Cornell West running for president

 Another story I've been kind of ignoring is Cornell West running for president. He's running as part of the peoples' party, which I had positive opinions in 2020, but have since become more "meh" on between fine tuning my ideology and various controversies that seemed to impact it. If I recall, Scott Santens seemed to participate in that convention online, but the party doesn't seem to endorse basic income. If anything they seemed to go in the Bernie direction of having everything but a UBI. 

The peoples' party website only lists 6 positions, and they're short enough for me to react to in their entirety:

Create True Democracy

Clean out government corruption and create a true democracy. Get money out of politics and ban corporate lobbying. Enact term limits in Congress and switch to hand-counted paper ballots.

 

 I mean, cool, but I think Yang's forward party has interesting proposals like ranked choice voting, independent redistricting, and open primaries as well. Heck Yang's 2020 platform had a lot of good ideas too. Don't get me wrong, I like the money out of politics thing, but people seem almost too narrow minded on that when Yang seemed to have a much more robust anti corruption platform in practice. Democracy dollars, forbidding people from becoming lobbyists, and that sort of thing would do wonders for the country. 

Revitalize Our Economy

Guarantee quality education, housing, paid leave, and a living wage to all. Curb inflation, support unions, and expand Social Security.

 Not a lot of details but it covers a lot of my priorities like education, housing, and expanding rights to workers all in two sentences.

Medicare for All

Create a national single-payer health care system. Lower drug prices and abolish medical debt.

 Yeah that's based.

End the Wars

Bring our troops home and invest those trillions of war dollars into American communities.

 I mean i like this on paper, but normally when people suggest this they also wanna stop supporting ukraine and cut the military budget by 50%+ which is dangerous.

Expand Civil Liberties

Guarantee equal rights to all Americans. Restore free speech, protect choice, end the drug war, and abolish mass incarceration.

 All nice priorities.

Protect the Environment

Clean up pollution in our food, water and air. Tackle climate change and shift to regenerative agriculture.

 On climate plans I normally like more details with this. Heck, West's issue is he just announces stances with no intentions to give details. At least Williamson, whatever criticisms I have, has decently robust plans. 

Would I support him in the general?

Eh...given I really dont want trump OR desantis in charge, i really dont plan on protest voting the dems this time. Both of them just represent too much of a threat to our institutions to allow anywhere near the white house, so I will be doing the whole "strategic voting" thing no matter how much I hate it and have to hold my nose for it. 

I also don't think Biden has done a bad job, although I can't really praise him either. He's just...a big pile of "meh." 

I could potentially protest vote if the democrats piss me off again like HRC did in 2016, but I find biden's style of governing slightly less abrasive. 

Also, lets be honest, bog standard progressives impress me less this time since I've more thoroughly researched the differences between my ideology and theirs, and i realize there are a lot of significant differences there, just as there are with the democrats. So I'm just less enthusiastic about these "leftist" candidates stuck on the same old platform. I'd still support them over Biden, but I ain't really particularly motivated to go out of my way to support them, even given democratic party screwery. Because let's face it, without UBI, I wouldnt really be satisfied anyway. Even though I would like to see medicare for all, student debt forgiveness, and stronger worker protections. 

I just dont see this as getting there though. Again, right now, the real world power struggle between the democrats and republicans seems more important than me than litigating doctrinal differences between centrists, progressives, and myself.

You do you if you disagree. Don't think I'm telling you how YOU should vote, but I am explaining my own behavior. I just ain't really feeling this guy. Especially give how limited and detail free his platform is.

He's better than RFK at least. In theory I'd agree with him more than Biden. But let's face it, Williamson is my preferred candidate this time around, full stop.