Anybody knows we need a better choice in 2020, and not some billionaire who thinks he alone can fix it. The question is how to get there.
What I’ll be looking for is two-fold:
- Serious policy—Do they have proposals for the major challenges we face? Healthcare? Climate change? Poverty? Infrastructure?
- Seriousness about policy—Do they have alternatives? How will they get the legislators on board?
Horse racing is not something worth visiting. If any candidate waves their hands at a serious problem, they aren’t a serious candidate. If any candidate can’t talk about the heavy lifting, or says our challenges are insurmountable or would require something scary like socialism, and so we can’t fix the thing, they aren’t serious candidates.
Medicare for All is still just one way to achieve universal, affordable healthcare. But the achievement is necessary for our society. If it takes socialism, in that small part, just as defense does, then we’ll do more socialism. If you don’t like it, propose something better or lobby for an opt-out for yourself on grounds that you’re a billionaire who is afraid of people having access to healthcare.
We’re past the point of no-return, we have to do the things our society needs to thrive in the coming centuries. Those who want to pretend it’s 1952 can find the nearest time machine and run against Eisenhower and Stevenson.
In 2020, and beyond, we can remain flexible about how things work, but not in the need for them to work. Any serious candidate knows that, welcomes tough compromise that will result in putting the choices we face in starker terms, that will propel better future compromises. Government is expensive, but the costs are minimal compared to what our world would be without government. Those who want that world can also find a time machine and go for it.
And remember, the president only signs the bills into law and appoints the people that implement them. It all still has to go through a fairly conservative legislature. Medicare for All will be a heavy lift, but having leadership willing to step up to that stone and to try to pull the stone from it is something better than one who will say, “If it’s broken, why fix it?”