#3corey boor

[relationshipsandpolitics]

I suppose it’s worthwhile to share who I’m supporting in the upcoming Democratic Primary for President. After all, what better way to make people who mostly agree with me to suddenly hate me than to stan for some deeply flawed elected official or deeply flawed Andrew Yang?

But before I get into narrowing down the field, I want to briefly mention something I’m going to talk about in more depth later: electability.  It’s not entirely unimportant to use this unquantifiable metric when picking a candidate.  I would just caution against it, and I’m not going to use it in mine.  Simply put, I think this election is a referendum on Trump, and there will be enough wiggle room in the electorate to support a candidate who objectively would do worse against Trump and win than the best candidate. Candidate A might beat him by 10 points, but Candidate Z will still beat him and carry the down-ticket races, too. You might as well just vote for the candidate you believe in.  A crazy concept, I know.

For the record, I’d willingly vote for any Democratic candidate over Donald Trump.  I just want to get that out of the way.  People feel the need to caveat their choice in this way, as though anyone is really arguing otherwise.   There is some truth that in 2016, Bernie voters switched to Trump at rates that helped tip the election to the Republican.  But it’s also true that more Hillary Clinton voters in 2008 switched to McCain than Bernie voters switched to Trump in 2016.  The fact is it is incredibly common for supporters of a primary candidate to wind up voting for the opposition party’s nominee. These are often called swing voters or independents.  They sometimes gravitate to a candidate simply because of that candidate and not because of party or policy.   We need to stop with this type of criticism of supporters who don’t support your preferred candidate.

Personally, I’m still voting Democrat no matter who is the nominee. But I’d be very unhappy to vote for a lot of these candidates.  

Here is the list of current candidates in an order that means nothing, but one might think has a hidden meaning:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Steve Bullock, Michael Bennet, Joe Sestak, Wayne Messam, John Delaney, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg

Let’s begin by just lopping off a bunch of these names who even I have barely heard of and have less than zero chance of being the nominee.  Keep in mind that some candidates I’m keeping on, I only do so because I wish to make fun of them.  Otherwise they would fully belong in this category of early dismissals. Here’s the new list:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg

 That was fun.  Ok, let’s get into it.  When judging who my savior will be, I consider a multitude of categories.  But the first category I consider is one that won’t personally affect me at all.  I want to know if any of the candidates’ position will grossly discriminate against traditionally-disadvantaged groups.  As a straight white male, I have the benefit of not being directly impacted by even the worst Republican social policies.  All I really need to care about is taxes and getting more vacation. That’s my privilege.  But it’s also what’s so fucked up about Americans as a people.  We are entirely out for ourselves, and this is most evident in how we vote.  We need to look out for everyone, especially groups that regularly see their most basic rights challenged.  I think this is the first bar any candidate must overcome.

So any candidate that supports restricting women’s reproductive rights, supports policies that make it easier to be fired for being LGTQ, or supports banning Muslims from entering this country is gone.  Now, most of the candidates have said some questionable thins in the past.  Bernie Sanders wrote a weird column about sexual assault, Joe Biden pushed a shitty crime bill that disproportionately hurt African-Americans and was down with segregated busing, and I’m pretty sure Marianne Williamson’s only black friend is Oprah (but she’ll definitely mention it all the time).  But when it comes to actual policy, I honestly don’t believe any of the candidates running will actively seek to harm minority groups. Except Tulsi Gabbard, who has a history of saying some anti-gay shit.  I’m not trying to wade into this whole Hillary Clinton/Russia/Third-Party run controversy involving Gabbard, so I’m going to cut her off now because I don’t think she has the backs of the LGBTQ community, but I really don’t want to write about her.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke,  Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Tom Steyer, Andre Yang, Marianne Williamson, Pete Buttigieg

The next crucial category is competence.  Do these candidates have the basic competence and intelligence needed to be president? It doesn’t matter if they have strong policy proposals or are skilled orators. Can they do the job?  As we can see with Trump, a complete lack of experience as a legislator, coupled with a complete lack of intelligence and basic human decency make for a bad time.  In fact, never holding elected office alone is a disqualifier for me and it should be for everyone. Based on these criteria, the following candidates get the axe:

Andrew Yang - Yang is the type of candidate who randomly makes news for a common-sense plan and gets you thinking that maybe this outsider is what we need.  Then you learn he’s a Silicon Valley tech bro supported by other tech bros and pseudo-libertarian types and he never held public office but now thinks he can be president. That is the most damning critique.  This man knows literally nothing about government and how to govern/legislate. Instead of running for city council or the school board like a normal person, he decides to run for fucking president like an ego-maniacal psycho.   In other words, fuck Andrew Yang and his supporters.  Here’s a good article on why he sucks.   And here’s another.

Marianne Williamson – Candidate moonbeam had her moment in the sun during one debate where she had a couple decent soundbites.  She’s also batshit crazy, believes in anti-vax and anti-science ideas, and is friends with similarly-out of touch rich celebrities and SoCal types.  Never trust anyone who self-identifies and makes a living as a spiritual guru. Some of the worst people in the world are rich white women from Los Angeles who are really into spirituality and New Age medicines. They are the type of liberals who post online about how much they support gay people and the environment, but god forbid they want to put affordable housing in their neighborhood. Every positive thing they do for society is clouded in narcissism.  It’s an attempt to absolve themselves of their wealth with vacuous good deeds that don’t require any actual sacrifice.  People like Williamson protest polluting the oceans because they enjoy their Malibu beaches, and then happily get in their Range Rover to go to the movies down the street.  Williamson simply adds a layer of bullshit with her spiritualism.  If having a personal shaman is a status symbol; being the personal shaman to Oprah is the ultimate status symbol.  Like Yang, Williamson is an egomaniac as only someone from California can be, and she thinks the presidency is her God-given right. Fuck having to actually learn about public service by serving your town first when you can name drop Oprah and Gwyneth and immediately raise enough money to get a national audience to spew your garbage.

Tom Steyer - I could go on about how out of touch his policies are, but no one should be forced to read more than two sentences about this guy.  He is a hedge fund billionaire who doesn’t want everyone to have health insurance and thinks being rich makes him qualified to be president.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, TKamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar,  John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

Alright, let’s pause and congratulate ourselves for easily dismissing half the field. Yay for us!  This will mark the end of part 1, aka Super Fun Party Time #1.   Part 2 will be up shortly, I hope, as we start discussing the serious contenders.  Remember, my opinion matters more than anyone else’s so it’s extremely important you read this and ultimately vote the way I want you to vote.  

#politics #2020 election #everyone sucks #bernie sanders #joe biden #elizabeth warren #kamala harris #pete buttgieg #3corey boor #corey booker #marianne williamson #andrew yang #beto o'rourke #amy klobuchar #tulsi gabbard #some other schmucks