Politics

Politically, I’m very liberal — about as far left as one can go without sliding into Libertarianism.

2020 Pre-Primary Candidate Rankings

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While I haven’t been paying a lot of attention, this looks about right, at least from a policy standpoint. (The numbers are how many questions out of 20 I agree with the candidate on.)

Candidates with Warren at the top and Biden at the bottom

You can take the quiz at the Washington Post.

Ranking on a “would I feel good about voting for them?” scale have the same top and bottom results, the rest would be shuffled to varying degrees.

Ranked on a “would I vote for them if they were the nominee?” scale, they’d all be in the number one spot. Because while some are more in line with my personal beliefs than others, the priority is getting Trump out, and the top of the ticket vote needs to be a strategic vote to get Trump out of office, not an idealistic vote to “send a message”.

Impeach and Withhold

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I really hope Pelosi and the House Democrats have the fortitude to do this: Impeach and Withhold.

The key here is that there is no requirement that the House immediately send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. This is Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s final card to play.

So here is a modest proposal: the House should (1) vote to impeach on Wednesday, and (2) withhold sending any articles which pass to the Senate unless and until a majority of senators commit to holding an open and fair trial in accordance with the Constitution.

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From what I understand of the U.K. election, comparing British politics to American politics is now like the tag line to Alien vs. Predator: Whoever wins, we lose.

I’m tired of feeling like we’re in a race to the bottom. Can we get back to trying to set a good example, please?

The Silent Coup

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The US is being run by a government that no longer represents the people:

Today, representative democracy is on the brink as our government demonstrates an unprecedented disconnect from public opinion.

For instance, 83% of the public supports background checks for gun owners, but that hasn’t come to fruition. Some 77% of Americans want Roe v. Wade upheld, but that precedent keeps getting chipped away at. And 84% of the nation supports paid maternity leave, which has yet to become law despite President Donald Trump’s promising it during his 2016 campaign. We see time and time again that even overwhelmingly popular public views don’t translate to policy.

That’s because our three branches of government live under minority rule.

The Republicans in power care far more about holding on to their power and protecting their personal interests than they do about following the will of the majority of the electorate. Over the past few decades, we’ve been the victims of a silent coup, and I’m often worried that it’s too late to recover.

Hopepunk

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I first ran across the term “hopepunk” just about a year ago, and more and more these days, it’s the attitude that is helping me cope with the state of the world today.

As I posted on Facebook earlier today, along with the Tank Girl image in this post:

Tank Girl is hopepunkI post occasionally about the #hopepunk idea, and this is the essence of it (what I’ve also seen termed as “weaponized optimism”, which I love).

Yes, many things are horrible. Yes, far too much of the world is shit. And yes, not only can it be better, but we can make it better. And we’ll drag the rest of you with us into a better world, whether you like it or not.

Here’s more on the hopepunk idea, from a few sources. In each of these links, there’s a lot more than what I’ve excerpted here, and I highly recommend spending some time going through them all.

Read more

Oh crap, can you see…

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From Jason Kottke:

…I’ve developed a similar unsafe feeling about the flag. It’s not a voluntary thing — it’s something that has built up over two+ years of seeing American flags in photos of MAGA rallies & white nationalist marches but not so much at Black Lives Matter marches or pro-choice rallies. I’m sure you’ve also noticed the correlation between seeing an American flag emoji in someone’s Twitter bio next to the MAGA hashtag and the tendency of that person to act like a misogynist asshole. While it’s hardly a new thing, the aggressive, intolerant, nationalistic right has been particularly effective in visibly wrapping themselves in the flag lately. It’s great branding for them, but it’s not doing the flag any favors.

This is something I’ve noticed and discussed with my wife over the past few years as well. We’re at a point where if someone’s displaying an American flag, we assume they’re probably not someone we want to associate with — that it’s a display of nationalism, not patriotism. The bigger and more ostentatious the display, the more averse we are to interacting with them.