Meme the vote

I guess I'm in the mood for philosophizing these days... I wanted to share some of my thoughts on voting:

I got a friend of mine to vote for the first time this election. He said he never voted before because he felt like it didn't matter. After all, what were the odds any election would be decided by his own single vote. There's a logic to this, but it only goes so far...

In all aspects of life we have to act the way we hope others would act if there's going to be any chance for "society" to work. If you go to the beach how big a deal would it be to leave a piece of litter behind? One piece of trash on a large beach might not even be noticed. But obviously if everyone acted that way we'd have some pretty crummy beaches! Likewise with voting... You have to do your part.

I'll take it a step further... perhaps more consequential than the act of voting itself is subscribing to and spreading the idea that "voting is important" (or its opposite). After all, it's true that one vote will almost never sway an election. But the idea that "voting doesn't matter" can spread and very quickly add up and absolutely sway elections. 

Today the word "meme" has come to refer to goofy pictures with captions, but originally it referred more generally to ideas that spread through society. A sort of pre-internet concept of "going viral," although it could be an implicit idea that people don't even think about consciously. The spread of attitudes about politics in general and voting specifically through communities is a crucial aspect of how politics end up affecting the real world. Communities that buy into the importance of voting for example will be better represented in election tallies, which will then of course prompt politicians to take their interests more seriously as they vie for their future votes. Communities that don't will find politicians taking their interests less seriously, thereby further reinforcing their lack of faith in the political process.

For this reason I'd argue maybe even more important than the act of voting is talking about voting (in person or online). That may involve talking directly about the importance of voting, or it may be delivering that idea implicitly as you talk about weighing your options, judging the candidates, etc. Underneath the discussion lies the assumption that "voting matters," even without saying so directly. When others also internalize this assumption they may talk about it to people they know, further spreading the idea, and so on. 

Nowadays we're all quite steeped in the literal consequences of "going viral" in terms of the spread of Covid. We know that if we pass along the virus (even if we don't get sick ourselves) we endanger far more than the people we directly infect. Say I get Covid, don't even notice I have it, pass it to two friends, who also don't realize they have it, who each pass it to two more people, some of whom get sick but recover but not before they all each pass it to two more people... and so on, infecting exponentially more people. Even if only a small percentage of those people suffer greatly or die it could still add up to a significant number. And it could have all been prevented had I just stayed home and not passed it along to my friend.

Well, ideas can spread in a similar fashion. Obviously either you have Covid or you don't, while beliefs and attitudes are more complicated and nuanced. Nevertheless, I think our power lies to a greater degree in how we talk and spread ideas about voting than in the actual act of voting itself. 

Which brings me to my final point, which is it's not just voting... The Georgia run-offs are coming up at the beginning of 2021, and will determine which party controls the Senate and therefore to what extent Washington will be paralyzed by gridlock. It's going to be an uphill climb for sure. The odds seem stacked against us. Then again Trump keeps saying the voting machines in the state are rigged, potentially discouraging his side from voting. A double victory there seems unlikely but is certainly not impossible. And it would make a huge, huge difference, so it's worth making every effort. 

For my part I plan on writing more letters through Vote Forward encouraging people to vote. I bring this up not so you'll say "Gee, Lee sure is a good guy!" ...If you do think that then that's a bonus, but you're just as likely perhaps to think I'm tooting my own horn, which may actually make you think less of me, who knows? I'm judging it a wash on that score :). 

No, the real reason I feel compelled to bring it up is that the effects of my letter writing are only marginally more consequential than my single vote. For the general election I wrote/mailed 100 letters to unreliable Democratic voters in swing states. Vote Forward did their own research (with control groups and everything) and determined that people who received one of their letters were 3.9% more likely to vote than people who didn't.  That means my 100 letters (which required no small amount of effort) likely resulted in four extra votes. Four. Even four votes are unlikely to change any elections. 

BUT, if other people like me get the idea writing these letters makes a difference, act on that, and further spread that notion... now we can get somewhere. So, the point is, writing my letters and being modest and not telling anyone I'm doing it is really not going to make much difference and borders on being a waste of time. They say "talk is cheap," but in this case talking about the work (or posting about it online, etc.) is at least as important as actually doing it. It's how you can encourage the idea of pitching in to help to "go viral," which is what will actually make a difference. It's how you build a movement.

That's why we probably all need to try to get more comfortable talking about this stuff on social media and IRL. Ok, some of us are very comfortable with it, perhaps to the point of being a little annoying haha, but I think the rest of us should actually try to be more like those people not less (ideally without being annoying). So far social media seems to be doing a better job of spreading bad ideas than good ones. But we all play a role in terms of how we choose to participate.

Bottom line: absolutely, VOTE! It's important. But how we participate the broader conversation with our friends/family/acquaintances probably matters more.

Election processing (thoughts on optimism)

First off, congrats to America for defeating the bad guy! It ain't nuthin'.

I wanted to recap my side of an online conversation I had with my uncle after the election cuz I think it could make interesting thought-food... 

Basically he was pretty down because he was expecting a broad repudiation of Trump and the Republican party in general and enough Dems elected across the board to begin making headway on the many issues that confront us. Instead while we managed to pull out a win for President, results down-ballot were disappointing, pointing towards gridlock and more close elections going forward even against the most egregiously unfit opponents. This left my uncle bummed even as others were celebrating. And, yeah, he's got a point! 

But I also agreed with Josh Marshall at TPM that there are good and important reasons to celebrate this victory. For one thing, it's truly an important accomplishment! Losing would have been catastrophic, and we prevented that catastrophe. Furthermore:

It is also far more than okay to embrace and exult in this moment of victory. It is not just acceptable. There is a moral imperative to do so. As much as policies or particular ideas political movements and coalitions are communities, ones that suffer reverses and victories as communities, either well or poorly. How they do so isn’t just a matter of individual experience. These choices can sustain and grow political power, something political movements are always in the midst of gaining or dissipating. It is important to relish the fruits of the common exertions of a political coalition you are part of. It doesn’t just feel good. It sustains and builds power, the experience and proof that hard work and the seemingly endless exertions can have a real and tangible impact on the world we live in. No one will celebrate your victories for you. You can’t be powerful if you don’t act powerful.

JM then goes on to quote what he wrote in the immediate aftermath of Trump's victory four years ago:

Optimism isn’t principally an analysis of present reality. It’s an ethic. It is not based on denial or rosy thinking. It is a moral posture toward the world we find ourselves in. If everything seems great, there’s no need for optimism.

He argues that celebration is "another of these moral postures to the world we find ourselves in, an expression of commitment to our dignity and our values." This idea of acting with optimism of course equally applies to how we should approach the likely stalemated government we will face (absent upset victories in Georgia, a subject I'll return to in my next post).

Logic, reason and experience tell us McConnell will do everything in his power to sabotage the government and make our country's problems as bad as possible (while hiding behind disingenuous arguments) in order to increase Republicans chances of winning in 2022 and 2024. Likewise, bigger picture and in the slightly longer run, our failing to reign in environmental destruction will likely result in a spiral of disaster. No one needs to look far for reasons for pessimism if that's what you're after! 

But I like JM's argument for optimism, not because of the prognosis but in spite of it.  It's not about making predictions for the future, it's about deciding how we're going to live our lives. 

If you'll indulge me, I shared this (by now slightly dusty) Wilco song with my uncle and later offered my interpretation, which ties in with this topic:

It's a war on war
It's a war on war
It's a war on war
There's a war on
You're gonna lose
You have to lose
You have to learn how to die
If you want to want to be alive

A "war on war" is a losing proposition. For one thing it's an oxymoron, how can you wage war on waging war? But more to the point, there will always be war, it's inevitable. You might as well try to prevent the sun from setting or rising. You need to accept you're going to lose. Likewise, in life we are all going to ultimately "lose" when we die... learning "how to die" is really learning how to live with an acceptance of death, a necessity if we "want to want to be alive." "Want to want" nicely compliments the title, both in how the words sound and in the apparent logical contradiction... either you want something or not, right? But apparently in this case "you" may not want to be alive, given the state of things, but if you "want to want" to be alive first you need to accept loss and death and find a way to live and fight for your values in spite of it all. 

I feel like that jibes with JM's message about optimism.  In the case of our present politics it's not so much about “war” specifically as dishonesty/corruption/bigotry/cruelty/division/etc/etc... and it's a war we’re gonna lose! There will always be these things... But we can beat them back for a while, even making a real difference in people's lives. Along the way there will be victories and losses. We should keep our heads up, fight the good fight, accept what we can’t control, live our values, and take joy where we can find it. (Say, in Trump's upcoming legal troubles 😆) 

Along somewhat similar lines, Ernest Hemingway greatly romanticized bullfighting (personally not my thing, but whatever). For him the bull represents death... There will always be another bull... eventually we all must succumb to what the bull represents. But the bullfighter stands against death and for at least one moment defeats it with grace, poise and courage. To Hemingway this represents life's ultimate aspiration: To live well in spite of death.

In terms of politics an ethic of optimism allows us to operate with the belief that a better world is possible if we work to make it so. And that if we step up and do our part others will step up and do theirs. Not because evidence necessarily supports this, but because that's how we choose to live. Ironically I think living this way makes it more likely that we will experience more positive outcomes along the way. But, more importantly, it's a just a good way to live your life.

Feeling: Frustrated 😣

 I posted this to Facebook today:

Politics on FB (or anywhere else!) can be a drag, but I'm feeling compelled...

If Republicans jam through another SC justice after blocking Garland in 2016 it will be a true crossing of the Rubicon. There will be no going back. Nerves are still raw from Garland... this is an opportunity to show good faith and at least apply that newly invented rule evenly. To bring the temperature down. Instead it appears Republicans are going to pour gasoline on the fire, destroying the legitimacy of the SC in the process. We will never stop fighting about this. 

But it appears that's where we're headed. I'm probably preaching to the choir but please remember it's not enough just to vote this year. Most directly, try to identify any unreliable voters you know and make sure they vote this year (a personal appeal is going to matter so much more than any advertising could). I signed up to write letters to swing state voters and donated to winning back state legislatures to fight unfair gerrymandering. (Links in the comments.) I'm sure there are many other ways you can get involved, but please be sure you are doing SOMETHING (beyond just voting).

This isn't just about Trump. It's about basic human decency. That's on the ballot, up and down the ballot. Nobody else is going to fix this for us. "We are the one we've been waiting for." (blah, blah...) I promise to do my part and I'm counting on you good people to do yours. It's the only way we're gonna get through this. 

Love to you all ️

Links:

Vote Forward

Forward Majority

    - Article by FM director explaining how they allocate money: "Want your campaign funding to be effective? Diversify."

Juneteenth

Juneteenth was actually yesterday... I posted the following on Facebook and thought I'd post it here too (since I went to the trouble of writing it!)



Happy Juneteenth! I'd heard of this holiday before, but I'd never given it much thought tbh. This year's different, for obvious reasons. Current events seem to have inspired many (and not just the usual suspects) to try to challenge themselves to learn more about these issues, to hopefully be part of the solution... which offers some hope! In that spirit I thought I'd share a few things that I've found to be interesting/challenging/thought-provoking...


- "Between the World and Me," Ta-Nehisi Coates

This book got a lot of attention when it came out a few years ago... and, yeah, it's really, really good... and highly relevant to the conversation today. Coates presents it as a letter to his teenage son. It's not that long, but there's a lot there. It's unflinching, but also poetic. It's the kind of book when you finish you pause for a moment, and then go back to the beginning and start again.

- "I Am Not Your Negro," documentary about James Baldwin

Listening to interviews with Coates I learned that Baldwin was an important inspiration for his book. ("The point of aiming for Baldwin is not to get to Baldwin. It's to stretch yourself.") That led me to this documentary, which you can watch for a dollar on YouTube. I didn't really know anything about Baldwin before tbh, but he's a fascinating character. The film's a little rough around the edges... honestly I thought it felt a little like a student film at times... but the material is so powerful that some technical imperfections hardly matter. It came out in the wake of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Charleston, Ferguson (etc., etc.), and connects those events to Baldwin's ideas.

I would recommend watching the documentary before reading Coates' book. The connection is hard to miss. Coates even uses some of Baldwin's same specific language. (The word "dreamer" will forever have a different connotation for me now). Both writers are clearly empathetic people but also cold-eyed and unsentimental in their assessments of this country. They certainly widened my own perspective.

- "8:46," Dave Chapelle stand-up

Chappelle's latest is not comedy. Like, literally, there are no jokes. It's just Dave saying what he feels. It's not exactly "fun," but definitely worthwhile.

- "Do the Right Thing," Spike Lee

Ok, I'm sure most of you have already seen this, but wow, made 31 years ago (1989!) and it couldn't be more relevant today. I remember when I first saw it (in high school) liking it but also being a little confused... It's a morality play (it's right there in the title) in which the "bad" guys seem mostly ok and the "good" guys are hardly saints. Mookie's boss Sal eventually betrays his latent racism, but he also treats Mookie like a son. (People are complicated!) Was destroying Sal's family business in response to police brutality "doing the right thing?"

I think what the movie is getting at is it's not about good guys and bad guys, and that sometimes there is no "right thing" to be done. When the larger structures of society are built in fundamentally unfair ways it creates impossible situations. It's still an important insight in 2020. The problems we're facing are so much deeper than punishing a few "bad apples."

There is of course much more to say on that topic, but I'll leave it there for now. If you haven't seen the movie, you should. It's a classic. If you have here's an interesting video analysis of the film that goes deeper into the themes I was talking about (you can start at 1:43 and not miss anything):

Here are some other YouTube videos I thought well worth watching:

More Coates:

Excerpt from a podcast conversation between Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates from earlier this month (you can start at 1:58 and not miss anything):

PS. Obviously there has been a LOT, LOT, LOT going on lately. It honestly feels like too much to try to even sort through. Maybe at some point I'll give it a shot, we'll see. These are truly crazy times we're living in. Hope you're well.

Lookout Joe

Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

Well then! I had no idea how powerful a Riot Trail endorsement was! With great power comes great responsibility 🤔.

But seriously, although many people I know seem to be freaking out about yesterday, I for one am relieved. It looks like it's gonna be Bernie vs. Biden from here on out, which mean one of them (probably Joe, but who knows) will likely be able to win outright on first ballot. Although I was kind of fascinated by how a contested convention (during a pandemic!) would play out, it's undoubtedly better not to go through that. And I agree with my friend JH who said, "I feel much, much better that the narrative turns out to be something like 'black voters gave Joe the momentum to win' instead of the much nastier alternatives about superdelegates or the party establishment or billionaires or Super PACs."

Ezra Klein has an excellent article about Bernie's flawed strategy of attacking people he needs to join his coalition. In short:

If you treat voters and officials in the party you want to lead as the enemy, a lot of people in that party aren’t going to trust you to lead them.

Indeed. Eric Levitz, a Bernie supporter, makes many of the same points and more here.

Now if Bernie somehow does manage to right the ship, build a coalition and win the nomination against a single rival, he will have surely proved his mettle and deserve to be the nominee. I don't see that happening, but if it does, fine. 

But I'm glad we seem to have avoided the two worst outcomes: Bernie winning by default because everyone else splits their votes between them, or (less bad but still pretty bad) the superdelegates choosing someone else at a contested convention. 

It's also worth noting that the huge surge in turnout of young people that Bernie has been banking his candidacy on did not materialize yesterday. Good to figure this out now rather than later. Promising to get non-voters (like young people) to turn up has been the fool's gold of many a campaign over the years. It never happens. 

And as a commenter on this blog pointed out, the old crusty moderate voters who might defect if they're worried the Dem is going to screw up the economy will vote either way, possibly for Trump, not just stay home... so that is in effect a double vote loss, rather than the single votes lost from disaffected Bernie supporters sitting the election out.

There are a lot of concerns out there about Biden as a candidate, and I share those. He is far from ideal. He's not running a campaign of ideas. He naively suggests Republicans will work with him. He has trouble forming complete sentences.

But, overall, I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief today.

One person who isn't breathing a sigh of relief: Donald Trump.

Wishful Thinking

I guess if ever there's a moment to say what I think about politics on my political blog it is now. Super Tuesday is... Tomorrow! And that means my State of California and many others will be voting, after which the basic contours of the race will be set and difficult to alter.  It appears we're headed for either a clear-cut Bernie win, or no one getting a majority and therefore a contested convention, which could play out any number of ways. I have read so many arguments and counter-arguments for the different candidates it's difficult to conclude anything with any strong sense of certainty, but I will share my basic impression of the situation.

Suffice to say I am not sold on the idea that Bernie is the best candidate to beat Trump. This study calls into question the Sanders' camp's electability claims:

Democrats should not be very reassured by early polls that find Sanders faring as well against Trump as the more moderate candidates: These numbers may only look decent for Sanders because they assume he will inspire a youth turnout miracle. Our survey data reveals voters of all parties moving to Trump if Sanders is nominated, a liability papered over by young voters who claim they would be inspired to vote by Sanders alone.
The gamble Democrats supporting Sanders based on his early polls against Trump must be ready to make is that, despite the evidence to the contrary, the lowest-participating segment of the electorate will turn out at remarkably high rates because Sanders is nominated.

There have been many articles making the case that Sanders is either the most electable, or in any case a very electable candidate... I cannot say with certainty they are wrong, but my gut feeling is that all these arguments are written by people who badly want them to be true, and whose biases are affecting their judgment. More concretely, the above article notes that all the models that have Bernie winning rely on the assumption that there will be a historic surge of voting among people who typically do not vote. This seems a dicey proposition at best to me.

Jonathan Chait makes many salient points about the dangers of nominating Sanders here, but one in particular I want to call attention to is this:

In 2008, Republicans began shifting their attacks to Barack Obama after he took a delegate lead over Hillary Clinton. By the end stages of the primary, Clinton was outperforming Obama in polls against John McCain. And indeed, Clinton’s popularity continued to rise for years after Obama became the face of his party, and Clinton was spared the brunt of Republican hostility. But this hardly proved Hillary Clinton would have made a stronger 2008 nominee than Obama. It simply displays the fleeting benefit of drafting off the front-runner’s position as the principal target of intraparty attacks. Notably, Trump has been directing his criticism at almost every candidate except Sanders, whom he, in fact, frequently defends as the innocent victim of a rigged process.

To me it feels obvious that this is what's going on right now... and of course as soon as Sanders seals the deal that dynamic is going to change FAST.  There's no question that Sanders is the candidate Trump wants to face, and for all his flaws Trump does seem to have a gut instinct for what needs to happen for him to pull out another win.

Trump is a notably unpopular president, especially considering how well the economy has been doing, and is very beatable. What Trump needs to do to win is to change the election from a "referendum" on him into a "choice" between him and a seemingly equally risky opponent.  He needs to be able to say, "hey, you might not like me, but my opponent will wreck the economy!" Sanders is probably the only candidate still in the race that would be seriously vulnerable to that charge. 

I believe he would be a weak candidate in a general election, for the most obvious of reasons. Just try to step back and disengage from this particular moment and just think in general terms: Does the United States seem like the kind of a place that would elect a Socialist as President? Has that been your understanding of where this country is at? Because to me it's the type of country that elected George W. Bush after starting a disastrous war over John Kerry, and then Donald Trump after (insert list of obscenities here) over Hillary Clinton. But perhaps you have a much, much more charitable view of the American electorate!

That said, Sanders has certainly run an impressive campaign and built a potent turnout operation during this primary. Honestly, for most of the campaign I assumed he had no chance of being the nominee, because most voters named "electability" as their top criteria. Amazingly that hasn't changed, but Sanders has managed to convince people that he, the "Democratic Socialist," is in fact, the most "electable." While I don't agree, I'm impressed he's been able to convince so many people of it. If he manages to secure a majority of the delegates (either before or during the convention) then he will certainly have earned his spot at the top of the ticket!


Of the candidates still in the race, for my money the one that would make the best President is Elizabeth Warren.  In contrast to Sanders, who even if he managed to win I suspect would be an ineffective leader, I think Warren knows how to get stuff done. But, honestly, I don't see her as being any more electable than Sanders, although for different reasons. I think she is likely to evoke the same hostility as HRC did, just because of who she is. Obviously her gender is a key part of that, but it's more than just that. Most people aren't very ideological, but vote for people they can relate to... The qualities I like about EW - her razor sharp intellect, her unwillingness to suffer bullshit - are precisely the things that many Americans find alienating. Like HRC I think she will strike people as a know-it-all woman telling them how to live their lives. I feel like arguments for her electability are, like those for Sanders, made by people who very much want them to be true, and so should be treated skeptically. That said, if we're going to chance it on a riskier candidate personally I'd rather it be Warren, as I think there would be more of a pay-off in the event she won.


I literally did not decide who to vote for until today, as I filled in my ballot. But ultimately I chose the candidate I think has best chance of beating Trump, among those that have a chance of winning the nomination.  Swing state polling suggests that person is Joe Biden. While I'll concede I'm not super inspired by Biden, I do think he's basically a good guy, and with him at the top of the ticket the election will be a referendum on Trump, which bodes well for our chances. Furthermore it's possible we could do quite well down ballot with Biden at the top.  I'm certain that the balance of Congress will have far more to do with how much gets accomplished than who is President (provided it's not Trump). I think that Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Beto all all getting behind Biden speaks to their understanding that we cannot afford to blow this election. It would be catastrophic.

Of course the concern about nominating anyone other than Sanders is that there are surely some Sanders supporters who would sit out an election if their guy isn't at the top of the ticket. This is a legitimate concern. Ultimately, though, I think Sanders is the riskier proposition. First of all, anyone who would sit out an opportunity to get rid of Trump is ultimately not a reliable voter under any circumstance. In other words, if you can't be counted on to vote for Biden over Trump you can't be counted on to vote for anyone over Trump. And second of all I think any defections from Sanders supporters will be more than outweighed by the defections we will avoid from the rest of the political spectrum who are primarily concerned about not screwing up the economy.


So, after much back and forth, that's where I finally landed. But I want to add that one thing I've come to appreciate over the course of this challenging election season - having seen so many impassioned, well-reasoned, persuasive arguments on behalf of any number of candidates - is that none of us have a monopoly on the truth, nothing is certain, and that all you can really hope is that people will take it seriously, consider alternate points of view and make their best choice according to whatever criteria they find appropriate. It may sound trite, but I really do respect anyone whose made their best effort to do that, even if they came to a different conclusion than me.

The only thing that gets under my skin is when people impugn the character of other candidates. All of the candidates are flawed, to be sure. But I do think they're all trying to do what's best for the country. They have different ideas about what that means, and various personal deficiencies, and sorting through all that is why we have primary elections. But let's at least give them some credit for throwing their hat in the ring to try do right by our country, to their best understanding of what that means.

I also want to add that, despite my serious reservations about Bernie as the nominee, I certainly do not share the paranoid fears of people like David Brooks who think Sanders is going to destroy democracy. (This takedown of Brooks' column is worth the read.) Sanders, like all of us, has his personal failings, but I do believe he is a fundamentally decent person and would do his best to help the less fortunate, which is certainly admirable. If he is the nominee I will support him without reservation.

Onward to Super Tuesday and beyond!




ICYMI I highly recommend these articles and companion videos by Vox making the case for the top candidates. They all make very interesting points.



Also, completely unrelated (for now), I learned a lot from this article about Coronavirus. I have a feeling we'll be talking a lot more about this.

Everything Flows

I made a flow chart....

The NYT stops being polite and starts getting... "real"

The New York Times editorial board listens to Amy Klobuchar

I watched that NYT endorsement show, where the editorial board meets with the candidates as part of their endorsement process... it was interesting, if silly.  As others have noted, they basically turned the process into a reality tv show, which is pretty much where we already were anyway.

A few quick points:

First, while the folks on the NYT editorial board don't seem like idiots, nor do they seem particularly more informed or insightful than most people I know. They're just people taking their best guess at this, using the same bs metrics all the rest of us are using, trying to figure it out. (Some argue the 'endorsement' of Biden from the building's elevator operator may be more significant than that of the editorial board.) The confusing 'double endorsement' of completely different candidates just reenforces that they're as clueless as the rest of us.

Another thing that stuck out for me involved their take on my man Andrew Yang. Basically they liked him and thought he had good ideas (without really grappling with those ideas, which after all are quite a bit different than those of all the other candidates)... but basically just dismissed him because he has no previous elected government experience. And, I will admit, that's a valid argument! It's something that concerns me as well. 

But one of them made a comment that to my mind actually deflated the significance of this factor: something to the effect of "we already have someone with no government experience in the WH, and we see how that's going." That made me chuckle... as if Donald Trump had only had a few years being governor or a senator then he'd be doing a better job as president. Trump's flaws clearly have nothing to do with his lack of experience: at this point he has three years experience being President and he is clearly getting worse at the job, not better. 

Holding Trump up as a point of reference seems to actually strengthen the case for Yang in my opinion: Yang, in contrast to Trump, clearly has the the kind of temperament and thoughtful approach to issues that one would want to see in a President, which is obviously more important than "experience.". On the other hand Trump's lack of government experience does highlight that that is clearly not a barrier to getting elected (it may even work to a candidate's advantage)... so if electability is our most important metric (as it should be) then perhaps we should not be placing such weight on this factor. 

Now, I get it: at this moment voters are not comparing Yang to Trump, but to the other Dems running for the nomination. In that context, all things being equal, I would prefer a candidate that has government experience. I think there are nuances to getting the bureaucratic gears turning that would be helpful for a President to already understand going in.

But it's not the only thing to consider. If there were a candidate with government experience who seemed to understand both the desperate need for change in this country AND that running just a more extreme version of the same game plan as before will simply continue to divide the country, creating more partisan gridlock and the familiar frustrations of the Obama years... someone who "got" the urgent need provide relief to struggling families without playing into the 'givers/takers' paradigm that turns so many voters off ... then of course I would vote for that person! But no one like that is running, so I'm left choosing between the person who does get all that stuff and... people with government experience. 

As a side note: I've come to realize even supporters of Bernie's "revolution" don't think anything significant will change under a Sanders admin... they just want someone at least arguing for full-throated revolution while the government stagnates under what they see as inevitable gridlock.  (Good to know they don't buy into all that 'revolution' crap, but still...) Meanwhile Biden's peddling fantasies of future bi-partisan cooperation, which are preposterous on their face. Yang's the only one thinking about how to scramble and re-align our politics to get us out of this awful stalemate. It may be a long-shot plan, but at least it's a plan!

Long story short: I feel Yangs strengths outweigh his weaknesses. If someone finds his lack of government experience disqualifying I can respect that. I just felt the NYT discussion of Yang if anything exposed some of the weaknesses of that line of thinking.


Finally, the show reenforced my belief that we lost a notably talented candidate with the exit of Cory Booker. 

Freedom of Choice (is what you got)

“This is an election that will have such profound impact so take your vote seriously. And for the Democratic voters, try to vote for the person you think is most likely to win because at the end of the day that is what will matter. And not just the popular vote, but the electoral college too.” 

— Hillary Clinton, quoted by Variety.

As usual I'm with HRC: electability remains my first, second and third priority. Of course, what does that mean? Who is most likely to win? It's still a hard question to answer.  I end up counting 6 candidates running for President that I would at least consider voting for.  Generally I lean towards supporting more moderate voices that I feel would have wider appeal, but I can see other points of view.

I found this argument from Warren stirring, for example, even if it didn't completely persuade me (yet). (watch the last 32 seconds)

Speaking of Warren, this article makes the case for choosing her. It's in depth and worthwhile. It talks about her strengths in bending bureaucracies in her preferred direction ("personnel is policy"). It argues her skills would be especially valuable with a divided government that would make progress difficult to achieve through conventional means (passing laws, etc).  I would just note, however, that it makes the case why she would be a good President, but not so much about why she would be a good candidate.  

This video clip of Warren campaigning prior to the midterms perfectly captures both her appeal to people like me, and why I think much of America would hate her.  "Angry woman fights back" is not a popular genre in this country. 

All that said I won't rule out voting for her. She's smart, has strong values but with a pragmatic streak, and she is "persistent." :)


Then again I also wouldn't rule out voting for 'Sleepy Joe.' I don't think he really has any sense of purpose or vision, but his flaws aren't ones that I think most Americans would really hold against him. Beyond just being a generally decent person, his electability is really the only thing he's got going for him... but that ain't nothing!

So... about Bernie.  I wanted to share a couple articles I found helpful: a 'pro' and a 'con.'

The 'pro' is from the same series of articles that made the case for Warren above. It makes the somewhat counter-intuitive (to me, at least) case that he could be the most electable of the current Democratic front-runners. Worth considering.

But if you are considering voting for him you owe it to yourself to also read this article arguing he is un-electable, which I find ultimately more persuasive. 

I guess the counter-counter argument is maybe voters don't even care about plans/ideas at all, and really are just voting for who they find more 'authentic.' Sanders is nothing if not 'authentic,' that I will give him. But to simply assume most voters will ignore everything mentioned in the article above seems like a risky bet, and one not supported by history.

I think Sanders has a good shot at winning the nomination for the same reason Trump won the Republican nomination last time: no one wants to attack him because if they win they'll need his voters to show up for them. He's never been truly tested by anything like the onslaught of negative attacks that would come were he to be the nominee. There's certainly no shortage of material to turn him into Che Guevara in the eyes of the public. I think this can be very difficult to appreciate for those of us living in liberal enclaves surrounded by like-minded people. It's a big country, and most of it is quite different than what we experience. 

I'd also like to give a brief nod to Klobuchar, who I think is a more articulate, dynamic version of Biden. This article makes a strong case she would be a great candidate to take on Trump.  She would of course face the same uphill battle that any woman would face. (As I've noted before the issue is less people saying 'I won't vote for a woman' as it is people making all sorts of negative assumptions about women without consciously even connecting it to their gender. See: Clinton, Hillary.) That said she has a proven track record of winning elections by significantly higher margins than other Dems on the same ballot.

She also makes the valid point that a candidate with coattails (meaning someone who does so well that Dems pick up more seats in Congress as well) would actually be able to accomplish more liberal goals than a more strident candidate who ekes out a victory while negatively affecting down-ballot races, ensuring they face a defiant Congress. 

If Klobuchar catches on I could imagine voting for her.

It's unlikely I'd vote for Bloomberg, but man... he's spending some real money! I read he's already spent more on this election than was spent on Obama's entire 2012 reelection campaign. 😮 And it's focused on taking down Trump, not other Dems. And he's said he's willing to spend up to a billion dollars to defeat Trump, even if it's Sanders or Warren on the ticket (who he admits not caring for). I'm not gonna bad mouth someone like that. And I won't completely rule out voting for him. He'd be a strong candidate.

I actually like Buttigieg (he seems to inspire a special kind of revulsion in some people, haha)... but his support in the black community is in the single digits... by which I mean the actual number of his black supporters 😂. A Democrat cannot get elected without strong support from African Americans. He's got a bright future ahead of him I'm sure, but this is not the role for him.

I was hoping Deval Patrick might make some waves because from what I've read about him he seems like he could be a really strong candidate. But I hardly ever hear anything about him. It's like he's barely even running. I wish he'd get on it, because he brings a lot to the table. But it's probably too late at this point.

I still think my guy Yang would be both an excellent candidate and President, for reasons I outlined here. California, where I currently live, votes on 'super Tuesday,' immediately after the first four states.  If Yang cracks the top four in any of the early states I will certainly vote for him... and maybe even if he doesn't.  

I remember way back in 2004 I was excited about Howard Dean, but by the time the race came to New York, where I lived at the time, he was toast and it was down to Kerry and Edwards. For some reason I thought Edwards was preferable of the two so I voted for him. I came to regret that... of course Edwards ended up being kind of a creep, but also I really liked Dean and I felt like I should have stayed true to myself. 

Yang has really inspired me and I feel like even if (as seems likely) he doesn't catch on this time his ideas will persevere, because they are good ones. And, hey, it's not too late for him to catch on... anything could happen! 🤷

But I probably won't decide who to vote for until pretty much the day of. It's that kind of election!

P.S. Here's a Youtube playlist I put together of mostly UBI/tech/Yang videos, with a few on Russian disinformation as well. Lots of good stuff in there!