Rather than expound on my views on each particular candidate, given how long that would take with 25 candidates, I’m offering a summary of what I consider important for the candidate for president, and after that providing a simple, direct list of them from best to worst.
The candidate should intend to take action to fight global warming, should recognize the scale and scope of the climate change issue, and should work towards curbing climate change with urgency. The candidate should recognize climate change as the most important challenge to not just this country but this entire planet for the upcoming generations.
The candidate should recognize the United States’ chronic exorbitance in defense spending, and intend to drastically reduce defense spending to provide for the welfare of Americans. The candidate should see much of the United States’ overseas military action since World War II as wasteful, destabilizing, harmful, and grossly unjustified. The candidate should recognize America’s role as the world’s police as not helping Americans and tainting America’s reputation abroad. The candidate should recognize that democrats and liberals have a tendency to overly focus on internal issues and not enough on the grand scheme of the United States in the world and a better, less militaristically-built relationship with the world’s other peoples.
The candidate should understand the search for a source of blame undertaken by much of the American working class after losing their jobs, and how Donald Trump’s false answer led to his support and election to presidency. The candidate should recognize that what this following ended up blaming on immigrants should be blamed instead on the greed of Wall Street and the advance of automation. The candidate should recognize that automation is not a bad development, but that it only serves society if the wealth generated by automation is not exclusively absorbed by those that own the means to automation, and that this country is truly reaping the benefits of automation not when jobs are more abundant or wages or higher, but when working hours are shorter and the efficiencies of automation can provide for a universal basic income or asset allocation.
The candidate should recognize that religion still has a disproportionate sway on American politics and everyday life, and that while the other party is well into putting the church back in the state, religion should stay as out of this party as possible.
The candidate should heed recent revelations of increasing rot and fixing in the Democratic establishment. The candidate should distance themselves from the establishment in the relevant ways, and work towards overturning this establishment to build a Democratic party with true progressive goals.
The candidate should have plenty of political experience, or a convincing case that lack thereof is compensated by experience elsewhere that gives them political qualifications. The candidate should have clear plans towards their goals, not just broad outlines.
The candidate should realize that the process of getting things done will sometimes require working with enemies, should know how to work with enemies, and should have a solid decision process for which enemies to work with and which are behind the line they draw. The candidate should take politics seriously, and recognize that the erosion of political institutions to punditry and political comedy has paved the way for jokes to become acceptable as politics and lead to our current unsavory political situation.
The candidate should understand that saying nice things and flowery words doesn’t get anything done, and be able to show beyond words that they are truly behind the ideas they posit. The candidate should have their positions backed up by demonstrable independence from institutions that are against their positions; they can demonstrate genuine dedication by not taking money from those that stand for what they claim to fight.
- Bernie Sanders
- Tulsi Gabbard
- Jay Inslee
- Mike Gravel
- Elizabeth Warren
- Andrew Yang
- Kamala Harris
- Amy Klobuchar
- Joe Biden
- John Hickenlooper
- Cory Booker
- Steve Bullock
- Michael Bennet
- Seth Moulton
- Tim Ryan
- Joe Sestak
- John Delaney
- Julian Castro
- Bill de Blasio
- Wayne Messam
- Kirsten Gillibrand
- Marianne Williamson
- Eric Swalwell
- Beto O’Rourke
- Pete Buttigieg
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