While on a roll regarding my strong position vs my weak positions, it might be good to go deeper into my art of compromising, and expressing where democrats go wrong. I get accused of being a purist a lot from the democrats, and how I'm a purity tester, but in reality, they just aren't selling me on my vision. The fact is, I never agree with anyone 100%, I always compromise. I've written extensively on here criticizing my closest political allies like Yang and Bernie. I fall in behind them regardless, because I can at least say I agree with them by like 65-80%, but honestly, I still get ripped regardless, because they think I support exactly what they support.
The thing is, I believe, when you're campaigning, you're there to sell a vision. You're there to sell your ideals. You're there to get out there, push the overton window as much as possible, and sell your vision. And this is where democrats go wrong. They pre-compromise. We're told from the get go, the ideal, stuff like medicare for all or a UBI (alternatively green new deal), free college, are "unpragmatic", that they'll never pass. That we can't have them, and we have to settle. Democrats push this vision like, well if we dont have the votes, why should we even try? So they basically sell ideas half baked to begin with, taking the "strong position" off the table from the get go. They default to a weak/compromise position, on the basis that they need to compromsie and cant pass stuff in full anyway.
This would not be as bad, if they actually kept to their word. After all, I know that President Yang would have trouble passing UBI, and president sanders would have trouble with medicare for all. Maybe they would need to compromise. This is also why I'm so willing to settle for flawed candidates, like Yang, who sell flawed plans that won't work. Because I know, at the end of the day, that whatever they campaign on isn't going to be the final product. It's gonna have to go through congress, they're gonna rework the flaws, blah blah blah, and a lot of stuff might even be watered down. Such is the nature of congress. Okay. So, I know Yang isn't gonna necessarily get us UBI, but what I do know is he would fight for it. I know Bernie isn't necessarily gonna get us medicare for all, but I know he is gonna fight for it. And that's all I ask, that we push candidates who are willing to fight for certain things. I've always saying, that UBI and medicare for all are my ideals. If we can't do them fully, I'm open to compromise plans. I've even crafted watered down compromise plans. I support medicare extra for all if I cant get medicare for all. I have a $9k UBI plan if I can't do my $13k one. I mean, once I get my core mechanisms figured out, I can modify them any which way to improve or reduce them. My UBI is scalable, I have several healthcare models to choose from. I know things won't pass exactly as I envision. But hey, you gotta at least fight for your ideal, ya know?
This is where democrats go wrong. They meet the right half way, before the election, and now they wanna meet them half way after. Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema are holding up tons of legislation, and forcing Biden to negotiate with the GOP. All those fancy (well not really fancy, kind of half measures, but still progressive enough to support) infrastructure and childcare plans? Gutted. The dems are taking Biden's plans, which were already compromises because they said they couldn't pass the real thing, and they're compromising on them, because they can't even pass their compromises, so now we're getting crap.
I knew this was coming. This is why I fought the centrist camp so hard in 2016 and 2020. They're literally useless. And my opinion on Biden has plummetted over the past few weeks to month or two to the point that I'm now at my pre election "screw this guy" mentality. All that crap about vote blue no matter who and holding his feet to the fire, where are you all at right now? Hold them to the fire HOW?! The time you hold them to the fire is before you vote for them, by forcing them to work for your vote, not after. So yeah, congrats vote blue no matter who progressive, you got played.
I'm not saying Bernie or Yang would be able to pass everything, but at least they would start with a strong position and maybe after compromises get down to a weaker compromise position reminiscent of what Biden originally proposed. Maybe single payer would become a public option. Maybe UBI would become an NIT or EITC expansion similar to what I plan to discuss in my next article after this one. But at least we would get something substantive accomplished.
The art of the compromise is this, you gotta start out with the strongest position possible, and then you bargain down to a weaker, but still respectable position. You wanna shift the overton window so much, that what your compromise is, is closer to what your original aim was, than your original position. That's why, when I pushed for UBI in my last 2 articles, I argued for the highest sustainable UBI, not merely a subsistence level UBI that's the minimum to guarantee people from coercion. I took the strong anti work position, so I could get any anti work position. If I start from the weak position, I'm inevitably going to be watered down to a weaker position, which is exactly what's going on with democrats, and exactly why I despise them. They're worthless and dont even try. They just screw the left, the people who actually wanna do something, over, in every way possible. And then they wonder why we're not enthusiastic to support them. Yeah, this is why.
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