So TYT hosted a response to the republican debate with all of the non Biden democratic candidates running. Cenk Uygur was obviously there and used his influence to put this together, and both Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips went on. It wasn't technically a debate, it was a lot more civil and more like a round table discussion, but much like a debate it allowed the candidates to distinguish themselves from Biden, each other, and the republicans.
And honestly? it was a lot better to watch than the GOP debate. GOP debates are cringey affairs to me. I just dont like the candidates, i dont like the ideologies, and outside of one issue (Israel) i actually agree more with the dems in this discussion mostly.
First they discussed how the dems are rigging the process and how they are suppressing all competition to give Biden a relatively unchallenged primary season. Of course they are. The dems want to be back in the day when they chose the candidates in back rooms and as I saw in 2016 and 2020, the democratic primary process is a farce. While they dont explicitly rig it the way Trump accused Biden of rigging elections, they generally love to put their finger on the scale and set up the process where only their approved candidates win. While other candidates are allowed to file to run, they aren't taken seriously, and despite not technically being eligible, I'm glad to see Cenk run because his media arm of TYT is a good network to have to call this crap out.
I mean, I haven't been talking about this that much this specific primary season, but don't think I haven't noticed. I just tend to not focus on it because 1) Biden is an incumbent and incumbents are rarely challenged in a significant way, 2) Biden did an okay job in my book, and 3) Trump is a much bigger fish to fry this election cycle. If this were 2016 or 2020 again, I'd probably be more strongly protesting the democrats' policies. I just understand that as long as we have a psychopath wanting to take us down the road of literal fascism that I'm not really interested in litigating this right now. When the seat is open, and it's 2028, sure, but not right now.
Still, I do agree that the process is unfair.
On israel, I kinda found the discussion cringey. I kinda agree with the republicans on this one. Hamas is genocidal, the only language they understand is force, and I personally am for giving Israel wide berth to do as they see fit. Do they go overkill? Sure, but I'm not particularly interested in litigating the matter with them or getting self righteous over a Hamas, or the palestinians who support Hamas by wide margins. I'm more interested in domestic affairs, and I also largely support Biden's policies on the matter. I see him as the reasonable middle ground between the left and the right and think he gets crapped on way too much. And I'm not really big on left wing critiques of his foreign policy administration on this matter.
But after that, the debate got good. They discussed actual economic issues and all three candidates were pretty solid. Dean Phillips discussed his housing program of wanting to build more homes. He did talk about a national service project that I found cringey (I hate these feel good forced service things some dems try pushing sometimes) but unlike the GOP going on about interest rates for whatever reason, the dems did recognize that yeah the problem is an issue with the cost of living. Dean recognized it was a matter of not enough homes, which is my problem definition roughly of it, and we at least had some points of agreement.
Marianne Williamson was the strongest candidate in this discussion though. She called for a new economic bill of rights, pushing for not just housing programs but single payer healthcare, student debt forgiveness, and higher minimum wages, ya know, all ideas I largely support in theory. I mean, if any candidate really won me over, it was Williamson. She is the best candidate running this cycle, and if I had to endorse anyone, it is her. I don't think she's perfect. She ain't for UBI after all, but she is one of the better candidates out there.
Cenk still had good ideas with pushing a public option. As you know I am somewhat agnostic between a public option and single payer these days. my heart says single payer but my mind says public option given the great cost of UBI. I could go either way and it was nice to see all three agreeing on that.
And yeah. All three agreed generally speaking that economic change is necessary. If I had to rank them, I'd say Williamson was the best, Cenk second, Dean third, and honestly, I'd probably support Biden over Dean Phillips. So that should give you an idea of the pecking order in the democratic primary for me.
All in all, I liked actually listening to people who actually kinda sorta get it. I know I have differences with all of these candidates. None of them support UBI, but they all seem to understand some changes need to be made and I can find common ground with all of them. Some more than others (yeah, I'm stanning Marianne Williamson here), but all of them are pretty decent.
All in all, again, my current pecking order is as follows:
1) Marianne Williamson
2) Cenk Uygur
3) Joe Biden
4) Dean Phillips
And you know what? I'd vote for any of these four in the general. While I do wish the democratic party lived up to its name and was actually democratic, I'm satisfied by all four of these guys at the current time to support them over Donald Trump, or quite frankly any of the jokers on the republican stage tonight. So yeah, I probably will be "voting blue no matter who" this time, and whomever is the nominee will have my blessing. I would prefer Marianne, but if I ended up with Biden or Phillips, I'd still support them.
As far as dealing with the internal corruption of the democratic party, I would like to revisit this issue in 2028 when we have a more open seat and Biden isnt incumbent, and hopefully Trump will be too old to run again. Maybe by then we can put up a more united front against the centrists and hopefully we won't be having our side go full idiot over the Israel/Palestine thing. But for now, Williamson in the primary, and Biden in the general (assuming he wins of course).
No comments:
Post a Comment