Love you Drew, but no. Regardless of what we progressives like to tell ourselves — scratch that: what we fellate ourselves with on a daily basis — it’s going to take SOME level of compromise to win in the purple states. I’m not talking about winning over Trump’s base, because fuck those people with a cactus.
I’m talking about winning over people who support liberal policies but are still wary (justifiably so or not, it doesn’t matter) of massive, sweeping changes in one fell swoop.
So no, Buttigieg’s policy of supporting Medicare for All without immediately abolishing private insurance does not make him a Republican or some milquetoast corporate shill, it makes him a pragmatist who recognizes that change happens one step at a time. This is also the approach that Obama took, so to say he wants to be Obama without the Obama part is just flat-out inaccurate.
If more people thought like us pinkos, then sure, give me Warren or Sanders at the top of the ticket. But that’s unfortunately not the case, so maybe we can recognize the political realities before we start eating our own and branding anyone who doesn’t line up with EXACTLY OUR WAY OF THINKING as a closet Republican.
tl;dr If Bernie is a 10 on the progressive scale and Warren a 9, Mayor Pete is fucking 7 and that should be good enough for all of us who want to get that Cheeto-faced fuckwad out of the White House.
