storyteller
Superstar
Yeah fam, as someone who falls on the more wonkish side, the more details the better. I try, try, try to balance wanting the details with not losing sight of the grander goals; but I also want to be well aware of potential pitfalls so that we can game out tweaks and solutions. There's gotta be risk assessment and we need details to work that out. Two examples:
- I'm a UBI fan, I think it can work if you implement it correctly. I think Yang's implementation is full of pitfalls though from funding mechanism to its final goal (shrinking the rest of the safety net). I don't support the Yang version at all because I think it can be a disaster.
- I love almost everything about Warren's M4A plan except for that one bit on employee head count based taxing. I think that fails long term but could work short term (shout out to Matt Bruenig). It's not enough for me to oppose the bill and lose trust in her. I just think we should press her to tweak it or at least be aware of how it could potentially backfire so that she can make adjustments after implementation. So I do support it even with a complaint in the details.
I do think the principles are more important than the details initially...we can address holes and make tweaks to legislation after it's passed. But the more details we have, the more prepared we are to address potential pitfalls. With Bernie and Warren, I trust their principles. I can get a good idea of their visions and then I try to fill in the blanks by looking over theory and comparables. One quick example there:
- Both Warren and Bernie have those wealth taxes that people repeatedly say "won't do as well as they're projecting" by pointing to attempts in Europe. What those leave out is that both Warren and Bernie have additional ideas that would aim to address and disincentivize capital flight. That stuff doesn't really come together perfectly, but I can see how the current Wealth Tax suggestions could succeed where some prior examples fell short. So I'm filling some blanks on my own, but they've given me enough to work with that I'm confident.
But I've completely left out electoral strategy from this evaluation. That Warren M4A issue I have...it's probably good politics because it'll boost her rhetoric. Some of my favorite ideas, I don't think will be easily accepted by the electorate. That's the variable I struggle with the most, because I'm filling in blanks pragmatically but when you factor in popular opinion that stuff could shift. So I can't be mad when someone wants those details explicitly stated and the most I have is "I think on principle we can trust these proposals." A pair of examples there:
- @A.R.$ is skeptical of Bernie on his support for the Reparations committee because Bernie has openly said that he doesn't think cash payments will be the answer. He's concerned that will bleed into how Bernie implements or fills in the seats of that committee (I gave you the @ so you can correct me if I get this wrong fam). I can't be mad at his logic here. But I do feel less worried about it because Bernie's been pretty stand up throughout his career. I think he'd allow neutrality and accept the results from there, without bias (conscious or unconscious) slipping into it. That's on faith though.
- In a similar vein, I see all the Bernie heads that don't trust Warren's ability to implement M4A...Not because they think she's phony but because they don't see it as a top priority for her as opposed to Bernie (even Benjamin Dixon falls into this lane). I don't really agree. While I give Bernie a clear edge on the issue, I'm comfortable with Warren pulling it off and well if she wins. That's also on faith though. I'm not mad at the skepticism and just like with Bernie on Reparations, I can't be certain and could be totally wrong. My Bernie edge tends to be on Foreign Policy and implementation strategy only.
Sorry for being hella wordy but all of this is to say. Details are key because they give us context and remove the speculation. But given how much is in a presidential platform, I think filling in those blanks is warranted and the best bet is to pull details from the rest of a campaign's proposals to try and guide it. So that's basically my strategy on all this ish and hopefully some heads read this post and get some utility out of it because I think it's helped me out with sticking to a consistent opinion...not unbiased...but consistent.
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I couldn't even get past 2 seconds of this clip. As soon as I heard "guns and climate *dramatic pause* who is to his left?" I turned that shyt off.
