Andrew yang calls for Marianne Williamson to drop out, wtf?

 Okay, so Andrew Yang has called for Marianne Williamson to drop out of the race and to back Dean Phillips. And I really have to say: WTF?!

Okay, so, here's the thing about Dean Phillips. I like Dean Phillips. I admit, he started off as kinda meh, but I warmed up to him. However, Marianne Williamson has a better platform. And in the democratic primary, that's what matters for me. And you know what, speaking as an OG Yang ganger myself, I fundamentally reject Yang's take here. Dean Phillips has offered to run trials on UBI, Marianne Williamson supports UBI outright. Dean Phillips supports medicare for all, but also has kinda maybe indicated he might go in a different direction that's far more moderate, and Marianne just supports medicare for all full stop. It kind of baffles me that Yang is going so far to support Dean. It's one thing to endorse him. He kinda talked UBI first, before Williamson, and Yang gave an endorsement. ANd then Williamson embraced the policy fully, and Yang ended up feeling like he couldn't retract the endorsement because he already made his bed. Me, I'm not under those pressures. i will support who I want, I am beholden to no one, but my ideas, and I will follow the candidate that best represents those ideas. And that is Williamson.

This also happened BEFORE the polls closed, btw. I'm not saying this, knowing now that Dean has 20% of the vote, and Williamson 4-5%. I'm talking before this. 

Personally, it's one thing to support a candidate over another, but to tell them to drop out so boldly before the results were in, especially when williamson objectively has a better platform on UBI and medicare for all right now, is disgraceful. I'm sorry. She should NOT drop out over that. maybe you can make an argument NOW after the results are known that, yeah....20% vs 5%? Maybe back Dean so we can get to 25%, but the way yang did this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

Don't get me wrong. I like Dean Phillips too. I just endorsed him as a very close runner up to williamson. I think he has strengths williamson doesn't, but he also has weaknesses that williamson doesn't. He's more practical and pragmatic, but also way more moderate. And whatever I think about Marianne's loopy new age views and weird "give peace a chance" foreign policy, Dean Phillips is a bit too moderate too. He told williamson her stuff is too expensive (although to be fair now that she's promising UBI on top of everything else he might be right), and even talked about having republicans in his cabinet. I mean...no. They both have flaws. 

To be fair, Williamson's response lacked class too though. She went full on into sexism and framed it as a man telling a woman to step aside. Look, Marianne, people tell each other to drop out all the time. I know there was a lot of pressure for Ron Desantis to drop out so that in new hampshire Nikki haley had a chance. They made a man drop out, a man who CAME IN SECOND, by the way, to make way for the woman who came in third. And I didn't like that framing too much either. As much as I believed that the establishment needed to consolidate between desantis and and haley, i kinda believed desantis earned the right to fight on. You, as the third placer, do not tell the second placer to drop out.

I would say, NOW, HOURS LATER, yeah, we can make an argument for williamson to drop out. SHe got 5%, she barely registered, and dean phillips clearly has far more support in new hampshire at least. Even then, I have seen the national numbers and williamson is still the stronger candidate, new hampshire doesn't represent all of america, so I'm not even comfortable calling for that. I think that they should at least play out Nevada and South Carolina, and consolidate by super tuesday, if they are going to do it. But right now? no.

I mean, that's why Ron Desantis dropped out. Even though he came in second in iowa, his polling numbers in future states were dismal enough to make him just pull the plug and get behind haley. Iowa didnt necessarily reflect the country either.

But yeah. I don't like Andrew yang telling Williamson to drop out, when Williamson is, in some ways, a stronger candidate than Dean is. I also dont like Williamson playing the identity politics card to defend herself. If I were williamson, I'd lean into UBI. I'd frame it like this: "Look, Andrew, I support your top 2020 priority, basic income, full stop, Dean does not. Why are you telling me to drop out when he doesn't have as strong of a position on this issue? Why are you still endorsing him? My campaign represents what you ran on better than his in the first place" 

Focus on the ISSUES. I hate it when these woman candidates (Hillary 2016, Warren 2020, now Williamson 2024) always hide behind the sexism card. It's cheap, it's lame, it's dishonest. It makes me lose respect for you when you do that. It's deflecting legitimate criticism. It's detracting from the issues. it's accusing your opponent of sexism. Really, it's a bad look. Don't do it. And I say this as someone who endorsed Williamson over Phillips. I believe Williamson has a stronger platform from an economic perspective. Dean Phillips is just another centrist with a progressive flair. Williamson is basically running as Bernie with UBI at this point, which is basically what I want deep down. 

I'm just saying, she didn't have to go that way with her response. She had a policy argument. She should have used that, not the cheap shot identity card. 

As far as what I actually think now that the results are in...I don't know. I'm not really inclined to pressure either to drop out. It's not like either candidate has a serious chance against Biden. Dean phillips did stronger in new hampshire, but he's weaker nationwide. Either way, with Biden at 70% of the vote, it's kind of a moot point, is it not? Why not just let both candidates virtue signal as they want? That's all these campaigns are. They're not gonna accomplish anything, they're a virtue signal. If Biden was at say, 45%, or even 55% like Trump is in some states, i would say, yeah, maybe consolidate the field a bit. Should Williamson make way for phillips, or phillips for williamson? I don't know. I COULD get behind the idea of williamson dropping out and backing phillips. But at the same time, nationally, Williamson is at 7%, and Phillips is at 3.3. As I said, new hampshire is not the entire US. Phillips had a nice break through moment there, but we don't know yet if this win will help him gain steam. I'd say if Williamson can't gain ground by South Carolina, yeah, she should drop out. If, however, Williamson gains ground in Nevada and South Carolina and it's more mixed, I'm not sure what should happen.

Honestly, i think Yang was jumping the gun and it came off as kind of rude, and I think Williamson's sexism insinuation lacked class. That's how I feel about this. This whole incident is cringe and I feel bad that people I normally respect so much are infighting like this. 

My take, let the race play out a bit more. If Dean maintains his momentum, yeah, you can argue williamson should drop out. If Dean's lead is a flash in the pan and Williamson started trouncing phillips in future states, maybe Dean would drop out.

As far as my recommendations, I remain resolute. I made up my mind, and I waited pretty long to do so. I didn't full endorse williamson until the debate between them, and then UBI sealed the deal further. I gave both a chance, I like both to a certain degree. I just liked williamson better. And I stand by that. Phillips, I could live with too.There's no reason for infighting like this. It's just incendiary, and it's threatening to make this race ugly. Focus on the issues, and maybe someone drop out in time for super tuesday.

Reacting to the Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips debate - I think we have a winner!

 So, it's been no secret of mine that I've been liking Dean Phillips more and more lately. I mean, recently, I even liked him a bit more than Marianne Williamson, if only because he gave a nod to UBI. But, it wasn't until now that we saw the two go head to head and got a good contrast between the two. 

Now, this debate was pretty good and I was impressed with both candidates in different ways. Dean Phillips in particular showed foreign policy expertise, and experience in Washington, but Marianne Williamson had an economic firebrand vibe that is not all that dissimilar to Bernie Sanders. For much of the debate, I liked both candidates, and I thought both were pretty solid. I really struggled to choose one over the other, as both have their strengths and weaknesses.

But, there were a couple moments that swayed me toward one candidate over the other, and as such, I think I made up my mind who I'm supporting for 2024. And that candidate is Marianne Williamson. 

It wasn't really anything Marianne Williamson said or did that made her stand out. More, it was things Dean Phillips said or did that kind of alienated me.

First of all, Dean Phillips mentioned putting republicans in his cabinet and wanting to be bipartisan. Wrong move, Dean. While Americans are divided, the answer isnt just to split the difference between both sides and to listen to both as if they had equal merit. One side seems more entrenched in the idea of truth and justice than the other. One side seems pure evil to me, and the other is various shades of flawed. I dont believe the GOP should be given any serious consideration when they don't even live in reality. Bipartisanship needs to stop being treated as a virtue in elections. I dont value bipartisanship when one side is objectively right and the other is objectively wrong. I'm sorry. I don't.

Marianne Williamson on the other hand understood that she wasn't going to please everyone, and she didn't even try. Like FDR, she basically welcomed the hatred of those who didn't. And I respect that. We need someone with that kind of conviction in the white house. Im not saying that they cant listen to opposing opinions, mind you. Theres a balance to be had. I just dont wanna be listening to REPUBLICAN opinions. I want someone who will welcome the GOP's hatred and meet it head on. So Marianne wins there.

The second major mess up Dean made was going after Marianne on fiscal issues. He literally went all debt hawk on her, claiming we can't pay for her grand ideas, and that we needed to be fiscally responsible. Marianne fired back talking about how we shouldnt run the country like a fiscally responsible business, but a fiscally responsible family. In a sense, I kind of agree.

Look, I support some level of fiscal restraint. Still, I believe that a grand progressive agenda is economically feasible. I've run the numbers on bernie sanders' 2020 plan, and Williamson's agenda is basically that, and should come out similar to that.

I support similar levels of spending increases as well. My big difference from leftists like Williamson is how that money is allocated. I prioritize different. My #1 priority is a UBI, with healthcare second, and a green new deal can be scaled down to something more moderate. 

For phillips to go after Williamson fiscally like this tells me that he plans to govern very moderately on economics. He has some progressive ideas. He supports medicare for all, the same as williamson, but then he talked about supporting more moderate ideas in congress. What form of healthcare DO you support, Dean? I mean, even I waffle on this, given I support a $4 trillion UBI, can we afford both? Im not sure. But if you arent embracing UBI and going in a more moderate direction, to be weaker on other policies is inexcusable. My excuse for waffling on medicare for all is because I want to fund some sort of healthcare plan on top of UBI and recognize i might need to scale it down to make the numbers work. But if you dont have those constraints, you should go full stop.

Heck, him supporting M4A was what made me more seriously consider him anyway.

This isn't to say Dean Phillips isnt a very good candidate. Much of the debate rehashed what I knew. Dean phillips has leaned strongly into housing, but has been weaker on stuff like student debt forgiveness. Williamson has a well rounded bernie-esque economic agenda, but lacks a UBI plan. Phillips kinda sorta gave a nod toward UBI, but hasnt really embraced it full on. On foreign policy, I think phillips has a much stronger foreign policy case, while williamson seems to support weird feel good ideas like a department of peace. 

I mean, all in all I'd be happy with both. I just think those two things kinda betrayed dean as a far more moderate candidate on economic issues. I dont want to listen to republicans saying we shouldnt be funding big social programs because we should have lower taxes. I don't want Dean distancing himself from progressive proposals because he doesnt think we can afford them. Dean Phillips is trying to live in two worlds at the same time. He's trying to be both an establishment moderate, and a progressive, and is kind of sort of failing at both. If I felt his convictions on economic justice were more sincere, I might take him a bit more seriously, but after the debate, I think williamson won. Well, I dont think either won objectively, but williamson won ME over. I think she's stronger on my top priorities, so I'm going to go with her. Dean Phillips is a very close second on paper, although I do question his commitment to progressive policies after tonight's debate. And for me, that's the deciding factor. Dean phillips started off as more down for me, came up through apparent support for policies i support, but he's kinda showing some signs of waffling. So yeah. I think I'm gonna endorse williamson at this point. 

We need a new FDR type candidate. Im not saying it HAS to be williamson, or they have to take that specific mold. Honestly, my ideal candidate doesnt really exist. Yang kinda sorta went in that direction in 2020 but also kinda waffled more than I liked (and it cost him my endorsement in 2020), and now Phillips is doing the same. The sad thing is if i had to redo 2020 i probably would've went yang this time around. But phillips is weaker than yang. Just as williamson is weaker than bernie. But given how much priority i give to UBI and how phillips has refused to full on embrace it like yang did, he just doesn't have as much of an edge as yang would have had if he ran again. So that's another way of looking at this too. 

Still, I will say this. Both Williamson and Phillips are decent candidates in their own right. I would take both over Joe Biden. Still, I think williamson just edges out dean phillips for me.

Regrading Biden/Williamson/Phillips with my two main metrics

 So, I feel like it's been enough time that I feel like I can directly compare the 3 candidates and regrade how I judge each of them on their policies and other characteristics. I graded Biden like way back last year, Phillips I did more recently, and I regraded williamson last night. However, I kinda realize my grades might seem a bit dated so I want to recalibrate. 

Metric 1

This metric is more a general snapshot of the candidate overall and provides a comprehensive picture that allows me to get a good idea of what they're about. 

Basic income support - 10

Medicare for all support - 10

Economic policies (other than UBI/M4A) - 10

Social policies - 10

Foreign policy - 10

Worldview/ideology- 20

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 10

Experience/competence- 10

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 10

Total- 100

Joe Biden

Basic income support- 2/10

He supported an expansion of the child tax credit, but otherwise doesn't support UBI

Medicare for all support- 2/10

Supports a public option in theory but has done absolutely nothing to advance it. if he tried I'd give him a 5. 

Economic policies- 8/10

Very pro union, supported free college, some student debt forgiveness, supported Build Back Better (climate plan), $15 minimum wage. He's been low key based, despite whatever criticisms I have against the guy. 

Social policy- 9/10

Has been largely in line with my politics. Maybe some minor issues with immigration (slightly too harsh), and alternatively too woke, but I like Biden on social policy and find him to be progressive but also largely nonoffensive. 

Foreign policy- 10/10

I know he gets a lot of crap, but Biden gets perfect marks from me on foreign policy. He has handled various crises well, including Ukraine. I know a lot of people aren't happy with him on foreign policy but I believe he's been trying (unsuccessfully) to moderate Netanyahu. I think he's been very good here.

Worldview/ideology- 10/20

He's far too moderate for me, but not terrible. Kinda leans hard into jobism at times. Of course everyone does in modern politics. Very much aligned on social and foreign policy. Economics he needs a lot of work, but he's okay at least. Giving him a lower rating so I dont end up crunching biden, phillips, and williamson into similar ratings. 

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 5/10

I mean, he's been true to his word on a lot of things, he's just too moderate and doesn't do enough. If that makes sense. he's been much better than I thought, but he's still a bit of a moderate. Again, giving him a lower score to better express my feelings with Williamson/phillips relative to him.

Experience/competence- 10/10

I mean, he's the current guy, he's done a good job, no one is more qualified. Literally.

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 10/10

Mostly added this to subtract points from west/stein, since I'm not looking at them here, it's just free points. 

Total- 66/100

All in all, Joe Biden is not a terrible candidate. I find him acceptable as the minimum option, and I'm not really inclined to consider third party candidates this time around as a result. He's not everything I want, but he's been solid, and as a barrier against the threat of the insurrectionist getting in again, he's pretty solid. All in all, better than nothing. 

Marianne Williamson

Basic income support- 10/10

She has recently come out in favor of basic income

Medicare for all support- 10/10

she has supported basic income since the start of her campaign

Economic policies- 10/10

She supports everything Biden does, and more. If anything she goes too far where I question if she can accomplish all she wants. See metric 2. 

Social policy- 8/10

She seems a bit more "woke", which I don't like, but she's solid. I mean, I lean progressive anyway, so I'm not gonna criticize her too hard for this. 

Foreign policy- 3/10

Here she seems very weak. I watched a video of hers today and she was talking about trying to negotiate a peace between Russia and Ukraine. Uh...let's not reward russia for anything. She also wants a department of peace with is cringey. I get it, you like peace, but sometimes the real world sucks and sometimes you need to be a bit hard on our enemies because they will be hard on us. For as civilized as we like to think of ourselves, foreign policy is that one realm where we need to deal with the uncivilized. 

Worldview/ideology- 16/20

While Marianne Williamson is very progressive, she's also very...wooey at times. And sometimes she just seems to live in her own little world. She's basically fully aligned with me on economics, but outside of that we differ a bit and I likely agree with Biden more in some ways. 

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 8/10

I mean, i trust her more than Biden but I dont trust her recent pushes toward UBI somewhat. Still, if I trusted anyone to get it done, it's her.

Experience/competence- 2/10

I mean, she has no government experience, she has a bit of a wooey worldview, and on foreign policy she's terrifyingly ignorant in my opinion. Her economic platform is based, but I dont see how she can pay for all of that. keep in mind my biggest moderating factor in my own ideology is i kinda realized all of these proposals aren't sustainable at the same time and we need to prioritize. She hasn't realized that. So...yeah. Kinda unrealistic. Still, she means well.

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 10/10

Again, free points. 

Total- 77/100

She does better than Biden and will likely win here. Still, let's look at Dean Phillips

Dean Phillips

Basic income support- 4/10

He supports the child tax credit, some UBI trials, and maybe a carbon dividend, but otherwise does not support UBI outright. 

Medicare for all- 10/10

He's recently come to back medicare for all.

Economic policies- 6/10

I mean, he supports a lot of the same stuff Biden does but given his own direction he occasionally seems more moderate due to his upper class entrepreneurial background. Climate change plan seems to be a carbon dividend, weaker on free college/student debt forgiveness. But he otherwise seems largely in line with Biden and standard progressive policies.

Social policy- 9/10

Once again, inoffensive liberal, much like Biden.

Foreign policy- 9/10

Seems similar to Biden, maybe a tad more moderate, but acceptable. 

Worldview/ideology- 13/20

Seems low key progressive at times, seems to align with me on policy in theory, but also seems way too moderate for me. Better than Biden, worse than Marianne. 

Consistency/dedication to progressive values- 6/10

 I'm not sure how much i CAN trust Dean Phillips. He's kinda flip flopped a bit and some answers in the democratic primary kinda concern me. Still he seems...okay at least.

Experience/competence- 8/10

He's a congressman and basically young Joe Biden. He's fine.

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 10/10

Free points

Total- 75/100

Despite being more moderate than Marianne Williamson, he's surprisingly well rounded, whereas Williamson is much better in some ways but much worse than others. He's also a more progressive Joe Biden. So he's pretty decent. 

 Overall

 Joe Biden- 66

Dean Phillips- 75

Marianne Williamson- 77

Metric 2

This metric is more focused and is a measurement of consistency on my economic priorities

Basic income support- 40

Medicare for all support- 25

Free college/student debt forgiveness- 15

Climate change- 10

Housing- 10

Total- 100

Joe Biden

Basic income support- 8/40

As I said, he supported the child tax credit despite it being repealed

Medicare for all support- 5/25

Nominally supports a public option but hasnt done much to act on it.

Free college/student debt forgiveness- 8/15

Supported free college and some student debt forgiveness, got stopped by congress

Climate change- 10/10

Build back better was based, passed inflation reduction act, got stopped by congress

Housing- 0/10

No major housing initatives that mean anything

Total- 41/100

This is where Biden is going to flounder and his moderation is going to show. As we can tell he's not very good on my priorities. Still he's done a decent amount that makes me support him somewhat. He's not terrible and it's not like he completely ignored them.

Marianne Williamson

Basic income support- 40/40

Now supports a basic income very similar to my own.

Medicare for all- 25/25

Supports single payer

Free college/student debt forgiveness- 15/15

She's all over that

Climate change- 5/10

Goes with the extremist green new deal framework, dock points because I prefer a more moderate plan

Housing- 10/10

Supports building housing as part of green new deal

Total- 95/100

Williamson is a very strong candidate who is highly aligned with my policy preferences. 

Dean Phillips

Basic income support- 15/40

Supports child tax credit expansion, basic income trials, and a carbon dividend, but no UBI itself.

Medicare for all- 25/25

Has thrown support behind M4A

Free college/student debt forgiveness- 5/15

Kinda weak here, supports some free community college if I recall but no real student debt forgiveness

Climate change- 3/10

While he supported build back better, has no climate plan of his own to my knowledge other than a carbon dividend which is weak.

Housing- 10/10

Wants to build more housing

Total- 58/100

Phillips is in some ways more progressive than Joe Biden, in some ways less progressive, and far worse than Marianne Williamson on my top priorities. He might be more pragmatic, but I also ain't measuring that here. 

Overall

Joe Biden- 41

Dean Phillips- 58

Marianne Williamson- 95

Williamson is an overwhelming winner for me here, she is fully in line with my policies. Phillips is a distant second place, with some progressive proposals but nothing like Williamson's second economic bill of rights. And Biden is third. He's not terrible, but Phillips and Williamson are better.

Metric 3

Here I'm just going to rate the candidates on a scale of my "warmness" to them. This is a metric on a scale of 0-100 in which I measure how I feel about the candidates on a more intuitive level (50 is neutral). I will basically report the first number that comes to mind when I think of all of these candidates.

Joe Biden- 55

Marianne Williamson- 75

Dean Phillips- 65

I think that's about right. I'm not crazy about any of them, but I have a decent like of Williamson, Phillips a more mild like of, and Biden I'm kinda neutral on. All three of them are acceptable to me for the general election, but it seems quite clear that I trend toward liking Williamson the best, Phillips second, and Biden last.

As such, that's how I plan on voting. Williamson is my favorite, but if I have to settle for Biden in the general, I will. All of them are acceptable. I just think Williamson is far better.

Thoughts on the democratic candidate debate response to the GOP debate

 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).

Discussing the New Hampshire results

 So....the results aren't totally in, but we do know who won. And the results are...exactly what you'd expect.

Republican Primary

Right now, with 60% of the vote in and the race called by the AP...Donald Trump won. 

Donald Trump- 53.7%

Nikki Haley- 44.7%

So basically a 9 point spread. it was a little closer earlier at 8 points, but I also saw it at 10 on the news, so who knows it fluctuates, but that's basically it. 

And this is...basically that best case scenario I talked about yesterday. Where all the DeSantis voters went Haley and Trump remains the same. It wasn't enough. Because Trump had a clear majority and enough of a buffer where even an upset wouldn't put Haley in range to win.

And Haley is talking about staying in and "only getting started", but let's be realistic, this is over. New Hampshire is the high water mark for all candidates, democratic and republican, and if you can't pull off an upset here, it's over. Even if South Carolina is Haley's home state, let's face it, she's not gonna win. At best, the results will be this all over again. She can try as she might, but that's the reality of things as I see it. 

Democratic Primary

Right now, with 64% in, we got:

Dean Phillips- 20.9%

Joe Biden (write in)- 17.4%

Marianne Williamson- 4.3%

Unprocessed write in- 53.4%

WHAT AN UPSET, UNPROCESSED WRITE IN WINS!

...

Yeah okay, those are all Biden votes, we understand that, right? So the real results for Biden are basically 70.8%. He won in a landslide and crushed Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. It wasn't even close. And this was without Biden on the ballot, in the most wildcard primary where it's easiest for an insurgent candidate to break through.

It's over.

I mean, I'm still gonna vote for Williamson or Phillips if there's a primary to be had by the time it gets to me in April, but...yeah. 

The people overwhelmingly want biden.

But how? Despite his crappy numbers nationally, why did he do so well here? Because primaries have selection biases. It's not everyone voting for them, it's registered democrats, and the kind of people most likely to register as democrats are the real die hard types who like the party and its brand. Insurgent candidates have so many problems with gaining steam because independents and even a lot of partisans who aren't politically aware just don't vote in these primaries. bernie had this problem, but was able to remain relatively strong at this stage of the race, he doesnt fall apart typically until south carolina and super tuesday, but this election? Almost no one even heard of Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, and the target demographic didn't want them. I saw one post on ESS today suggesting at least one voter interviewed found Dean phillips annoying because she was super pro Biden. 

Well, dems, you can keep making your bed like this, but you're gonna have to sleep in it come november. The fact is no matter what you guys do now like 70% of the country doesnt like Biden, you know that, right? I aint even saying someone like Phillips or Williamson CAN pull off better numbers than Biden, Im kinda inclined to believe the dems are screwed and this is just gonna inevitably be a very red year as a result. But we also dont know how another candidate would do, as the news organizations kinda suppressed the competition, and because polling agencies didn't poll to see how these guys would do vs Trump or Haley. 

So yeah. Let's face it, it's over. Barring Biden having a heart attack or Trump going to jail, we're gonna be stuck with Biden vs Trump. Again. And the matchup is not gonna go well this time. 

And that's that. Probably the most interesting primary state is over, the rest is just gonna be cleanup. If you cant see a break through in these early states, it's probably not gonna happen. Trump vs Biden it is. Ugh....

Discussing Bernie Sanders vs Marianne Williamson

 So yesterday I finished Marianne Williamson's book "A politics of love". Today I started Bernie Sanders' "It's okay to be angry about capitalism." I'm not super far into it yet, only around chapter 2 somewhere, but I just want to comment on one very significant difference between the two that I notice first off, which really sums up why I like Bernie so much better than Marianne. 

Marianne's book was a mixed affair for me. It was overly emotional and focused heavily on love and empathy, while offering very few actual policy prescriptions for our problems. Bernie is the opposite. This dude comes out of the gate discussing problems and solutions. And not only does he make his case, but he does it with force and conviction. It's pretty clear, reading his work, compared to Marianne, why I was so much more passionate about Bernie than I am about Williamson. And it's pretty clear even why I ended up backing Bernie over Andrew Yang, who, by the way, I actually agree a lot more with.

Bernie is practically the perfect candidate. He provides an entire worldview outlining the problems with the current system, while calling for a specific set of solutions. He does it forcefully, and with conviction. He speaks with a charisma that almost makes me want to overlook the fact that he prefers a jobs guarantee over a UBI. Almost. He's the OG. He's the dude who's been in the trenches his entire life, and despite our differences, I have trouble not having the utmost respect for him.

I knew that he was going to be hard to replace, as he passes 80, and becomes too old to run for president again, but looking at where we are now, I feel bad that we've passed up on such a transformational candidate. 

I may have issues with his movement. Quite frankly, I've come to realize a lot of aspects of his movement are toxic. And despite him being quite clear that his agenda is basically FDR's second bill of rights, a lot of his base is more radical and extreme than he is, with some of them calling for literal socialism. And honestly, these guys picked fights with me, and have alienated me. So I'm not entirely sure his movement is going to age well going forward. Often when the torch is passed on, each subsequent leader sucks worse than the last. FDR passed it to truman, who passed it to JFK, who passed it to Johnson, who passed it to Carter. And we're seeing a clear downward spiral as the GOP shifted from Reagan, to Bush, to the other Bush, and eventually to the tea party and Trump. The original guy seems to have a level of charisma and conviction that's refreshing and cant be matched, but then subsequent leaders suck. They might parrot the same ideals, but might lack the conviction, or the leadership style, or might be corrupt, or heck, they might not even represent the ideas at some point, but a pathetic copy cat of them. And as Bernie passes the torch on, I fear for his movement. Williamson isn't really it. Neither is Biden, although many would argue Biden was never going to be, despite including aspects of Bernie's agenda in his platform.Nina Turner didn't go anywhere. And a lot of the younger progressives just tend to lack the expertise that Bernie has on policy, even if they have the passion. 

The same is happening to the UBI movement. I mean, Scott Santens is the OG. I'm arguably influenced by Scott Santens and others in a direct sense, and have a worldview that is a mix of the most leading UBI oriented thinkers. But then you got Yang, who had the same ideas roughly, but lacked the policy expertise, and at times the conviction to follow through. As the movement materialized in reality, the leaders we often had to rally behind tended to "not be it". And over time, this kills movements, because a string of bad leaders can turn people off of ideas, and then a new zeitgeist emerges. Or maybe things just change as years turn into decades, and we become removed from the original event. When Rush LImbaugh wrote of Ronald Reagan in 1992, he seemed very inspired by the guy, and reading his works in the 2000s, I kind also felt inspired by such ideas. But as I matured into an adult, saw the world for myself, and saw a massive disconnect between these ideas and the reality we live in, I ultimately soured on him. I understand why a lot of boomers and gen X are more conservative than me, but Millennials and Zoomers grew up in a totally different era. The divide between growing up post 1990 and pre 1990s is massive. One lived in a cold war world without widespread use of the internet, and the other lived post cold war with the internet. As such, the generations are just...different. We live in different worlds. ANd the ways of the previous generation do not resonate with this one.

Bernie did talk about this, but he seemed convinced that despite his failures, his ideas would live on, since the younger generation loves them. And it's true. Most of Bernie's support comes from the under 40 crowd, me being one of them. I admit, I do have some ideological differences with Bernie, being one of the OG human centered capitalists from before even Yang embraced the idea, but honestly, that's why I'm in a position to appreciate both Bernie Sanders and Andrew yang. And while policy wise I'm more Yang than Bernie, even I have trouble arguing against Bernie's agenda, warts and all, especially given how weak of a leader Yang seems to be. 

Honestly, I fear for the future of both of our movements. The UBI movement, the Bernie movement. The bernie movement's successors come off as totally unhinged and extreme to me, and while marianne williamson isn't anywhere near as bad as the online purity testers I deal with, she still feels quite lacking to me. She just seems to lack the coherent worldview that Bernie has, and seems to lean into spirituality that feels refreshing on the one hand, but also feels empty and vapid on the other. And with UBI, well...we honestly need to do better than Andrew Yang. He's too inconsistent.  

And yeah I just wanted to reflect on why I felt so passionate about Bernie, while I'm so tepid on Marianne. I mean, just reading one book after the other really seals it for me.

So apparently Dean Phillips supports universal healthcare...

 So, dean phillips has been kind of nebulous with healthcare policy. He originally seemed pretty moderate, then on yang's program he was talking about different payment models and how to bring prices down. And now Dean Phillips is basically openly embracing Medicare for all. I have to say, I know I gave dean a lot of crap early on as he seemed more centrist than joe biden, but he seems to be shifting hard not just in a progressive direction since his campaign began, but also in a human centered capitalist direction. He has given some attention to UBI, and while he hasnt openly embraced the idea fully, he supports trials and was talking about bringing Yang into his administration as some "UBI guy", and now this. So he's really shaping up on my priorities in a good way. Williamson is still a little more progressive than me on some traditional leftist planks like free college/student loan forgiveness, but other than that, Dean seems to be really getting closer and closer to me ideologically. He's not some weirdo leftie blabbering on about socialism, and he is someone with a decent amount of congressional experience and a good head on his shoulders. I'm starting to actually like the guy. I mean, at this point, I gotta go back to my metrics and re-evaluate the guy. So let's do that, this time in more detail.

Metric #1

Universal basic income- Ok, so Dean Phillips both supported Biden's Child Tax Credit initiative and also has pushed for UBI pilots. He's also supported a carbon tax dividend. He has not FULLY embraced UBI, but he has shifted toward it in several ways in a positive manner. So I'm gonna give him a 4/10 on this front, which is the highest I feel justified in giving someone who isn't openly advocating for some concrete UBI plan as a central plank of his presidency. 

4/10

Medicare for all- He now fully supports medicare for all. 

10/10

Economics- Eh I gave him a bad rap before but he actually did vote for a $15 minimum wage and has a 100% record from the AFL CIO. So, good enough for me on bog standard labor issues. Isn't progressive enough for me on SOME things but he's pretty solid overall. 

8/10

Social issues- He seems like a pretty bog standard democrat, which is good enough for me. This includes a pretty moderate stance on immigration, although I kind of break with him on guns a bit and am a bit more moderate.

 9/10

 Foreign policy- He shows support for Ukraine and a fairly balanced view on the Israel/Palestine issue. 

10/10

Worldview/Ideology- I largely seem aligned with him. He is a bit more moderate than me on a lot, but I would say I find him increasingly agreeable.

14/20

Consistency/commitment to progressive ideological goals- he has a decent record, although a lot of his progressive shifts beyond bog standard democratic policy seem new. I don't think it's not genuine, but im not sure how solid he is on those positions I support.

6/10

Experience/competence- He's only been in office for 5 years, but that's still 5 years longer than most lefties running against Biden. He also seems to understand legislation pretty well so I gotta give him credit for that. I could see him doing the job.

7/10

Doesn't act as a spoiler- He's running as a democrat. 

10/10

Overall: 78/100

I think we found a winner for 2024! And possibly 2028. I think he's a good rising star in the party, although idk how much he's gonna be blackballed just for not being a team player and waiting his turn. Still, he seems more polished than Marianne Williamson, is pushing in a direction that I like, and is fairly progressive. i think the left is sleeping on the guy. Sure, Williamson is great too.

As far as Metric 2....

Metric 2

Basic income- Same rating as last time, 15/40

Medicare for all- He's now for it. 25/25

Free college/student loan forgiveness- Same as it was, still a bit moderate but supports some shifts that way. 8/15

Climate change- Eh, he's still a bit weak here. Supports a carbon dividend and other relatively moderate solutions. He did support Build Back Better and the Inflation reduction act, but more because he was a team player rather than because they were ideas he believed in. 6/10

Housing- He wants to build 6 million new homes. 8/10

Overall: 62/100

Yeah, also beating out Williamson now. 

So yeah. As it stands, Im kind of shifting from supporting Marianne Williamson to supporting Dean Phillips for president. Williamson is great too, but eh, she's a bit less polished than phillips is, and phillips now objectively aligns more with my specific policy preferences compared to Williamson. Unlike in 2019, when I shifted from Yang to Bernie around this time of year mainly over healthcare, I'm now shifting away from the traditional bernie candidate toward the more yang like candidate BECAUSE their healthcare plan put them over the edge. Still wish he was better on free college/student debt forgiveness, but you can't win them all. 

So yeah, now I'm to the point of probably endorsing dean phillips for president instead of williamson. There's still time for me to change my mind, but yeah, I'm shifting here. He has the right policy proposals, is moderate enough to reasonably challenge biden and isn't outright insane, and he's progressive in a lot of ways where it counts. Still not progressive enough in some ways, but meh, no one's perfect. Not like williamson supports UBI this election cycle. And she has some flaws that make her kinda cringey to me. So...yeah. Dean it is.

Reacting to Marianne Williamson's "Economic Bill of Rights"

 Back in the 1940s, FDR had something known as the "economic bill of rights". It was considered a second bill of rights for Americans based on giving them economic rights in a post laissez faire political age. While I obviously have fundamental disagreements with FDR at times in his approach, and some of his proposed rights feel dated or misguided (such as a right to a job), I can't deny FDR's political legacy as an influence on my own approach to politics. I learned a lot from FDR, I liked his no BS attitude in taking on special interests, and I obviously believe that need a "new new deal" so to speak and a rewriting of the social contract within a 21st century context. A lot of my politics through much of the 2010s and even today had and has the aesthetics of FDR's style of economic populism, even if my own ideas are a little different at times. And this kind of fire is why I liked Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020. He kind of brought that kind of politics back to the table, and I thought if Bernie was successful, it should shift the overton window where my ideas are at least debated and taken seriously, and either way, we'd have economic change that makes millions of peoples' lives better. 

Anyway, between her anti poverty program, and now Marianne Williamson channeling her inner FDR and pushing her own economic bill of rights, it seems clear that she's the candidate to go for this election cycle if large scale economic change is your thing. I listened to williamson's speech on this and it was quite good. She's right, we need more than just tweaks around the edges, but a fundamental rework of our economy.

However, as you can probably imagine, based on her anti poverty plan and my reaction to it, we do have clear differences in ideology at times. I think a lot more like Andrew Yang ideologically, while Williamson sounds more like FDR and Bernie. With that said, let's actually discuss her economic bill of rights. I won't be quoting every part of her page on this, but I will go over each right and what I think about it. 

1) The right to a job that pays a living wage.

Eh.....no. Sorry, but no. Jobs exist to make things, they're a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves. I believe, like Buckminister Fuller, that "we should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everyone has to earn a living." The right to a job is well meaning, and it is this well meaningness that makes me support people like Williamson and FDR as close alternatives to what I want. But I feel like tying income to a job only is a thing because we need monetary incentives to encourage people to work and do the things needed for society to function. By pushing a right to a job, we're, in the long term, encouraging make work and keeping people in a system of drudgery, when in reality, we should strive to ensure that every human being has to work as little as possible. Work should be made as voluntary as possible, and the work week should be reduced, or at the very least, the choice of how many hours to work should rest on the worker, rather than the employer. 

So...both Williamson and FDR, and Sanders and the rest of the left for that matter, are all misguided here. What we really need is a right to an income, and that's what I would try to accomplish with a UBI. Beyond that, we should try to pursue full employment (among voluntary participants), or, to put it another way, minimize INVOLUNTARY UNemployment, but no one should have a right to a job. It's a completely nonsensical notion to me, and something that doesn't work under capitalism, and isn't even desirable to me.

Now, the second part of this is a living wage. I support a living wage in the absence of a UBI. I would support a minimum wage in the ballpark of $15-18 an hour if we were to raise it. With a UBI we could debate a lower amount, but still, I would argue unless the UBI is really high and really causes a work reduction response that puts heavy pressure on businesses that keep wages high, I would argue for at least some minimum wage. My UBI does scale nicely in households where it does get close to what is normally proposed as "living wage" territory (~$15 an hour), but given some would get less and given my UBI may not necessarily truly achieve freedom as the power to say no as I would like to call it, I could argue some minimum wage still being necessary even in a world with UBI.

That said, even if I don't support the right to a job, I do support the right to fair wages for work.

2) The right to a voice in the workplace through a union and collective bargaining.

Sure, but to one up Marianne Williamson once again, I support freedom as the right to say no, not just to any job but all jobs. This would greatly improve INDIVIDUAL bargaining power to the point that it would have the same macro effect on the economy as a union would have, where no one would work at a job if it paid poorly or treated workers poorly. The whole problem with capitalism is economic coercion, and I'm trying to reduce that coercion through a UBI. Unions are a strategy to accomplish these changes, it relies on banding together and confronting capital as a group rather than individually, forcing businesses to come to the bargaining table, but I honestly think that we should go further than just unions. We need to empower individuals as well.

Still, my UBI ideas would just give workers more bargaining power and allow them to strike more effectively than they do in the existing capitalist system. Still, I really do think we need to get beyond just...work here. Like, these ideas that Williamson, FDR, etc, have are great if you have a society where people have to work for a living, but again, my end goal is to shift humanity away from working in the first place. So all of these ideas become dated and stop making as much sense in my own ideological context. 

As far as the PRO act goes, I do support the concept, although I would not elevate this to the point of being an economic right worth mentioning.

3) The right to universal quality health care.

Heck yeah, we need to guarantee some system of universal healthcare, whether it takes the form of single payer or a robust public option. I support single payer in principle but given my UBI obsession I may need to compromise here to make the numbers work with a public option.

4) The right to a cost-free higher education.

Yes, outside of UBI she's nailing my priorities nearly completely. After healthcare my emphasis would be free college and student loan forgiveness. She's right that this is needed for democracy to function properly, as well as the normal discussions about economic mobility.

5) The right to good, affordable housing.

Once again, she's nailing it. Housing is another top priority for me given how unaffordable it is in our society. 

6) The right to a clean environment and a healthy planet.

I agree with this in spirit. heck, I support a build back better style climate build as a top priority too. But this seems a bit ambitious. She talks a lot about ramping down natural gas exports and fossil fuel productions, but let's not do the same stupid thing that Germany did when they went full green only to become completely dependent on Russia for energy. Sadly, we need the dirty crap until we can actually get replacements to the market. We need to wean ourselves off of this responsibly, not just go full on cut everything overnight. I think a Biden style BBB plan is the best compromise between getting away from this stuff, while doing it responsibly. Yang's 2020 plan is another interesting alternative for me. 

7) The right to a meaningful endowment of resources at birth.

This is nice, it reminds me of THomas Paine's citizens' dividend, but honestly, rather than give everyone a lump sum of resources from birth or at age 21, we just give people an income stream. After all, this plan does little for people already born or in adulthood. Second of all, a lump sum could be spent irresponsibly, such as on college (in existing in society), or otherwise blown by some 18-25 year old who doesn't know what they're doing. I'd rather give people a stream of money where if they waste it, there's always next month. I feel like UBI would give people more economic security than this would. 

8) The right to sound banking and financial services.

I mean, I'm neutral on postal banking. I think it's an interesting idea but I don't overly emphasize it. I think that it could work in conjunction with my UBI, imagine everyone getting their UBI through a postal banking service, for instance, if they don't choose another place to receive it. It's an idea. I wouldn't call this a "right" though.

9) The right to an equitable and fair justice system.

Uh, seems out of place on economics. I know there are issues with the justice system, but this seems more a case for bolstering the original bill of rights, rather than pushing for a second one. 

10) The right to cultural and civic involvement in democratic life.

Much like the first one, I don't really like this one. Don't get me wrong, I support the arts and think UBI would be a godsend to artists who tend to struggle to support themselves financially. But...I'm not supportive of just giving artists money for being artists, or pushing some sort of "public works project" or "jobs program". Also, this feels as out of place as FDR's pivots to farmers in his original economic bill of rights in the 1930s. It's just a bizarre priority here. 

And again, did I mention that I feel like UBI would be a solid way to help artists in and of itself? It's not up to the government to prop up the art industry as much as it's up to the government to give people an income that allows them to self actualize and figure out their own lives. Which would help artists get off the ground and give them a start with which they can hone their craft. I just feel like UBI would address so many of these points that she's trying to bring up more effectively. 

Conclusion

I mean, before I say anything else, let me just say that Williamson coming out with this has made me more passionate about her candidacy. She's actually largely on the same page with me here, and I really feel like our goals are mostly aligned. However, much like happens with me vs most other leftists and liberals in general, there's too much emphasis on employment here. I believe that we need to do better and go further, and not just talk about guaranteed jobs and living wages and unions and stuff like that, but a full on basic income. A 21st century economic bill of rights should have UBI as its centerpiece in my opinion. It would provide a level of economic freedom and security that no other policy can provide, and would actually render several of these other rights somewhat redundant.

Perhaps I should provide my own 21st century economic bill of rights in the future. I've thought of how I would structure them, but I would like to think out the details a bit more. This is more just a reaction to Williamson's ideas. I think that she means well and has some really good ideas, but obviously, I think they require a bit of fine tuning. 

Still, much like with her anti poverty plan, I give her economic bill of rights a B.

...and I just voted for Marianne Williamson for the primary

 Yes yes, I know primary season is already "over", but as I said previously, I didn't vote yet. And I resent this primary system of the election being decided by super tuesday with the rest of us being told to get over it and back the nominee. It's like the dems dont want primaries, and believe me, I kind of think that they really don't. They long for the days of machine politics and smoke filled back rooms and the prospect of a primary we the unwashed masses can vote in comes off as a formality to them.

Well, I'm going to give my say at least ONCE this election cycle, and I'm doing it here. Normally I'd take a harder stance on the democrats and their...anti-democratic behavior, but given we're dealing with the guy on the other side who wants to destroy all democracy and install himself as a dictator, my options are kinda limited this time around. Still, I AM gonna give my say in the primary. I understand Marianne Williamson probably won't even break 1% in practice, I mean she wasn't even on the ballot for whatever reason although Dean Phillips was (i wrote in williamson), but again, it's the principle of it all. I prefer principled voting, I hate strategic voting when you come down to it, especially when the party in question games the system, I just feel like I have to back Biden in the general because he's doing some good things, because trump is scary, and because let's face it, i dont like the leftist candidates much AT ALL as they're too radical and impractical for me and there's some serious ideological divides there. Remember the metric i made yesterday. I'm basically a 3E/4S/4F, Biden is a 4E/4S/4F, and the leftists are 2E/2S/2F. You can pull me to a 3E/2.5S/3F (which is what i'd classify williamson as roughly) if you want, but the 2 is a bridge too far and i dont really value leftist ideology much. 

With that said, and my say being formally registered, I'm ready to move on to the general where I will defend Biden. I admit after thinking about williamson again, I kinda feel like Im holding my nose for the guy, but let's face it, i basically am. But again, that's just the nature of this election cycle. It's the 4E/4S/4F guy or the 6E/6.5S/5F guy so....

Discussing Williamson's past cringey stances on stuff like AIDS and whether this should impact how we view her now

 So...as we know, Marianne Williamson is a bit of a spiritualist. And a lot of people think she's kooky as a result. And there may be some truth to that. For example, it was said, in the 1990s, that she encouraged people with AIDS to seek spiritual treatment like happy thoughts for the disease. The view also pointed out weird happy thoughts logic she's employed in the past too. And this is kind of coming back to bite her now.

I'm going to be honest, it makes me a bit angry too. Because as you guys know, I used to be an atheist, and still identify as a secular humanist, and at one point, I literally believed that spirituality was a mental disease and that it causes people to believe harmful things like this. To explain her views, they seem to come from the new agey/cosmic humanist worldview that believes in "manifestation" and the "law of attraction", in which the mind influences (or manifests) our physical reality, and physical diseases can be a sign of bad thoughts. This is victim blaming, and is one of the reasons I used to view spirituality as a scourge on this earth, and why Im still deeply distrustful of it. How we view reality matters, and it is important to live in reality and not seek miracle cures for diseases rather than hard medical science, and yada yada yada. 

However, let's be honest. I'm somewhat spiritual now, I have my own story and my own reasons that I won't share, and now I kind of walk a tight rope between accepting spirituality into my reality and maintaining my secular humanist identity. And I think some compartmentalization is necessary. For POLITICS, full on rationalist and secular humanist. But I do have a PERSONAL spirituality.

Quite frankly, spirituality is like a you know what. It's fine to have one, it's fine to enjoy it. But don't go waving it around in public, especially in front of kids. No one wants to see that crap. 

Honestly, I like to look at the question like this now: does Marianne Williamson's spirituality impact her politics in a negative way? I mean, if I were to look at her actual policies, does her new age woo woo crap shine through? Not really. I mean, I'm not seeing anything about manifestation or healing crystals or whatever in her healthcare plan. The most stereotypical new age thing in there is pushing yoga, and there are some potential benefits from that. Even if there are a couple planks of her healthcare plan I kinda sorta cringe on, she normally does offer some point in regard to those specific topics. Like maybe we should lean into more preventative medicine, and clean up the environment so our food is cleaner or whatever. I do think some aspects of her plan there kinda sorta resemble what I would expect from someone a bit kooky, but let's be honest, this is a significant improvement over Jill Stein 2016, for example.

Honestly, her healthcare plan is solid. It's mostly evidence based, and it's better than Biden's. Wanna remind people that Biden hasn't even done crap to advance his public option plan. And his public option plan...wasn't even that great. So...would I take the new age lady with single payer over the christian with the nonexistent public option? Sure.

Which brings me to another point. My current belief system came to be when I was an atheist, and was closely wedded to secular humanism and assumptions based on that. Most of America is Christian, most of the rest of America beliefs in other religions or is spiritual but not religious (the camp I'd currently classify myself in), and hard line atheists are only like 3% of the population. Honestly? Most of these people have little to no room to talk. Religious crazies exist all over the place. The entire GOP is dominated by religious radicals. And christianity is so pervasive most mainstream democratic candidates are christians too. Hillary talked a lot about her faith, and that worldview disconnect is why I disliked her in 2016. Same with Tim Kaine, and to some extent, Joe Biden. Worldview matters, and worldview does influence politics. We seem to be a okay with "normal" christian spirituality that seems to dictate we all work as if there's some higher purpose to it and we cant have abortion because souls and blah blah blah, but Williamson has some weirdo spiritual views with AIDS and that's crazy.

Not necessarily justifying williamson by the way, although the article I mentioned above does seem to point out that at the time there was no adequate treatment for AIDS so might as well lean into prayer I guess. I'm mostly once again pointing out that yeah, we tend to just normalize all of this mainstream spirituality and write it off as crazy then as someone has some unconventional weirdo views, we tend to attack them and act like they're unfit as president.

I mean, channeling secular humanist me, I feel like the overwhelming majority of politicians fall short of having a truly evidence based worldview. And a lot of mainstream christians also inject their views into politics, to effect that I find cringey.

I'm pretty much to the point now, that I won't criticize someone's private spirituality, but if they basically inject that stuff into politics, I will point it out. And looking at Williamson's 2024 platform, I don't really see much stuff that's actually influencing her actual ideology or positions on things. So to me, this is kind of a nothingburger. I mean, is it concerning she believed that stuff? Yes. But that was also 30 years ago, and given what I believed as recently as 15-20 years ago, eh, I have no room to talk.

So that said, let's stop digging up cringey stuff from decades prior, let's see what she thinks now. And given she's advocating for universal healthcare, and not healing crystals, that's good enough for me. Still better than Biden.

Would I prefer someone more evidence based? YES! Oh god, yes. I would love to have a more polished candidate who knows what they're talking about with politics and has the right positions and can do a better job defending them. Yes, I would love that. But that isnt where we're at. Bernie is too old, Yang is in his weird direction, and lets be honest, despite his MATH stuff, his numbers didn't add up according to multiple sources, including my own analysis. Honestly? When you have views as niche as mine, you end up learning to settle somewhat. It's better to go along with the person who agrees with me but might be kinda cringe in how they express it, than to go along with the person I disagree with, but who is a bit more "rational" in my opinion. Yeah. Biden is more rational, Biden is more polished. But biden's policies...kinda suck. I mean, he's okay, but only okay. I would like to see someone more progressive in control than Biden. And Williamson supports more movement in my direction than Biden does. So until a better person comes along, I'm team Williamson I guess. She's what we got, so that's what I'm going to stick with.

So....Cenk's actually doing it, let's discuss it

 So yeah, Cenk Uygur is officially running for president in the democratic primary. His reasoning seems to largely boil down to Biden's numbers are in the toilet vs Trump, and we need to save the democratic party from itself. He believes he can make a better case for the democrats than Biden can, and that by running, he opens up the party for a primary. He believes he has the charisma and platform necessary to break through the way RFK and Williamson haven't, and that he will have a progressive platform that will resonate.

What platform does he have you ask? Well, so far only four planks:

1) Paid family leave

2) $15 minimum wage

3) Public Option Healthcare

4) Fighting corruption/ending gerrymandering

I assume that this isn't it. I know Cenk well enough (from watching his show of course) that he is basically Turkish Bernie Sanders on policy. And I largely like Cenk. I might have differences with him on UBI, and as such I'm not really going to be keen on trusting him more than Cornel West or Marianne Williamson, but he would likely score about as well on my metrics as Cornel West and Marianne Williamson. Maybe a little better as he isn't as far left as West, who is basically a full on "leftist", and probably a lot like Williamson without the woo or bad political instincts that come from her specific worldview. 

Cenk would, if eligible of course (and that's the real catch with him), be the best candidate in the race by far. And he would be my de facto choice barring a UBI oriented candidate.

Of course, he I don't see the dude as eligible, and to some extent, I feel like this is a huge vanity project on his part to raise his public profile. I mean, on the topic of Biden's chances, yes, Biden's chances are currently in the toilet by my own admission. HOWEVER, there are two important caveats to remember with this data.

1) It's still early. And there are still undecided voters, many of whom I expect to vote for Biden. I think that much like the 2022 mid terms, that Biden stands a better chance than the current numbers indicate. A lot can change.

2) I'm not sure another candidate would solve the image problem democrats have. Biden has been a very effective executive. He's been a solid president by any conventional metric. Much of the American public is going by feels, and many are still upset over inflation, even though inflation has dropped significantly. And while it's true that it's possible a populist candidate like Cenk could change the tide with different rhetoric, I'm no entirely sure that's the case this time.

The fact is, this isn't 2016 any more. We had solid evidence that the public wanted a populist like Bernie in 2016. Because Bernie was not in the race, Trump won. But in 2020, the data panned out differently and Biden actually had, admittedly better numbers. And I haven't seen a ton of data on different candidates, but for the most part, when I see Biden replaced in the general, democrats do WORSE. And that includes Bernie. And again, Cenk is basically...Turkish Bernie. 

I like Cenk, I would vote for Cenk if he were eligible in the primary, but come on, man, this whole thing comes off as delusional. I don't think Cenk would fare better vs Trump than Biden would. I would expect him to fare worse. Biden is actually the most electable candidate this time by the numbers to my knowledge. I'm willing to be corrected here, but I would need hard evidence. 

Again, this isn't 2016. The public seems to have moved on from progressive choices. Even if progressive policy is important, Biden supports many of the same policies Cenk is running on, he just couldn't pass them. And honestly, given all the inflation talk, I'm not sure the public has an appetite for more public spending right now. Like it or not (and i DON'T), this is a year where I think Biden has a better chance. We're stuck with the guy. We have to either back him or get trump. And I don't mean that in a weird vote blue no matter who dem propagandist way. I mean this in a "he's literally the most electable and the other candidates would put dems even deeper in the dog house". 

Look, if I get my mail in ballot in the primary next year and Cenk's on the ballot, there's a chance I'll support him. Its him or Marianne. I care about policy primarily, and I'm voting my conscience here. But I don't seriously expect Cenk or Marianne at this point to make inroads vs Biden. 

And honestly, even if they did, I don't think either of them would do better against Trump. MAYBE Cenk could make a better case to the public. He is a long time progressive talk show host with a lot of good ideas, and he could fire up the dem base, but honestly, as I see it, we're stuck with Biden for better or for worse, and he likely is the best shot at beating Trump in 2024. 

I think Cenk's primary pitch is ill informed and wrong, and while I don't necessarily disagree that Biden seems screwed in the general vs Trump right now, I would disagree that this crazy plan of his is the solution we're looking for. Again, it's not 2016 any more. A more progressive candidate is not a guarantee of a better candidate with more popular support. The public's appetite is not the same as it was in 2016, and I don't think a progressive would do better this election cycle than Biden. That's just the facts as it stands. 

EDIT: Oh, and he's apparently taking superpac money. After ripping Yang for taking superpac money. Yeah, this is going well...

Dear centrists, who the fudge do you think you're convincing?

 This one is gonna be a blurb, but I post on a lot of progressive forums and subreddits, and given we're heading toward election time, I'm seeing a lot of antagonism from centrists. Ya know, the "blue no matter who" types who actually LIKE Hillary and Biden for some reason, and support "pragmatism" and "incremental change" and seem to make it their life mission to crap on progressives. These guys come in from their spaces and start going on about how Marianne Williamson can't win, and we shouldn't even try, and blah blah blah.

And I have a very clear message for these people. 

SCREW OFF!

Really, who the fudge do you think you're convincing? you're just pissing people off. And even worse, your obnoxious behavior is just driving progressives to the point that when it comes to "party unity" and "voting blue no matter who", WE'RE NOT GOING TO WANT TO? Because who would wanna unite with such obnoxious butthats gloating and rubbing their victory in our face? Seriously, do you not understand that? YOU'RE PISSING US OFF!

Ya know? I voted green in both 2016 and 2020. In 2016, I went into the election cycle wanting to vote for democrats. But, as these guys started pushing Hillary on us, and started going on about how Bernie isn't gonna win and blah blah blah, but we totally need to vote for the democrats no matter what, right?, I honestly just got turned off.

Because here's the thing, YOU'RE NOT OWED VOTES! You have to EARN THEM. And this kind of antagonism just makes us NOT want to vote for you guys...just to make a point. Seriously, for all of your screeching and going on about how Trump is such a threat and blah blah blah, you're LITERALLY ALIENATING PEOPLE, DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT?!

Seriously, it's like reverse psychology. You try to force us to do something while being so obnoxious, and it makes us NOT wanna do it, JUST TO SPITE YOU! 

And ya know, I've been seriously considering going blue no matter who this election cycle. I honestly think, given January 6th and his authoritarian tendencies, and given DeSantis and his authoritarian tendencies, that voting GOP IS a mistake, I actually kinda sorta agree with you. But as you crap on us for supporting Marianne Williamson and screeching about how we need to learn our lesson from previous elections and it's our fault abortion rights got over turned and blah blah blah, once again, YOU'RE PISSING US OFF. 

Seriously, you realize that right? I'm LITERALLY LESS LIKELY TO SUPPORT YOU, IF YOU GET IN MY FACE AND TRY TO VOTER SHAME ME. THIS IS A COMPLETELY INEFFECTIVE TACTIC. IF ANYTHING IT BACKFIRES AND MAKES ME LESS LIKELY TO DO WHAT YOU WANT.

So please, for all of our sakes, SHUT THE FRICK UP! Stop getting in peoples' faces and antagonizing them for daring not like Biden, and daring not like establishment democrats, and daring to support Marianne Williamson. Because this is a democracy. You aren't owed support, you have to earn it, and if people wanna run alternative candidates, you have to respect that. If you don't respect that, then people have no reason to respect you and vote for your candidates. Seriously, if you don't respect us, then we aren't gonna respect you, we're not gonna fall in line behind Biden when the time comes, and you'll lose elections. Plain and simple.

Biden clenched the nomination, but Marianne Williamson is staying in

 So, apparently Biden officially clenched the nomination tonight and got enough delegates for it. Still, Marianne Williamson is staying in the race. I'm going to be honest, I have to respect that. I don't personally like the idea that it's over before I even get to vote, and now I gotta unite behind Biden without getting my say. Really, the primary system is BS. Why do I always get screwed where it's always over by April when my state votes? it's nonsense. Everyone should get a say, and the so called "late states" shouldnt get screwed out of an opinion even if the other candidates cant mathematically win. I mean, I admit, my vote is symbolic, but i still want it, darn it! It's always been like this ever since I started voting. Ive never had a competitive primary in my life (keep in mind I was a republican in 2008 and voted for Ron Paul, I didnt participate in the hillary vs obama grudgefest). 

If anything, thats one of the things that i always despised about 2016 and 2020. By the time I was able to vote, it was over and the media was all BERNIE GET OUT OF THE RACE AND ENDORSE HILLARY/BIDEN. Like what about my vote?! i didn't get a say in any of that crap!

So thank you Marianne Williamson for staying in. Yes, my vote is merely symbolic, but it's still my vote to give and give it I will. 

Meanwhile I still endorse Biden for the general election.

Biden vs Williamson vs West

 So, I decided it would be a good idea to go over the three major candidates on the left in the general that I'm considering voting for to see who is the best, and if Biden isnt the best, if a protest vote is actually worth it. I've done some napkin math before, but I do want to get more thorough.

Also, I'm excluding RFK from these analyses since he doesn't seem to have solid enough positions to even criticize, and given that I have little to no interest in supporting him anyway. 

Metric 1

Biden- 61/100

Williamson- 72/100

West- 58/100

So, this metric is one I've used before, I've modified it for 2024 slightly to account for the spoiler effect, as I do value keeping trump out of office this election cycle.

Support for basic income- 10 points 

Support for medicare for all- 10 points

Economic policy- 10 points

Social policy- 10 points

Foreign policy- 10 points

Overall ideology- 20 points

Consistency/commitment to progressive ideological goals- 10 points

Experience/competence- 10 points. 

Doesn't act as a spoiler- 10 points

Without further ado, let's look at the candidates.

Biden

Support for basic income- He supported an expansion to the child tax credit which is a lot like a basic income, but is much smaller and only applied to children. Still, he deserves some credit here: 1/10

Support for medicare for all- He's an outspoken opponent of medicare for all, but he did support a public option in 2020. However, he did not seem to do a whole lot to advance this, and only did a couple tweaks around the edges. 1/10

Economic policy- Biden has been decent on general economic policy. He supports a $15 minimum wage, build back better, free community college, some student debt relief, free childcare, preschool, etc. However, he could go much further at times, and he also did a couple things like force striking railway workers back to work. Still, based on his intentions, he's largely been decently progressive, although not as far as I'd like him to be. I think I'll give him a 6/10 here.

Social policy- Biden has largely been decent on social policy. He opposes the death penalty, is pro LGBTQ rights, pro choice, and has a fairly balanced immigration policy. However, there are also some black marks worth mentioning. He is too anti gun for my tastes (most lefties are), he hasnt pursued legalization of cannabis, and he has kind of done some inhumane things with immigration early on, although those might not be directly his fault. He has given some symbolic concessions to the woke on some things, but these don't really factor in much either way as they're kind of just annoying virtue signalling but are largely harmless (thinking juneteenth and stuff). All in all, I think a 7/10 is also worth mentioning here.

Foreign policy- Here I'm really impressed with Biden. Long story short, he got us out of afghanistan, however messy of a withdrawal that was, and he's doing a great job in Ukraine. Basically, whatever policies I'd be pursuing on foreign policy, he's doing. I have nothing bad to say about him here, and only positive. 10/10.

Overall ideology- While Biden has moved left to appease progressives somewhat, he's still the candidate of "nothing will fundamentally change", and I have a mixed opinion on him.  He's nowhere near as progressive as I want, especially on economic issues, and has fallen way short of my ideal political agenda there. However, he is fairly good socially, mostly hitting the right notes, and on foreign policy he's unimpeachable in my eyes. All in all, I'll give him a lukewarm 12/20, since I mostly focus on economics here. 

Consistency/commitment to progressive goals- I mean, it's joe biden. He's not much of a progressive in all honesty. But he has done a relatively recent job in fulfilling at least some campaign promises, and most of his shortcomings come from congress. There are areas where he has fallen short even of goals he himself stated, I can't say he's really a progressive champion here. 4/10.

Experience/competence- At the same time, Biden is unimpeachable in terms of political experience and competence. I know people think he's old and braindead, but in all objectivity, I don't think he's senile or braindead. I think he's one of the most competent and experienced politicians in Washington, and I have nothing bad to say here. 10/10.

Doesn't act as spoiler- Biden is the presumed democratic nominee. 10/10. 

That said, adding it all up, Biden gets a score of 61/100. This put him on the high end of the neolib scale by 2020 standards, and right around candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Tulsi Gabbard, who also scored in the low 60s. For reference, I gave Biden a score in the high 30s or low 40s in 2020. So he's gone up a lot and being fair to him, I think he's doing a pretty decent job. 

Marianne Williamson

Support for basic income- Williamson has declined to endorse a UBI this election cycle, but still supports at the very least the same child tax credit Biden does. So she gets the same number of points. 1/10

Support for medicare for all- She supports medicare for all full stop. 10/10.

Economic policy- She wants to bring back FDR's second bill of rights and has her own version of it. She does lean too hard into traditional liberal solutions like a green new deal, welfare, etc. However, she has a pretty solid platform and given UBI isn't a central focus here as this is a catch all for everything else, I have to give her a strong score. 9/10.

Social policy- She's right on most positions as lefties are. But she does have cringe moments. Her immigration policy is more reasonable than I thought it would be. Humane, but still not for open borders and crap. Guns. She pushes reparations and the like hard. Guns, like all lefties. Still, I have to say she's an overall improvement over Biden. 8/10. 

Foreign policy- I did look up her Ukraine position and she did seem to understand that we need to fight back vs Russia's aggression, but otherwise she leans a bit too hard into defunding the military and pushing a "department of peace". I think leftists often get very high minded about the military, but given I'm a bit of a stone cold pragmatist on foreign matters, I do think Biden has a much better approach here. 6/10.

Ideology- She is based in a lot of ways, she is pushing her own new deal and economic bill of rights, but we clearly diverge on some topics. Socially she seems solid but has some cringe moments there too. Foreign policy I kinda cringe with her. I also think she leans a bit too hard into her brand of spirituality and has a kind of "feels over reals" mindset sometimes. All in all, I'm gonna give her a 15/20 though. She's decent. But not perfect. 

Consistency/commitment to progressive goals- Eh, I think she means well, given her spirituality and the like. And I think she will remain relatively consistent, but I could see her shifting on some things. She did in just 4 years last time she was for UBI and no longer is. So I can't give her full credit here. 8/10. 

Experience/competence-I mean on the one hand, I don't think she's qualified. She seems weak on some issues, she doesn't have the professional experience to be a president, but I have to give her some points for actually coming up with such a well polished platform, so I don't think she would be useless. 5/10.

Doesn't act as spoiler- Well, she's running on the democratic ticket. As long as she wins that way she gets 10 points. If she runs third party later we can reduce her a bit, but yeah. 10/10.

Overall, this gives her a 72/100. She's ahead of Biden, but not by a ton. I do prefer her. Let's be clear. And on policy metrics I expect her to stand out more, but on a well rounded metric, eh, she has some weaknesses. Especially on foreign policy and her experience for the job. I dont think she's the best candidate, and this is where the difference between her and say, bernie sanders, is most stark. Bernie had almost the same platform, but being more experienced and more grounded ideologically, he would've gotten probably somewhere in the 80s on this metric. So we can clearly see Williamson is weaker. Still slightly stronger than Biden overall for me, but yeah, I'd prefer someone more experienced and grounded ideally. 

Cornel West

We discussed Cornel west more recently, so this is still fresh in the mind. 

Support for UBI-While west has expressed support for UBI in the past, he does not seem to be prioritizing it this time. He does seem to support the child tax credit though. But still, his "poverty abolition" mindset seems to be based on more traditional leftist metrics rather than a UBI. 1/10.

Medicare for all- He supports medicare for all. 10/10

Economic policy- He's a "poverty abolitionist" and supports very aggressive economic policy in pushing to end poverty. BUT, it's still more in the traditional leftist mold. 9/10.

 Social policy- Seems to support a lot of the right things, and actually seems more moderate on gun control, but there are questions. What is his immigration policy? And of course he seems for reparations and the like. So some cringe there. But still, I have to say he's not bad here. 9/10.

Foreign policy- here he faceplants hard. He basically calls for drastic cuts to our military and immediately ending the war in Ukraine, which basically means capitulations to the Russians. Lefts are cringe on foreign policy tbqh. 0/10

Ideology- I like a lot of aspects of his ideology. I like his strong anti poverty stances. I just wish his policies were more reflective of mine. He's probably a little too far left for me on other areas of policy, especially foreign policy where he totally loses the plot. But I have to say I'm fairly positive toward him here. 16/20.

Ideological commitment to progressive ideals- I think west is unimpeachable in this sense. 10/10.

Competence/experience- He's very well read and very good as an activist and a scholar, but idk if I'd want him as president. Especially given his extreme foreign policy views.He also has not outlined specifics on policy, which I don't like. 3/10.

Doesn't act as spoiler- he's running on the green party. 0/10.

Overall. Adding it all up, I'm actually impressed with West. I know I kinda dismissed him the other day, but looking at his views more in detail, west tends to be strong here in terms of policy. I just wish the dude endorsed UBI. I mean he used to it seems but it's missing from his platform and given his support for both medicare for all and a green new deal, I'm guessing right away he's not gonna endorse the policy and gonna go the more leftist route. Still. All in all, this guy gets a 58/100. He scores just slightly below williamson in the grand scheme of things, but being third party hurts him here.

Overall thoughts

All in all,this seems to reinforce my general strategy of backing Williamson in the primary but Biden in the general. I mildly prefer more left wing candidates, but let's face it, the difference isn't HUGE here. Even williamson scored only 8 points higher than Biden, due to her lack of experience, wonky worldview, and weaker foreign policy. And west, well, forget it, given he's running third party and i do value keeping trump out of office, he's in last place.

Don't get me wrong, I support the left in my heart, but this time I do place value on keeping trump and desantis away from office, so given that, Biden has more of an edge than he'd otherwise have in the general.

Still, I would like to see how Williamson and West do when I focus exclusively on policy. Let's look at that next.

Metric 1.1

This is just metric 1, but with focused mostly on policy. I'm removing the ideological commitment,  experience, and spoiler effect metrics from this and focusing mostly on ideas. So this one will be out of 70. 

Biden- 37/70

Williamson- 49/70

West- 45/70

Here,Williamson expands her lead over Biden, and now West beats Biden. Still, given the obvious flaws leftist candidates seem to have, the difference still isn't HUGE in practice. Biden does have advantages that williamson and west dont, and even though I focus primarily on economics in my votes normally, this broader metric does reduce the difference quite a bit.

Anyway, this is still a broad snapshot. The next two more detailed metrics will focus more on domestic policy concerns and I expect Williamson and West to do an even better job here.

Metric 2

Biden- 30/100

Williamson- 60/100

West- 55/100

This is the abridged big four metric in which I look solely at my top five priorities: UBI, M4A, free college, climate change, and housing program. This was originally the big three, but given climate change is of existential importance, I added that too. And I have expanded my reach into housing in recent years

That said, here's the weighting (max score: 100).

Basic income- 40 points

Medicare for all- 25 points

Free college/student debt forgiveness- 15 points

Climate change- 10 points

Housing program- 10 points

No one's gonna score super good on this since no one is for UBI, but we'll see who does the highest.

Biden

UBI- Biden does not support a UBI, but does support the child tax credit. I'll give him 5 points here.

M4A- Biden does not support medicare for all. He supported a public option in theory which could've probably net him up to 10-20 points depending on implementation, but given he has not made any serious moves toward that and has only done minor stuff around the edges, I give him 5 points.

Free college/student debt forgiveness- He's pushed for free community college and up to $10-20k in student debt. Kind of incremental but it's something. I'll give him 7 points.

Climate change- To be honest, I really like build back better, so I give him 10 points.

Housing program- He pushes a lot of incremental ideas for housing policy. I'll give him 3 points.

As such, counting it all up, Biden gets a 30/100. This is where Biden falls apart really. On my most precious concerns on the economic front, he's not very strong. He was around 70/200 on the old version of this, which amounts to 35/100 on this, but given the different weighting and adding of a housing program, yeah, he does worse now. So, very lackluster, but what do we expect from Biden?

Williamson

UBI- Williamson doesn't support UBI either but supports CTC. +5.

M4A- Williamson supports M4A. +25.

Free college/student debt forgiveness- She supports it. +15.

Climate change- she supports a green new deal framework, which I see as a massive waste of resources and is more about pushing a new deal via jobs programs as opposed to UBI. +5.

Housing- supports building millions of units as part of a green new deal. +10. 

Overall- Williamson gets a total score of 60 points, which is about the max a non UBI supporting leftie will get under this metric. Here we see a starker contrast from Biden than the more generalized metric. While Williamson only scored 6 points higher than Biden on Metric 1, and 12 points on 1.1, here she doubles Biden's score, going from a 30 to a 60. Yeah, that's what I'm mostly looking at most when I voted in 2016 and 2020. I was mostly narrowly focused on these kinds of issues. And lefties do a lot better, even if they're not perfect. So yeah, Williamson definitely gets a primary vote on this metric. 

West

UBI- West has historically supported UBI but as I noted in metric 1 his platform both avoids mentioning it, and shows signs of going with UBI's competitor policies instead. Still, he supports the CTC expansion so +5.

M4A- West supports M4A. +25.

Free college/student debt forgiveness- west supports both. +15.

Climate change- West supports a green new deal framework like Williamson. +5.

Housing- He supports a "housing for all" plan, but the details are not well known. +5

Overall- West does worse, if only because of ambiguity of his ideas. Unlike williamson who laid out specifically what she wanted and I could judge her better. West wrote significantly less and is more vague. It's very possible his housing program is as good as williamson's but because I cant know the details, West will do a bit worse here. He scores 55 while williamson scores 60. Still way better than Biden, and it's really splitting hairs here, in all honesty. 

Overall thoughts

Im not sure if this metric will reflect my wishes if a UBI candidate entered the fray. The thing is, UBI is normally such an important concern it overrides the others, where the next 4 ideas are equally as important to me combined as a well designed UBI plan is alone. This is because of the philosophical differences between me, a UBI oriented indepentarian, and traditional liberals and leftists. BUT, given Yang is not in the race, and we dont have a staunch pro UBI candidate, this concern is moot. 

Biden is fairly milquetoast on policy. As I said, he has supported some of my concerns. But, Williamson with her economic bill of rights, and cornell west, with his campaign against poverty, are MUCH stronger candidates on my most central concerns. Williamson makes an overwhelmingly strong case vs Biden measuring this stuff in this way. And West is almost as strong, and only loses points because, well, that's what happens when you put your entire economic policy in a single paragraph rather than allowing me to judge details. And this is also why RFK is not being measured. if I have trouble nailing down west on policies, imagine how hard it is to nail down the guy who doesn't seem to care about policy at all.

So yeah. Under a normal voter cycle, I would probably support williamson in the primary and west in the general. I can't even say that the results are within the margin of error this time. On my most important concerns, williamson and west are almost twice as good as Biden, and while not perfect they are stronger candidates. It's really not wanting trump to win and understanding that biden is at least giving us SOMETHING that keeps me voting for him. Like really, once I shift away from just looking at economics alone, Biden becomes a lot more compelling to me. But in this metric, the leftists are very compelling.

Now let's look at a bigger picture economic platform.

Metric 2.1

Biden- 40/100 (35-45)

Williamson- 58/100 (possibly up to 68)

West- 53/100 (possibly up to 68)

This metric is something that I was working on that has an expanded list of my priorities. Given I already had an abridged big 5 and this is just an expanded version of that that covers seven priorities, it really doesn't deserve its own number designation. Basically it tracks somewhat with my recent economic bill of rights, and is broken down into achievable legislative goals.

The weighting is as follows (total: 100 points):

UBI- 30 points

M4A- 20 points

Climate change- 10 points

Free college/student debt forgiveness- 10 points

Minimum wage increase- 10 points

Housing program- 10 points

32 hour work week- 10 points

Biden

UBI- Supports CTC, +3.

M4A- Minor stuff around edges, +4

Climate change- Supports build back better, +10

Free college/student debt forgiveness- Supports community college and some student debt forgiveness, +5

Minimum wage increase- supports $15 minimum wage, +10

Housing- supports incremental ideas, +3

32 hour work week- Biden has not supported it officially, but there is a bill in congress supported by some democrats, and I presume he would not sign it. +5

Total- 40/100

With the extended metric, Biden does better than with the more limited metric. Interesting. Also, did not go into this thinking he supported a 32 hour work week. To be fair Im not sure if he does, but given his party has introduced a bill on his watch, I have to give him some credit here regardless. Still, only giving half credit since I dont know which way he will go on it. As long as congress can't pass anything, it's a nonissue.

Williamson

UBI- Supports CTC but not UBI, +3

M4A- Supports M4A, +20

Climate change- Supports GND, +5

Free college/student debt forgiveness- Supports it, +10

Minimum wage increase- Supports $15 an hour, +10

Housing- Supports it via GND, +10

32 hour work week- Never mentioned supporting it, might, but unclear. Tentative 0 (only gave Biden credit because a bill was introduced in congress on his watch). 

Total- 58/100

Williamson still does better than Biden. And if williamson embraces a 32 hour work week, she would get up to 68.

West

UBI- Supports CTC, UBI unclear but unlikely, +3.

M4A- Supports M4A, +20

Climate Change- Supports GND, +5

Free college/student debt forgiveness- Supports it, +10

Minimum wage increase- He mentions supporting a living wage and I could see him supporting at minimum $15 an hour, so he get full credit. +10

Housing- Supports something, but unknown details. +5

32 hour work week- Doesnt have an explicit position on it, +0

Overall- 53/100

Once again scores slightly lower than williamson with no explicit details to housing plan. Also unclear where he stands on the 32 hour work week. 

Overall

 Much like with the abridged metric, Williamson and West are generally speaking a significant improvement to biden. Still, Biden is no slouch. He aligns with my views by around 40%, while the competition only aligns by around 50-60% (although possibly up to almost 70%, depending on places where I'm unsure of positions).

And that's the trick with these metrics. No one is really aligning a MASSIVE amount in these metrics. Out of scores of 100, and trust me that 100 is literally just...my own platform, possibly downgraded to 90-95 if certain aspects aren't feasible (and I thought ahead on that), and the best candidates are only aligning around 60%. Not great. A lot of this is because I dont really align perfectly with leftist candidates any more and my priorities as explicitly stated have diverged as I started thinking about what I REALLY wanted this past election cycle. 

If anything, these leftists are often closer to Biden than they are to my ideal. And Biden is kinda underwhelming as expected, but there still are some points of agreement here. 

Generally speaking, yes, the leftists are better, and I would support them in the primary, but I'm not sure that West is really worth a protest vote. Especially when you go into metric 1 and 1.1 where I discuss my goals more broadly and include things like social and foreign policy, experience, and the spoiler effect. 

Discussion overall

I think that it's clear, based on these arrays of metrics, that the no brainer option as of now is supporting williamson in the primary. She's better across the board, and while she has flaws, she still scores the highest in raw scores. She has a solid economic platform, better than Biden's, and her downsides aren't so bad that they really close the gap with Biden.

Still, by the broader metrics 1 and 1.1, the gap between Williamson and biden isn't massive. Williamson has some serious deficits in experience, is weaker on foreign policy, and all things considered, only beats biden by a relatively small margin. Especially in the broadest metric 1. 

In metric 2 though, which focuses on my highest priorities this election cycle, Williamson is a more significant upgrade to Biden, scoring 1.5-2x higher than Biden does. 

West scores slightly below Williamson, mainly because of his lack of policy details making it hard to know where he actually stands on specific issues, but he still also scores ahead of Biden. However, on metric 1, he does a worse job because of his complete and utter lack of a sensible foreign policy, and the fact that he is running as a spoiler. I like West's convictions at times, but all things considered, West and Biden are just about neck and neck here. As such, I will be waiting out the democratic primary and I'll make a more firm decision closer to election time. My mind says go Biden, my heart says go west. Let me put it that way. 

But yeah. That's where I stand. All in all, Williamson is a clear cut choice for the primary, but the general between biden and west it could go either way and I will not endorse anyone at this time.

Also if other challengers jump in, I may try to measure them if possible. But yeah. 

As for RFK...well again, can't really measure his positions, don't really care. Suffice to say he's gonna do worse than Biden and isn't really worth expending effort on.