Political Rambling
It's been a week.
I haven't talked about politics here, or anywhere, very much. I think it's more "I don't have anything to say that other people haven't said better" than anything else.
I still don't have anything to say that other people haven't said better, but thoughts keep rattling around in my head anyway, and perhaps they will quiet if I write them down.
When people say "I can't wait for this terrible year to be over", part of me has been cringing inside. For years now, every year has been worse than the last. Saying "next year will be better" has felt like a forlorn hope: probably doomed, certainly nothing like inevitable.
In this moment, I feel a little bit of hope, that maybe one thing will be better in 2021 than it is in 2020, even if nothing else is.
My political ideals have shifted a little in the last five years, but I feel as if it's less that my ideals have changed than that political realities changed, and I've come to prioritize things that I did not think, in 2015, were partisan issues.
I remain incredulous that "combating a pandemic" is a partisan issue in 2020 America. "Wear a mask over your nose and mouth during a pandemic spread by aeresolized particles" should not be a partisan stance. Why is this happening. How can you look at that issue and think "no! I'd rather be in favor of spreading a dangerous disease"?
Police brutality is temporarily a partisan issue, which is kind of a nice change from it being a nonpartisan issue, in that everyone favored it. I doubt it's going to remain partisan, though. I expect the Democrats will go back to "support the police no matter what", just like the Republicans. Police abuse of authority is a national problem that needs to be addressed at the local level, in every locality. It kind of matters what the president says, because that impacts how individual localities feel about it. But the federal government can't solve this. They could repeal federal drug laws, though, and that would help.
My biggest hopes for 2021 federal policies:
- An end to detainee camps for immigrants. Asylum seekers, in particular, have entered the country legally and there is absolutely no reason to lock them up like criminals. I think ending imprisonment for them (at a minimum) will be politically possible. I would like to see all immigrants, regardless of legal status, treated with dignity and respect and not caged because they're accused of "crossing the border illegally." But that's probably too much to hope for. Blocking immigration has strong bipartisan support.
- Reunite immigrant families. Find all the kids who were separated from their parents and return them. This may be politically possible but it sounds like ICE has done their best to make it logistically impossible. We need to do it anyway.
- Replace ICE with a new immigration service, one that doesn't consider its mandate to be "prevent all immigration and treat all immigrants as criminals."
- A national plan to combat the pandemic, and to ensure the manufacturing and distribution of vaccine(s) nationwide after approval. (There are a number of vaccine candidates in phase 3 trials now, so it seems likely that there will be multiple different vaccines available, with varying degrees of efficacy. It may be appropriate to distribute more than one kind, depending.)
- Voting rights: I don't know if the feds can actually do anything to fix the problems with voting in this country. Mostly I'd like to see every state send mail-in ballots to every registered voter, and I'd like a solution to gerrymandering. The first is possible but I think each state will have to pass state legislation for themselves. The second, I dunno. Hard problems are hard. If the feds can make it easier, that'd be nice.
- Coherent and consistent foreign policy and not talking up how awesome fascist leaders in other countries are. This is another one of those exceedingly low bars that the current administration has failed to clear.
I have friends with long lists of things they'd like to see the federal government do. I ... don't know how much I care about anything else, to be honest. Four years of Trump has not made me think "you know what America needs? MORE POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE PRESIDENT."
I still feel that large, powerful organizations of people (both Big Business and Big Government) are dangerous and lend themselves to corruption and abuse.
But as far as real, actual politics goes: I can't imagine ever voting for a Republican candidate again. They decided to ally themselves with an ACTUAL DISEASE -- not even a metaphorical one, though that too -- rather than take even the simplest precautions against it. They demonstrated, over and over again, that all they cared about was "did MY SIDE win???" with no principles that they were trying to win. They have sought to expand the reach of Big Government and the power of the executive. There is no significant political party in the USA that holds small government as an ideal even in name. It doesn't matter what I think; I'm not going to get it, and I'm not going to get anything like it, either.
I want a government that is honest, law-abiding, democratic, and which treats both citizens and immigrants with dignity, respect, and fairness. At this point, everything else feels optional.
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