This week I have been spending a lot of time doing research on my upcoming blog post on illegal immigration (chosen by popular vote last week). However, before we dig into that, I thought I might go into four things that I am thankful for in our current political realm. It only seems appropriate since this is Thanksgiving week after all. At the end of this post, I would love to hear your thoughts on something that you might be thankful as well.

The Constitution! This might seem like an obvious duh to some or maybe you disagree and have a negative view of this document. However, the simple fact is that this document helped form a government that had never been seen before. The constitution gave to rights citizens that before that time, could only be dreamed about. Because of it we have the right to free speech, freedom of movement, the right to arm ourselves, and the ability to choose who leads us. It helped bring about a country, (that while it has had its ups and downs) has been a beacon of freedom, light, and inspiration to literally billions of people over the past couple of centuries.

Checks and Balances! For a quick rundown for those of you who don’t know what this means, checks and balances is the basic counterbalancing of power within our government. This within the United States is made up of the Judicial Branch (Judges), Legislative (Senate and Representatives), and the Executive (President). For the United States, these systems all have ways of providing ways of keeping each other from getting to powerful. It might seem a bit complicated, but essentially it is what has in part kept our country from turning into dictatorship.

Elections! This might seem a bit odd to us nowadays since many countries have a form of elections to select those in power. But the US helped pave the way of providing elections for its people to choose those in power. As we see people fighting for their right to vote in other countries or places such as Venezuela, Iran, and Hong Kong, we should treasure this aspect of our country. Yes, elections are annoying and frustrating at times, however, they are essential to keeping our republic running.

Capitalism! Okay, before you and roll your eyes on this, hear me out. Poverty has always been a rampart and terrible part of society, regardless of the economic system in place. However, over the past 200 years within the United States, we have seen a rise in wealth for everyone. Even our poor are better off now then they were back in 1776. (Don’t get me wrong, poverty is still an issue that needs addressed and fixed). But poverty worldwide included 94 percent of the world’s population in 1820. In 2011, it was only 17 percent (Daily Wire) We are looking at time of prosperity and ease of life within the United States that no one has ever seen in the history of this planet, ever. And this is in large part due to the fact that capitalism encourages people to work, learn, and improve themselves. And while yes, capitalism has its flaws, I do believe it is the best system in existence to improve life. If you would like to read an article on how capitalism helps improve poverty, I’ll put the link down below.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/5-statistics-showing-how-capitalism-solves-poverty-aaron-bandler

But that is all I have for you guys for today’s post. Why don’t you take a minute and let me know what you are grateful for. I hope you guys have a great thanksigving and get to spend it with some family or loved ones. See y’all next week.

So I have spent the past few weeks talking about different Presidential Candidates. However, I think it is time to take a break from that and spend the next few weeks focusing on some practical issues. These problems all affect us in one way or another yet we can not seem to understand or even be able to talk about them. So in this post, you will have the chance to vote on an issue you would like for me to write about. (If I do not include one you would like, then feel free to comment it below) But I think we are all tired of politicians on every side crying about how horrible everything is, yet offering no solutions or even willing to practically discuss anything. So most likely (depending on the issues picked) I will do a 2 part blog post going in depth. I will try to show multiple sides to the problem and present solutions that make sense. So enough reading for now, go down and vote and come back next week and let me know what you think.

Pete Buttigieg is a relatively unknown presidential candidate in many ways. He has preformed well in debates but has not had any big break out moments. However, support for his campaign is steadily rising. So let’s take a quick look at him.

Buttigieg was born in 1982 in South Bend Indiana. He was quickly identified as someone with a lot of potential and won several awards including valedictorian. Upon graduating high-school, he attended and graduated with honors from Harvard with a major in history and literature. After this, he went on to study at Oxford where he received another degree with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics. The next several years he spent working in various roles on campaigns of several people including John Kerry and Barack Obama. While working for Obama, he decided to join the Navy and became a reserve officer.

In 2011, he decided to run for mayor of South Bend and served two terms in this role. During 2014, he had to take a 7 month leave of absence to go and serve in an active military role in Afghanistan (during which he was awarded Joint Service Commendation Medal and the Joint Meritorious Unit Award). Not a lot happened during his mayor terms either good or bad. He decided not to seek reelection in 2019 and proceeded to lay the ground work for his 2019/2020 presidential run.

If you would like to see where he stands on different political issues, go take a look at this article and see what you think. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/pete-buttigieg/

Now, will he be able to beat Trump? Honestly, it is a toss up. He has a lot of fairly radical/liberal beliefs that he supports that would alienate a large swath of independent voters that he needs in order to win. However, he does carry himself in a way that would appeal to people tired of Trump’s brash and frustrating way of handling himself. So, he would have appeal to people who are undecided, but I am not sure if he would be able to get those votes due to his policies and beliefs. However, as with most of the Democratic candidates, he will struggle to succeed in primaries and most likely will withdraw in a few months. I would look for him to be someone’s chief of staff or even a vice-president pick for whoever wins the Democratic Primary.

Well if you are reading this blog, I hoped you remembered to vote today for your local elections. However, if you did not, have no fear the current primaries are still upon us. I thought for this post, I would take a few minutes to let you guys know that two major candidates have dropped out.

The first withdrawn candidate to quit was Kirsten Gilibrand. If you do not know about her, well you are not missing out on much. She is a current senator for the state of New York. A few things that defined her campaign was her support of abortion at any stage of the pregnancy. Also she heavily campaigned for the abolishment of ICE and for the legalization of weed. The biggest struggle for her campaign was that the core issues that she focused on were a major part of every other democratic candidate as well. She struggled to gain any traction in donors and the polls so decided to quite.

Our second candidate to withdraw was Beto O’rourke. Similar to Gilibrand he struggled to gain any sort of traction in the polls and could not raise the money needed to stay in the race. His campaign was plagued with issues from his past and lack of political experience. Also he ran into struggles as he campaigned for the support of a $15+ hourly wage. Yet it turned out that he was not even paying his own campaign staffers this (Something Bernie Sanders does as well just fyi). When he finally received enough backlash on this issue he raised his wage but ended up having to lay off so many staffers (because it was unafforable) that his campaign suffered. His main part platforms were heavy restrictions for gun owners, abortion at any term, and taking away tax exempt status from churches. Yet for some reason the media loved him, so I would not be surprised if he gets picked to be a vice-president candidate or even chief of staff if the Democratic nominee wins the election this year. So those are the first two major candidates to withdraw, but I would expect to see many more here in the next few weeks. So stay tuned.

Kamala Harris is another candidate many in the democratic party think has a good chance of beating Trump during this cycle. She is highly experienced and has a lot of cross over appeal to people who are undecided on Trump and looking for someone with her back ground. However, besides Bernie Sanders, I think she has the most red flags out of all the candidates running, but first, let’s take a look at her history.

Harris was born in 1964 in Oakland, California. Her mom was an immigrant from India who had come to the US to pursue her Doctorate in Endocrinology at Berkeley University. And her dad was Economic professor at Berkeley who had moved to the US from Jamaica. So, growing up she was introduce to a wide variety of topics which helped give root to a very diverse background for her.

Kamala went on to attend Howard University in 1981 where she doubled majored in political science and economics. Upon graduating, she went on to attend law school in San Francisco and passed her bar in 1990.

After finishing law school, Harris was hired on as the deputy district attorney where she was quickly identified as an exceptionally able prosecutor. In 1998, she was appointed assistant district attorney which she quit after 8 months. The in 2003, she decided to run for district attorney. During this election she had to battle campaign spending violations which her campaign committed. However, Harris was able to win a very tight runoff election and win the position. After some time in this position she decided to run for Attorney General of California which she won in 2010. In 2016, she ran and won her race for Senate and then only a year and half later decided to run for president.

The biggest problem I have with Kamala Harris is her time as district attorney and later as California attorney general. During 2003 when she was being asked about progressiveness and its approach to crime she said, “It is not progressive to be soft on crime”. And this was the approach she took to her new position. She repeatedly pushed for longer sentences for people convicted of non violent crimes, even making the argument in 2014 that said criminals should not be released as they provided California with free labor. (This was in response to the Supreme Court decision that California was violating the constitutions cruel and unusual punishment through their over crowding of prisons) Also, Harris also targeted people with drug use such as weed. A drug she argues should not be illegal and even admitted to using. Currently many of her policies that she is running on for president, directly counter what she did as attorney general. Now this would not be so bad if she would just admit that her beliefs during her time as Attorney General were wrong. However, she instead continues to go back to this time and point at it as a reason for us to vote for her. Even though she was prosecuting people and putting them in jail for crimes that she admittedly did as well. The hypocrisy of it all is sickening, not to mention that I wholeheartedly disagree with her on many of her policies she now advocates for.

Here is a list of her policy beliefs if you want to read them. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/kamala-harris/

Now will she be able to beat Trump? I think she can. She has a wide appeal to people around the country, and has a lot of experience. I think she will simply just struggle to get out of primaries. However, I would look for her to be the winners Vice-president choice. However, we shall have to wait and see what happens.

So recently I have had to write about candidates that I genuinely dislike. So I decided (in part because apparently I am the only one from this class who reads this blog) to write about someone who I am interested in. Which brings us to Andrew Yang. If the Democratic Party wants to beat Trump and beat him soundly, then this is the guy who I believe could do it. He self styles himself as the complete opposite of trump as an Asian guy who likes math.

Yang was born in New York to parents who had immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan. His parents both graduated from the graduate programs at Berkeley and have had very successful careers. Andrew spent most of his childhood in New York where he experienced bullying and racial slurs at his public school. He later went on to say that these experiences helped him to develop pride in the underdog and sympathy for those in similar situations. He went on to attend Brown University where he majored in political science and economics. After that, Yang went to Columbia Law School which he finished in 1999. Upon graduation, he spent the next several years working as a corporate attorney. During this time he helped launch Stargiving.com. This was a celebrity based site that helped with philanthropic fundraising. In 2006, Yang went to become the CEO of Manhattan Prep which was a test preparation company. Also during this time he helped to found Venture for America. This was a nonprofit program that was formed to help create economic opportunity in American cities by helping entrepreneurs.

As far as Yang’s policies go, well he is a bit different from other candidates. One of the biggest things he advocates for is a universal income of 1,000 dollars a month to all citizens over the age of 18. This is something that I personally think is impossible to pay for, but he believes that he has figured out a solution for it. So I will let you guys decide what you think on that. But as I have done with all the other candidates, I will include a link to an article that has all of his platform policies for you to look at. I will also put in a link to his universal income idea.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2019/09/05/andrew-yang-2020-president-democratic-nomination

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/aug/12/andrew-yangs-universal-basic-income-proposal-expla/

Now for the question of will Yang be able to beat Trump. Well I have already told you what I think. Yes, I think he can and it would be pretty resounding as well. His ability to articulate, let insults roll over him, and the calm demeanor he has is in stark contrast with that of Trump. And while yes, he has some different ideas regarding Universal Income and automation in the industry world, I think the majority of America would support him. However, the biggest thing in his way is the Democratic party and the leaders of said party support in candidates such as Biden and Warren. If he can figure out a way to overcome that issue, well he very easily could be our next president.

Joe Biden is most widely known as former President Obama’s vice president. It is widely believed that he offers the democratic party their best chance at beating Trump. He as largely based much of his current campaign image off of this idea. But let’s take a deeper look into who he is as a person and some of the policies he advocates for.

Biden was born in 1942 in Scranton PA. He graduated from Delaware University with a double major in History and Political Science. Upon graduating he enrolled in Syracuse University to go Law school which he completed in 1968. During his time in law school he had to retake some of his classes due to issues with plagiarism that he was accused of doing. Something that would later become an issue during his run for Senate.

In 1972, Biden decided to run for Senate and with little funds or outside spending managed to pull off a stunning upset over the incumbent Republican senator. However, just a few weeks after his election, his wife and one-year old daughter were killed in a tragic car accident. He considered retiring to focus on raising his two sons but was convinced to finish out his term. During the next 5 years he remained a singled father and would ride a train back home (a 90 minute ride) each day to ensure that he remained an active part of his sons lives. In 1977, he remarried and continued with his political career. This led to him running for the democratic nomination in 1988 and again 2008. He failed to win the nomination either time but remained an active senator. After his attempt to win the nomination failed in 2008, he was asked to run as Obama’s vice-president and upon their election, he served two terms in this role. He took a break during the 2016 election cycle but remained active in the political world. Which gets us to today where he is the front poll runner for the democratic nominee.

The platform issues that he advocates for is probably the lest radical of the democratic candidates. It is still very far left compared to his former campaigns and even much of his voting records while a senator. I included a quick read from Politico that lists out the major platform issues if you want to find out for yourself.

https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/joe-biden/

Now the big question that all is hounding the Democrats during this Primary race is, can Biden (or any of the other candidates) beat Trump? Personally, if the Democratic party would ease up on some of their hard-line stances they take and try to appeal to the middle of the political spectrum (which is where most of Americans beliefs are) then this would be an easy victory for them. However, they just can not seem to figure that out. Now back to the question of can Biden beat Trump. Personally, I don’t think he can. The semi-awkward way he handles himself on the debate stage and kind of just general way he carries himself I think will get eaten up by Trump’s aggressive and crude approach. To handle Trump and the constant tirade of insults you would get from him would require a temperament that I just do not think Biden quite has. I do think though that Biden has just enough support to win the Democratic Primary though and would present an extremely difficult challenge to Trump due to his experience and the good will he has gotten from his time as Obama’s vice president. I just do not think he is the Democratic Party’s best chance at beating Trump. And to find out who that person is, well stay tuned.