Considering he’s batting 1.000 on my policy top 4 (i’d say 5, but he doesn’t have a detailed immigration policy out yet), I’m not sure. I also tend to value policy minutiae less than most of the folks 'round these parts on everything except perhaps trade and foreign policy. If he had said he wanted to continue the privatization of the VA, that would have knocked him down. But he didn’t. If he comes out in favor of the border separations, yeah, he’d be done. But I also know that isn’t gonna happen, lol.
There are a few things I actually either disagree with him on or just need to see more. I’m disappointed that neither his climate plan nor his rural plan mention water rights in western states, and he’s going to get asked about it in CA eventually, if not Nevada or Colorado. He hasn’t talked about immigration enough. Also, I have some complaints about his campaign strategy…like why he’s not planted his butt in South Carolina. That recent SC poll shows that 60% of black voters in SC don’t know enough about him to make a decision. that’s telling, and something they need to fix. Get on that stupid bus and take a 10-day all-access tour around there, man, come on.
I supported him early because of his understanding of political philosophy, not in spite of it. That hasn’t changed. I’m a big-picture voter, which is why his willingness to spend his day 1 political capital on democracy reform above all else is my winning issue.
Pete tells a story in his book about a conservative lady that lives near him that came to a local barbeque. This was after he’d started dating Chasten. The lady said she’d met his “friend” earlier and that she thought he was very nice. Pete says he could have easily started schooling the lady on how Chasten was his fiance, not just his friend, and the difference between a friend and a romantic partner, but instead, realized how big a step it was for her, and how she was working to internally accept something new and different. So he let it go. We can choose to browbeat people with our wokeness, or we can choose to invite them to the right side of history.
It’s taken me a lifetime of living as a liberal in conservative “spaces” (military. skydiving. poker. The midwest. California’s 50th district) to realize that all the angry fighting back I was doing when I heard something i disagreed with wasn’t working. Yelling at people and calling them terrible names isn’t going to win them over. Yeah, some of them deserve it, but a lot of them don’t. It’s time, I think, to become a little more discerning so we can welcome people who are changing their minds, rather than pushing them away.
With that, I’ll leave the insulting of candidates to y’all…I’m not going to do it anymore.
