Thread by @Cajsa

My best friend was a Warren supporter in the 2020 primary though not the kind who would ever call herself a "Warren Democrat" with its implication of party schism. She and I did not see eye-to-eye on the senator but Warren's constant social media demands for executive orders have

persuaded her more effectively than I ever was. I was never able to convince her that Warren's Manichean worldview was bad for policy and for the country, but she gets it now. If you see every issue through the lens of campaign finance corruption, you misdiagnose the issues.

Money in politics is a serious issue and dramatically distorts policy-making and elections. The worst is the uncontrolled independent expenditures, many made with undisclosed sources via c4s, frequently called "dark money" organizations, but it's seldom quid-pro-quo despite the s

simplistic claims of Sanders and Warren. The difficulty in passing national health insurance is due more to racism than campaign finance. So much of our safety net is full of holes because racism erodes people's sense of community and commitment to all people

The difficulty in passing legislation to regulate Wall Street is not just campaign contributions from Wall Street investors, it's the prevalence of New Thought in both religion and "New Age" philosophy, the concept that God rewards good people with wealth and poverty is deserved

Politicians who ignore the culture and wrap every issue in a singular frame may be successful at elevating themselves, but not at making real progress.

And because they do not recognize the cultural barriers to winning their issues, they seek to circumvent Congress through edicts from the President. That's authoritarian and it's dangerous to democracy. Please stop demanding the president do the job of Congress.

And take school loans. It's not just predatory lenders and Wall Street that created this issue. It's the problems in higher education itself. The growth of scam schools that drag people into debt for worthless degrees and the take over of college administration by MBAs who

reward themselves with bloated salaries, build buildings with amenities to tempt students, overinvest in athletics and underinvest in academics, flense the faculty, and get away with it because school loans are a blank check. To just agree to underwrite college completely will

not address any of the conditions that created the school loan crisis. It would exacerbate them by pumping more money into a system that has been debased by MBAs replacing academics in management.

Absolutely, we must address the crushing burden on people who have graduated in the last 20 years since schools were put on a "business footing" that emphasized cutting faculty costs and bloating admin and physical plant growth

But again, we have to understand why tuition grew out of control...or we just open it up to more maladministration.