Democrat 2020

[Husar]

Wow. If those few sentences made you want to vote alt-right, then maybe you should look into why you are being triggered over the idea that having a diverse range of viewpoints and backgrounds is important for effective governance? Also, who mentioned anything about quotas?

Please don't take the hyperbole too seriously.
Also, I mentioned quotas. They're required to "represent what America looks like". But maybe that was not entirely what you meant.
The point was that different viewpoints and backgrounds should not be a goal in themselves. Otherwise you will want someone who sees the world like Stalin as well or you end up with very biased viewpoints, defeating the purpose of different viewpoints.
If the districts in your country are diverse, your representatives should be, too, without specifically making diversity a goal during an election. Provided your voting system isn't terrible.
I for one wouldn't vote for yellow Hitler just because I haven't voted for a yellow guy in a while and need my diversity fix. That's what dicversity as a goal often sounds like. If you have a diverse country, but representation is not, fix your voting system, then diversity should come by itself. Or in other words, don't call for a fix to the symptom, fix the problem.

Society isnt colorblind as we might wish it was. Sure in an ideal world it would be, but we dont live in an ideal world. Having voices within the government who can advocate for important and meaningful policy changes that would impact their communities to me is important. Pretending that we are all colorblind ignores systemic issues that might not impact you, but impacts others which ends up continuing injustice. For example, dont you think its best that when legislating to fix the prison industrial complex that at least a portion of the people trying to deal with it are African American especially considering they are disproportionately affected by it? I never said we should have every single group represented in the government. But I dont think its a bad idea either to have a more diverse group of legislators. For example, there are currently 21 female Senators, a record number. But women make up 50% of the US. Im not saying it should be a perfect 50/50 split in the Senate, but dont you think that governments should at least to some degree reflect the societies they are governing?

So in other words, the school system should be fixed by those with the lowest IQ, because they're most affected by the "intelligence problem"? If the entire system is biased against African Americans, denying them education and money, then how can they have:
a) the money/power required to actually change it?
b) the insight necessary to make meaningful, lasting change to it?

This is why I said you have to grab the power first. The prison system is the way it is because other powers want it to be that way. As long as these other powers are in fact in power, you may narrowly get some change, but in the long term, it is unlikely to have lasting effects. And in the process, you alienated other voters by preferring people based on skin color. See how Obama did some things and Trump rolled a lot of them back already, made some things worse even. The power is with the money and the money has not changed hands. So all the democrats who don't want the money to change hands, do not really want to grab the power. If you help the poor, you automatically help blacks. They will have more time to vote, they will have better healthcare, they will have better education, and so will everybody else who happens to be poor. Why does it matter whether a white man or a black man gives people healthcare? Is black healthcare somehow different?
The prison system is similar, but will already be improved by helping the poor, given that many are in prison because of the conditions of their poverty. It is, in part, also a symptom, but also a cause. It is not the first priority, because it does not give anyone power, and grabbing the power requires a lot of focus. If you take away that focus by paying too much attention to dozens of symptoms, you gain nothing. That is why rich people only ever became richer and more powerful since the 70s.

I'm not saying forget the other issues, I'm saying grab the power first, then use that power to fix all the dozens of problems you identified. So far you're two or three SCOTUS judges and several hundred billionaires behind.

Every day I work with organizations which deal with a myriad of social issues ranging from social justice to climate change. There are organizations which I work with which also deal with income inequality. I will tell you that nobody is focused on bakers and white people wearing dreads. Dont strawman. People yelling about dreads and bakers might just be the loudest on the internet (or perhaps its just the anti-SJW who are the loudest which is why you think its an issue), but the people doing the actual work on the ground care about far more important things and are doing far more important things than freaking out over a cake or whatever you might think is a silly issue.

I agree, income inequality is of vital importance and I definitely agree with you and Sanders in that regard. But is it too much to say that there are other problems which need to be addressed in tandem?

Well, that's good for these people and organizations, and I know they exist, they just don't seem to be getting anywhere near the traction they should get and should have gotten in 2016. Hillary was not the candidate to fix wealth and income inequality, she was too focused on special interests. Obama obviousl didn't fix any of it either and Trump's tax reform only made it worth. So my point is, you're currently going backwards on that issue and some candidates put it way too far down on their list for my taste or for what I would think would bring actual change. The only bright side is that all of the (also quite colorful) Berniecrats who just got into congress, all have it quite high on their agendas. Now they just need a president and even more Berniecrats in congress to actually make some of it happen.

The usual democrat approach of "we will change a percentage here and in two years a percentage there and in the meantime we focus on lots of feel-good-laws for smaller special interests" is not enough, especially not with climate change breathing down our collective necks.

Saying that Sanders is not focused enough of special interests doesn't help, he can get an entire cabinet and a huge staff of advisers for that, and I'm sure he will. But prison reform won't save any black people from the next heat wave or the next flood caused by global warming. Prison reform will be a natural follow-up once the power of the oligarchs is broken, the same oligarchs who own your prisons and many of your politicians in both parties.

An example would be: A thunderstorm went through your backyard and cut down 30 trees, do you:
a) remove all thirty trees by yourself, very slowly, one after the other, fighting the force of gravity for weeks
b) fix your crane first and use its power to effortlessly remove the trees in a matter of hours?

Fixing the crane does actually require your full attention though, it's not so simple that you can do it while you're already carrying wood around. The carrying would in fact distract you and drain your attention. You might make a mistake and fail the repair, leaving you in the less fortunate situation for longer (like when Trump got elected in 2016...).

So don't ask who is more electable (compromise), ask how you can convince people to vote for the one with the best agenda.