A little earlier, I alluded to my leanings on the Democratic ticket for President. I thought I’d expand a little on that.
First off, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are two sides of the same coin. Or perhaps more accurately, two faces of the same dice. Their end goals on their platforms are similar: Universal health care, climate change, foreign relations, consumer protections, economic equality, etc. However, read what they have to say, listen to what they have to say. How to get there is very different. Senator Warren wants to fix the system, Senator Sanders wants to burn it down and build anew, as he considers it unfixable. I have a problem with this.
In the countries he brings up as examples of how it should be done, he leaves out a couple of important details: The national healthcare systems in those countries were built from the start as a unified single-payer system. And the populations of those countries are a fraction of the US’. He specifically called out Canada as a shining beacon of how it should be. He is right, but Canada has what, 37 million people compared to the United State’s 325+ million?
Our current system is too entrenched and our population to be served is too big to just burn it down and build something new. It would cause massive chaos in everything it touches.
The same is the same for almost all of Sanders’ platform. As much as I like the ideas he has, and I voted for him in the 2016 primary, this time around we have candidates with aligned or nigh-identical goals but a more realistic and achievable method of getting there. He’d probably do good as a Cabinet Secretary, though.
Buttigeig needs to serve some time in Congress (House or Senate) or Governor of his state before I’ll take him seriously for President. Same for de Blasio, even if NYC is a crapton bigger than South Bend.
Williamson and Yang are IMO political flakes, Williamson being also just a plain flake.
Harris, Hickenlooper and Inslee are possibilities. Not as overall progressive as Warren, but more realistic in methods than Sanders, so I’d probably rank them 2nd, 3rd and 4th (not necessarily in that order) with Sanders 5th.