Is anyone here passionate about Harris? Is she just polling high because California represents 50 million + people?
Well, she's the smartest, most connected of the establishment's younger candidates, and she's a Senator-- if it weren't for Tulsi, things like her awful record might not have held her back... largely because the media just gave her massive amounts of positive coverage, and of course she also had her own deep war chest, including donor money.
I mean, I've yet to hear anyone give me a sincere argument about what's good about her except that she's smart and she's a woman of color. But there's got to be real passion-- she has the biggest social media presence of any candidate in this race except for Bernie and arguably Elizabeth Warren.
Yang has been growing on me after listening to him speak to Shapiro and on MSNBC and Fox, who sadly give him way more visibility than CNN. An extra $1000 a month literally benefits everyone as opposed to raising minumum wage which only benefits those who work for minimum wage, even if its a devalued $1000. This would do wonders for my grandparents living in separate corners of the country, and my cousin whos a minor league athlete making literally pennies. Neither of which would benefit from an increased minimum wage.
So the argument for Bernie and against Yang would go something like this-- Yang is extremely smart, is pointing at really critical issues, and is building grass roots passion and a good faith campaign. But from the left's perspective, Yang (maybe because he's so deeply from the private sector?) doesn't seem able to escape the paradigm-- is only selling the people defeatism, surrender to the capitalists.
We can't actually break up the most abusive corporations.
We can't actually demand an aggressive progressive tax, we can only tax ourselves with a VAT
The people can't use their government for anything but handing out cash rations
We can't use democracy to push for an aggressive, pro-active agenda.
Really, every single one of Yang's "bold" proposals ends up leaving everything to the market, and none of them truly challenge power or challenge how the system works.
I agree that a minimum wage is not exactly the most efficient policy on paper, but it does something similar to eliminating "right to pay less" laws-- meaning it cuts away at the devaluation of human labor from a fundamental, societal philisophical stand point. Literally, human labor cannot be valued less than X.
A jobs guarantee doesn't make every worker work for the government, but it fundamentally changes the game because if the government is guaranteeing people good jobs with good vacation, pensions, benefits, the private sector is innately forced to compete if it wants workers and if it wants real talent. So an aggressive and sweeping jobs plan is a powerful tool a progressive leader (backed by democracy) can use to force the hand of the private sector on wages and benefits.
It also puts people to work-- and Yang doesn't pay nearly enough attention to the fact that markets only lead us to great prosperity if you got healthy, educated people connected by good infrastructure, and you have deep wells of unprofitable, unpatented basic research for society to draw upon-- all of which is built up by the public sector.
Yang is still a technocrat, weak on challenging power and simply looking for a wonky solution to an issue.
Bernie's policies and politics are about fundamentally changing and educating society on human values, re-structuring the way the system works, and re-structuring who has power in the society. If we want a guaranteed income or dividend system on top of it, that supports ALL people (not some, based on whether they have other government support or not)-- the left is fine with that. But we need to change the contours of how the system works at all; who has power, who is deciding where/what/when things are produced, do we believe in planning? The left loves Bernie because Bernie clearly moves to change the answers to those questions, and educates the people to step up and change the answers to those questions.
Yang: "My first job, is to tell you that however bad you think it is, it's actually much much worse."
Bernie: "In many ways, this world is an extremely depressing place. But if we become depressed, overwhelmed by the obstacles ahead of us-- then we become part of the problem. Another challenge that others who are prepared to be socially and politically active, will have to overcome. Now, more than ever, we cannot give in to despair."