without being accused of being a racist, sexist, or bigot. Privilege shaming is used a lot, and they use empathy in order to manipulate people. You're not just expected to have socially progressive positions, you're expected to loudly and obnoxiously share your socially progressive positions all the time, and failure to do so or make those your number one priority get you shamed. They will call you "selfish", because it's like "how dare I decide my economic well being and not wanting people to be in poverty is more important than racial and feminist issues?" Not that those issues aren't important, but let's be honest, people in politics are attracted to different causes, and some people have pet causes they put over others. And that's okay. Not everyone is going to discuss universal healthcare or basic income as their top priorities. Likewise, not everyone is gonna prioritize eliminating racism and feminism. Not everyone is gonna focus on green policies that end global warming. People have different concerns, and what matters in the end is that we're all on the same side. That we can come together, with our unique causes, and cobble together a comprehensive progressive platform that addresses all of these issues, with all of us contributing to it.
But therein lies the problem. This isn't a reciprocal relationship, and hasn't been since 2015 or so. The social justice warrior crowd has been perfectly happy to say, you know what, screw universal healthcare, screw economic progressivism, you HAVE to support the democrats or else. They expect me to be fully on board with them, but they're not fully on board with me. Mainly because they've been trying to appeal to the Howard Schultz types who are now freaking out the party is moving left and threatening to leave themselves. They're perfectly happy to get on board with social justice as long as they can screw over lefties and keep their taxes low and their business priorities front and center. But they do so at the expense of progressive economic issues. My real opponent here isn't the social justice types. I'm perfectly willing to work with them and agree with them in principle. There is no real conflict in views, just a conflict in tone and attitude. My problem, is with the centrists allied with them who have had a choke hold on the democratic party for far too long. As long as those two groups are working together, don't expect me to be on the same side. Politics is about coalition building. I'm perfectly willing to work with these people on mutually beneficial goals. Heck I outlined my ideas on that a few years ago.
Anyway, back to the social justice warriors. The problem with these guys, beyond their apparent affinity with siding with centrist democrats, is the fact that they are a hive mind. it's almost like a cult of caring. They expect everyone to turn off their rational brains and just be in solidarity with various causes with no dissent. I find it creepy and manipulative. And they are being manipulated by the neoliberals in my opinion via the democratic party and two party system. It's fine to have empathy. You kind of need it to be able to understand how your ideas affect others. It's another thing to be ruled by it to the point you miss the big picture and discourage dissenting opinions.These guys are getting to be too much of a hive mind that witch hunts anyone who does any perceived sleight against them. And that's a problem.
Again, totally love social justice, and I will once again reiterate to anyone who is even thinking of pulling the racism/sexism/privileged card that you can be for social justice without being an SJW, and that I'm for social justice, but not social justice warriors. One is a set of ideas, the other is a group of loud, obnoxious people. Please get that straight to understand my position there.
The thing is, I highly value my independence and freedom of thought. I left religion and conservatism 7 years ago and set myself on a course of developing opinions based on reason, evidence, and various academic theories. I'm not perfect, but I try. What I will not do is shut down my rational thinking centers to conform to a group behaving as a hive mind, that is potentially being manipulated by a group of rich people who use their politics to divide and conquer the democratic party.
Economics: slightly more socialist, otherwise nothing has changed
I have shifted a bit on economics in the last 2 years. If you recall, around then I was investigating the concept of democratic socialism. Not the same kind of socialism that most people are afraid of by the way, a far more moderate variety that tends to revolve around reform rather than revolution, decentralization rather than centralization, democracy rather than tyranny, and libertarianism rather than authoritarianism. That said I have worked some of that in my views the last two years. On top of supporting just social democratic policy that regulates and compensates for capitalism's flaws, I now support worker cooperatives within a market economy. Yes, I did say I still support markets, you can put your pitchforks down. I support worker owned businesses within a market system. You can call this a version of democratic socialism or market socialism.
I feel like this is a necessary step in expanding my ideology. Say in the future we automate all of the jobs, and we compensate with this for basic income. Okay, where do we get the money? From the people who own the means of production, the business owners. Okay, as we know that requires MASSIVE taxation. How do we accomplish that? By taxing businesses at exorbitant rates. But wait, if we do that, won't the rich just hide their money and go overseas? Dang it, they got us there. How do we solve this? We solve this by broadening the ownership of businesses. If workers own the businesses, you're not gonna have a handful of rich people moving the wealth overseas. Because they will also own the wealth. When their jobs are automated, they won't be let go and told to find another one or starve, they will own the business and share in its profits. We can still have UBI, universal healthcare, etc. This is still NECESSARY in my opinion, but honestly, the only way we can truly get to a post work world is one where ownership of businesses are shared by the people who work at them. Note this is different from the STATE owning businesses which happens in the communist dystopia everyone fears.
So how do we accomplish this? Well, Germany has something called codetermination where the board of directors are partially elected by workers. Their version still allowed for private control even among the largest businesses, but if we made a version that is more aggressive, we could accomplish majority worker control for large businesses while still allowing small scale startups and entrepreneurship to create new wealth and incentivize people to create new businesses.
I think this fills a necessary hole in my ideology that was previously unaddressed, and it seems like a fitting and necessary evolution from my views 2 years ago.
Foreign policy: much more skeptical of interventionism
So, in becoming more socialist, I've also come to the point where I think US foreign policy isn't just bad for the US, it's bad for the world. I read a book recently called "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. It's a book about the history of the US from a socialist perspective. And let's be honest, when I read this, I have to wonder, are we the baddies? We get involved in foreign wars not really for good reasons, but to expand our own interests. We act in an imperialistic way not caring about people on a humanitarian level like we claim to, but we get involved to expand our access to natural resources.
This isn't to say said book is always right. It is heavily biased and leaves out more noble motives for our behavior, and tends to see us in the worst possible light possible. But it does make me think and makes me far more critical of our interventionism across the world. I am all for us using our military to defend ourselves and our allies from potential, but I am coming down far harder on the concept of regime change and interventionism than I previously did.
Another area in which I have shifted on foreign policy is my opinion of patriotism. Much like with my grievances against parts of the social justice movement, it's come to my attention that often times appeals to patriotism are used to suppress discussion and rational thought. Howard Zinn's book discussed how back during World War I, people were arrested and jailed for daring speak out against the draft. I find this to be scary. I also find the concept of Mccarthyism scary in which people with certain views are deemed unamerican and witch hunted. Speaking of McCarthyism, the democrats seem to be doing a lot of it these days. To them, anyone who doesn't toe their party line, whether on the left, or on the right, is with Russia. Trump is with Russia, Jill Stein is with Russia, "Bernie bros" are with Russia, if you're not with them, you're with Russia.Yeah no. To once again preserve my independence of thought, I'm gonna flat out say those appeals don't work on me. You can be critical of the democrats, or even the country, without being aligned with a foreign power. You should not be pressured to change legitimately held positions, because of a threat by a foreign power. This is tribalism intended to oppose freedom of thought and should be vigorously opposed.
Honestly, my views of patriotism are closer to Al Franken's:
We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world. That’s why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well.
I don't buy into mindless symbolism and "America is always right" rhetoric. I support freedom of thought, rational discussion, and being free to criticize the country or organizations with it without being accused of being some "useful idiot" to Russia. Rather, I support identifying issues with our country as is, and fixing them, to make us better. This is true patriotism. What the democrats want seems to be closer to mindless jingoism.
Overall: Still the same person more or less, just slightly evolved
My views have been relatively stable since 2014 or so. I have mostly evolved since then not in my core convictions by in responding to major events and letting my internal moral compass evolve and build on my previously established views. I have become, arguably, slightly more left wing. I take political compass now and am closer to -7, -7 rather than -6, -6 like I was in 2016. But ultimately, my views haven't changed much, it's more that the world around me has changed and I've acquired more information and I've been forced to adapt to it. So going forward, expect more of the same more or less.
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