SocraticGadfly: Ryan L. Cooper not all he gets cracked up to be, not on the prez race

February 27, 2020

Ryan L. Cooper not all he gets cracked up to be, not on the prez race

He's pretty insightful as far as analysis among national political bloggers and blog writers.

But when we move to straight-out opinion takes? Not so much, and not so liberal as you might think.

It's "fine" to write at The Week that you won't vote for Bloomberg. But, taking the #VoteBlueNoMatterWho stance otherwise? Blech.

I'm not a single-issue voter, unlike, say, a fair chunk of ardent pro-choicers or pro-lifers. Or, gun nutz. (That said, I am not sure how many truly single-issue voters there are.)

But I am, pretty much, a three-issue voter. One domestic, one foreign, and one combination.

The domestic one is single-payer. And, as I get older, but not yet that close to federal government finish lines, it becomes more and more important. And, within Democratic candidates, Sanders is the only one who clearly, and regularly, backs single-payer. Warren schwaffles, and she probably has a plan for that. Gabbard has openly supported both single-payer and a public option. Yang did NOT support single-payer, contra his own claims. Buttigieg and Biden both support nothing more than improved Obamacare.

Foreign policy? Israel, Palestine and the Middle East, along with broader bipartisan foreign policy establishment stances that need to be rejected. Sanders is the "least bad" on Palestine, things like Venezuela's Juan Guaido, etc. But he ain't great.

The foreign-domestic issue? Climate change. Again, Sanders is the "least bad" but not great. Howie Hawkins' original Green New Deal is better than AOC's Democrat version, which has been watered down since she proposed it — as well as being personally undermined by her by example. No Democrat policy here treats this with the needed amount of alarm.

But, if you're fully, nor nearly fully, outside the duopoly, but you're also not fully committed inside it? Even if you're not a BernieOrBust person, is Biden really THAT much better than Bloomberg?

Update, March 6: A day after the Warren withdrawal, and both at The Week and his personal website, Cooper hasn't come out as a #NeverBiden person. On his Twitter feed, he has challenged Biden, but he hasn't come out as #NeverBiden there, either.

Update, April 12: On The Week, Cooper says Biden is the worst possible candidate to face Trump. But he still won't say he won't vote for him. (Which means, IMO, that if Bloomberg had stayed in, and his Daddy Warbucks bought the Dem nomination, Cooper likely would have sheepdogged.)

That said, if, unlike Cooper, you claim to be an actual #BernieOrBust person, visit the polls at right.

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