I’m not Feelin the Bern, but could be swayed to vote for Warren:
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157011450108316&id=667468315I don't have two hours to write this, but a friend posted it, and I want you to understand the "Warren Reasoning". Give it a read.
"Someone asked why I support Warren instead of Bernie. Here's a recreation of my original answer.
First, I don't have anything against Bernie. I voted for him in the primary last time. I expected to make him my first choice this time but I take my due diligence as a voter very seriously so I looked at all the candidates. I initially liked Harris a lot (and figured the contrast between her and trumpster would work to the Democrats advantage) but aspects of her past as a prosecutor bothered me. I looked at Booker but his ties to big pharma bother me. The high drug prices must be addressed, and I don't have faith he could get much done with that due to those connections. Both of them might be great in a different election year.
I liked Pete at first even though I'm not looking for a centrist. Then last summer he got a HUGE surge in donations without a matching surge in polling. That didn't make sense. Later reporting showed that the donations were coming from tech billionaires in Silicon Valley and that he is friends with a Facebook co-founder. That might not have been a deal breaker if it wasn't for the fact that he will not commit to regulating big tech companies. I work with FB, Google and Amazon (through AWS) on my day job so I know they *must* be regulated, if only to support efforts against corporate influence, etc.
I liked Castro A LOT but the handwriting was on the wall early on that he wouldn't get traction without a miracle. However, he and Warren appear to have an agreement that he'll be her VP. He's campaigning for her with his brother and that makes me very happy. Their policies are compatible. It's my dream ticket now.
Yang is doing what Bernie did last time -- bringing an idea to the mainstream. But Yang's implementation plan for UBI has flaws. It might even be very naive. So I like his UBI idea and some of the topics he brings up but his implementation isn't good enough.
Fuck the billionaire candidates. I especially find it laughable that Steyer seems to think that saying "I'm a real billionaire. Trump isn't" will make a difference. Trumpers don't care.
I cheered when Gabbard entered the race because a WOC who is a veteran and Hindu sounded interesting. I kept an open mind about her meeting with Assad but the more I looked, the more she turned out to be a dictator sympathizer and this year's Jill Stein. No.
I started reading Warren's plans in regard to the wealth tax and then Medicare for All. I was a compliance officer at a healthcare brokerage when ACA was being implemented so I have a lot of insight as to what it's going to take to make a wholesale change to our healthcare system. Anyone who claims they can fully implement M4A on day one without Congress is naive or lying. A total changeover solely by any president isn't feasible. Having read Warren's plan, I believe it has the best chance of being successfully implemented and, unlike ACA, the three phase implementation (to be clear, it's three phases within three years so M4A will be fully implemented within her first term) is set up to move more and more people to M4A so people can try it, like it and support the next step.
ACA had bad PR and marketing made worse by Republican opposition. People didn't start liking it until around the time it was being taken away. Warren compensates for that.
Warren is very smart and has experience navigating the process of creating and changing a system for the better despite opposition from Republicans and Wall Street. We need that sort of experience to get stuff done. Heck, she found the legal criteria for a president to unilaterally lower prices on the most common drugs.
She's a policy wonk who uses that info to put together plans that can actually work. I don't want pie-in-the-sky ideas. I want someone who has big ideas AND concrete, tangible plans for how to pay for and implement them. Of all the campaign documentation I've read, hers meet that criteria the best.
I also really like Warren's plans for LBGTQA rights, the disability community, regulating giant corporations, Native American rights, etc. While I haven't read every plan of hers yet (there are a lot!) the ones I have read are well thought out AND she credits experts from within each marginalized community or policy oversight group (depending upon the topic) who contributed to the plan. She gets buy-in from the marginalized communities involved.
And Warren walks her talk. A disabled friend who is politically active attended a Warren/Castro rally to check them out. She was highly impressed by how well-prepared every aspect of their accessibility accommodations were. She didn't even have to ask for certain things. They had sign language interpreters. They started the event by announcing their pronouns. She said she had never felt so seen and welcome at any event before. That tells me Warren's disability and LBGTQA positions aren't just lip service.
Warren also made a point of looking at plans by people who dropped out of the race and if they had something she believed in she went to that person and asked their permission to add it to her platform with their name. So Harris' plan for laws to ensure body autonomy and Gillibrand's plans for childcare (Warren already had a plan to pay for universal childcare but Gillibrand had details she didn't) were incorporated into her campaign. Why? Because she said that just because a marginalized person leaves the table their issues shouldn't. That's someone with their heart in the right place, and the humility to realize they don't have all the ideas.
Things like that and how she reaches out to other marginalized communities and LISTENS to their concerns and needs -- I want that in a leader. I also think it's a quality that will be essential in building unity both in the party and nationally for the long haul.
She's been talking a lot lately about corruption in D.C. and how corporations have essentially bought the process because that's an issue people all across the political spectrum can agree upon. She still plans to do the wealth tax, M4A, etc. but she's got to get voters in the door to listen before she can pitch them on those topics. That's called strategy but she gets accused of "backpedaling" if she doesn't list *every* policy position she has in every three minute soundbite.
Last time around the media was working hard to erase Bernie because he scared them. This time they're erasing Warren. That tells you something, IMO.
I like Bernie (though I swear some of his supporters are trying to change that). He's my second choice, but I want a mix of ideas/systemic change AND concrete plans for accomplishing them. Warren hits that sweet spot for me. I've watched several interviews with Bernie, including the extended NYT endorsement interview, where, in response to the question "How will you implement your ideas if the GOP holds the Senate" he says something along the lines of "our movement will make them cooperate."
I have a background in communications, film and video production and criticism. I watch for the cuts in the interviews. There aren't any that could involve lopping off an answer. That's both too vague and too idealistic for my taste. It also feels vaguely cultish.
Warren does talk about the three phase implementation of M4A giving people a chance to like it so they can fight for it but it's tied to a more practical plan that Medicare would have been expanded for at least a year and a half before mid-term elections to galvanize voters. You could argue both approaches are similar but one is definitely more grounded and practical.
Bernie is my second choice, followed by Klobuchar, but Warren's mix of wanting to make big, systemic change and practical plans with methods to pay for them is what I want in a leader. Funding for some of Bernie's plans is definitely fuzzy in places, and I want more implementation details.
Whoever beats trump is going to have a mess on their hands. They have to rebuild the government and get Congress to pass laws to prevent repeats in the future, like forcing prospective candidates to turn over their tax returns when they file to run. The sort of practical, methodical approach Warren has demonstrated for years will be needed because we have to fix things as fast as possible, like restoring the Scientific Council and rebuilding the State Dept, which trump has been hollowing out.
And I think Warren can make mincemeat of trump in a general campaign. Bernie's debate performance has been mixed. Warren went to college the first time on a debate scholarship. He's going to attack. She'll do a mix of getting under his skin and making him look unhinged. It won't change his cultish base, but it will work for other people.
Plus, you know, there is an element of "judge people by their enemies" and the fact that Warren scares Bezos, Zuck and even Bloomberg so much makes me happy. Oh, and teeing up Castro as a prospective running mate is the cherry on top. He's young, smart, eloquent and Latino. He could put Texas back in play and force the GOP to defend it (it's been trending purplish, albeit reddish purple).
I'd like to see Bernie pick Harris, Andrew Gillim or Stacy Abrams as a running mate but have seen no signs of that sort of thinking. So I don't dislike Bernie but careful consideration and deep research has made me an enthusiastic supporter for Warren as my first choice. She isn't perfect. No candidate is. But she ticks more boxes that are important to me."