Centrists have taken to asking progressives if they will support Biden, or Harris, or Booker, or whatever other establishment politician as the Democratic nominee for 2020. For me, Biden and the rest are too damaged to be acceptable as President, by the fact of their cowtowing to corporate interests over the will and the needs of the people.
Centrists accuse progressives of having “purity” tests. That’s a false narrative if ever there was one, because we fully understand that nobody is pure, not even Sanders.
Then you say we’ve got a litmus test. Now, I can’t speak for all other progressives, but for myself, I say yes, I DO have a litmus test. And here it is:
If a candidate is against Medicare For All, he or she won’t get my vote.
If a candidate is against tuition-free public education, he or she will not get my vote.
If a candidate is against ending regime change wars against countries that do not and cannot threaten us, he or she will not get my vote.
If a candidate is against the Green New Deal, he or she will not get my vote.
Those are my top priorities. But there are other issues. Black Lives Matter, for example. An end to systemic discrimination on any basis. A return to the support of collective bargaining that the Democratic Party establishment has all but abandoned.
I’m sure you get the picture. All the things the Party left behind when it followed the Clintonesque path to corporate whoredom.
Do I insist on ALL of the above? No, of course not. Can’t have everything all at once. But those top four items, they are essential. They are the absolute minimum necessary to get my vote. And that will depend entirely on what each candidate’s actual record shows them to be. Not what they say on the campaign trail or to the cameras. No more platitudes, no more personality politicking.
Just the record.
© March 18, 2019 by Donald Charles Rice Jr.
No comments:
Post a Comment