How to purity test like a champ

 Ugh, save me, I've been blogging literally all night. Like seriously, 5th post of the day, been at this for half the day minus breaks. The power of my special interests at work. But yeah, given I'm so focused on poo pooing purity testers despite being one, I kind of wanted to make a quick guide about why my purity testing is better than your purity testing. That said, here's some tips to purity test like a champ.

1) Pick your battles

This seems obvious, but you're never going to agree with candidates on every issue. On isidewith, my best candidates I agree with 85-90% of the time. Meaning I will disagree with them on 10-15% of issues. Quite frankly, it's important to figure out your priorities list them out, and then see how well people stack up.Figure out what your top 5-10 issues are, and stick with them.

2) Set metrics with realistically achieveable goals

Once you got the list of hills you are willing to die on, set metrics figuring out what you want the candidates to do about them. That's actually a huge reason I've been focusing so much on policy. When I look at candidates, I'm literally comparing their policies to my own policies. 

Figure out how you weight your priorities, and set standards for the candidates to meet. If you want a basic income, point out what kind of basic income you want, and then set goals comparing candidates' plans to yours. Same with healthcare, education, etc. (using my priorities as an example).

3) Measure the candidates accordingly

Now that you have your standards on your top issues weighted to your liking, it's time to compare the candidates. How do they stack up?

Let's be honest, unless you're a hardcore Bernie Bro measuring Sanders himself, odds are you won't find anyone who matches you 100%. I mean, I'm lucky to find people I agree with 80% of the time. 

On the updated versions of my two metrics, Bernie Sanders gets like an 86 on metric 1 and 70 on metric 2. This is out of 100 (see article in which I rambled about my metrics). And that's the best candidate. Yang was at 74 on 1 and 65 on 2. 

It's good to measure all candidates in accordance with your adherence to your standards, and rank them accordingly. Maybe make a tiered list like I did and adjust it accordingly as they change their stances on issues. Make sure you don't overreact to minor changes too much though. I made that mistake at times in 2020 and it was totally unnecessary.

4) Understand you won't get everything you want

Again, unless you're already biased and define your entire political perspective in accordance with a single candidate (which is bad, btw), you're never going to get a 100% match. Assuming this is a list of your truly top priorities, you may only find agreement with someone like 70-80% of the time at most. I know that's how I felt about Bernie, Yang, Hawkins, etc. Bernie didn't support UBI. Yang didn't support M4A. Hawkins was too much of a green new dealer and lacked cohesion to his platform. You're going to disagree with people. That's life. But if you can get 80% of what you want, that's an accomplishment. That's not to say you should settle for 80% if you can get 95% or something. But you should understand you will disagree with candidates on something and be willing to settle for who is relatively the best, even if not perfect.

5) Be real about limitations

While you won't get everything you want, it doesn't mean you can't complain about it. Complain away, but be reasonable. I write long posts explaining why I don't like Bernie sometimes, or why I don't like Yang. It's perfectly reasonable to criticize candidates' weaknesses. We don't want to fall into a hive mind like the Bernie Bros or members of the Yang gang after all. Candidates aren't perfect, it's fine to disagree with them. At the time don't be hyperbolic. 

6) At the same time don't accept garbage

Okay, real talk, wanna know why I hate centrist democrats so much? Because often they fail to even meet 50% of my standards. Often 30-40% is the going rate. And they act like they're doing you a favor for caving on a few relatively minor priorities or offering ridiculously flawed and watered down policies. Look, if you disagree with a candidate so much you struggle to find ideological common ground with them (defined by less than 50-60% agreement), and you find most of their solutions to be garbage, that's okay. It's okay to purity test crap candidates who aren't even trying. If you're being patronized, you don't have to take that crap. It's perfectly fine to accept that 3rd party candidate offering 70-80% if the democrats only offer 30-40%. If anything that's what purity testing is for, to inspire people like that to do better.

7) Don't sweat the small stuff

Really, pick your battles. Take Yang. If he was gonna give me UBI, an idea that, by itself, influences up to 30% of my voting habits, is it really worth dropping support of him because he has a crap stance on Israel, which might influence my voting habits by less than 1%? Candidates are people, they're not perfect. You won't agree with them on every issue. This is why I'm not sweating Yang on the Israel thing. Yes, his views are crap, but is it REALLY going to influence how I view him come election time? No, not really. Really, ask yourself if this ACTUALLY matters. Don't get bogged down in minutae.

8) At the same time, hold them accountable for the big stuff 

Back to Yang. M4A influences up to 25% of my voting habits. The dude supported M4A, then backed down to a public option, and then ran on band aid fixes. This is my #2 issue. Do better, dude. Like, this actually did cause me to drop Yang like a hot potato. 

It's perfectly fine, if a candidate betrays you on a major priority, that you hold them accountable for it, drop them, and support someone else. I mean, if someone scores better on your metric than the guy you're supporting, change your support.

9) Stick to your standards

If you believe in your standards, stick by them. Don't move the goalposts without good reason. I mean this both in the sense that you shouldnt compromise your standards to please others, but also in the sense that you shouldn't start nitpicking candidates over minutae because they aren't perfect in every way. 

For example, complaining over $1400 checks instead of $2000 was stupid. Democrats campaigned on bumping the $600 checks to $2000. They sent a $1400 check on top of the $600 one. I feel like democrats were pretty honest about what they meant, but then progressives are like BUT IT WASN'T $2000! It just felt dishonest in a moving the goalpost kind of way. 

If you get what you want, then praise them for it. I feel like the left does this thing where candidates deliver and then the left will act like its not good enough and go further left. No, set up standards, and when they're met, be satisfied. At least for now. There is always next election. I swear we could get UBI and M4A in full uncompromised form and the left would complain it's not true communism or something, or alternatively, the UBI sucks because it's $1,000 a month and not $3,000 a month.

10) Understand you won't get everything you want (again)

So say your candidate gets in, they ran on your ideal platform, and they didn't deliver. Ask for real, whose fault is that? Is it theirs? Where is the blockage? Often times people are hamstrung by the system. AOC isn't an all powerful goddess just because she's progressive as fudge. She has to work within a system dominated by craplibs. You ain't gonna get medicare for all simply by electing like 6 people to congress who want it.

If you have a reason to rip people for being lazy and not trying, go for it. But I don't see how force the vote would accomplish anything. 

Same thing, if say, we had president Andrew Yang and Manchin said "lol no UBI'. That would be Manchin's fault, not Yang's. Back people who support your policies. Blame the people who deserve it most. Understand we live in a democracy with separation of powers. Even if you get your ideal candidate they can't do crap if the other 534 people in the system don't want to. Just goes with the territory. 

Conclusion

With that said, I think I set up a reasonable guide for purity testing. I feel like this is necessary given how insane the left is acting these days. It's fine to be an ideologue, it's fine to have that pet cause you will fight for to the bitter end. But at the same time be reasonable, set standards, pick your battles, and tolerate imperfection. Nothing I'm saying here should be construed as support for craplibs btw. Those guys circlejerk to the IDEA of compromise and their talk is often in bad faith. If someone isn't even 50% of what you want, don't even freaking bother. But assuming you got a decent candidate who will get you 70% of what you want, you should support them. The reality is people are people, people are imperfect, and you're gonna have to compromise somewhere. It just depends on how much and under what circumstances.