Consider this: What is actually possible for us to get passed? What do you think the TYT Community would be committed to working on together? This may mean that we don’t work on our absolute #1 topic just yet (or it may). Our long-term, ultimate goal is to choose something that we see as being reasonable, worthwhile, and logical to begin with as we launch Operation Hope.
Hey Galphar - when you get some time, can you add all of the other suggestions from that other thread as well? There are some from people at the beginning of the convo that I’m afraid have been overlooked with all the back and forth. Hopefully this will clear it up once and for all!
I will try to keep the list up-to-date and you can also check over in this thread from the TYT Official Discord to see if they added any new ideas over there: Discord
OK we have over 15 ideas for legislation here. Now what we need is for everyone to pls look at the descriptions of the ideas using the links provided in the list at the top and then let us know your top 3 picks and why. From there we can start to get the list down to the Top 3 that we ALL agree CAN be accomplished and should be what is focused on in Operation: Hope and let Cenk and Alison know. Remember this will be a consensus among us and not just a poll to determine a “winner”
And don’t forget that the same conversation is happening over in the TYT Forums( Discord ) and to see what they are saying over there too.
I think #1 for me would be The John Lewis Voting Act. They ALMOST got it passed right after he died so you’d think it wouldn’t be too hard to get it passed with some “persuading” of GOP from Swing Districts and States.
#2 for me would be Medicare4All because of how well it polls and getting people in Swing Districts again to convince their Politicians to do it really shouldn’t be hard either
#3 would be Gun Laws/Restrictions. Same reason as above and even the “gun lovers” agree with the background checks. I’d definitely want a National Database that gets checks every time a person purchases a gun and closure of the “Gun Show Loopholes” as well as just redoing the anti-auto law from back in the 90’s.
I do agree with you @monkeypants about Paid Family Leave tho. For me tho, I’d put that in as part of a Medicare4All bill
Loving how this conversation is going - I really enjoy learning about everyone’s ideas and reasoning. Hopefully the Discord folks will peek in here and say hi so we can all figure this out together. Either way, thank you @Galphar for helping to guide the conversation in both places!
To narrow those ideas down to three to start with, I would surely include the idea which seems most likely to be passable so that we gain momentum. The thing is, while I’m confident in some things, like our (eventual) necessity to directly target deep capture operations, my knowledge of what is imminently most passable is lacking. I might guess student loan forgiveness is the most passable option so far, due in no small part to the context of it being Cenk’s opponent’s failure, and also because I would guess the other options have greater political opposition. However I also know that I don’t actually know enough about each of (and in-between each of) all those listed ideas to have confidence in that guess; (for instance, perhaps things like the financial industry are more entrenched against student loan cancelation than I’m aware of, or perhaps things like big pharma are less so regarding healthcare legislations).
Honestly, I feel as if this type of decision for prioritizing legislations of our campaign platform may be not well suited to this form of decision making, since I would (respectfully) expect most of us are similarly limited in what we know and don’t know. Though, I would hope those with campaigning experience would have more insight into the kind of public support, entrenched interests, financial backing, political pushback, legal hurdles, etc. which would collectively determine what is (for instance) most passable, and ultimately how to strategize our priorities. I guess I hope we’re mostly supporting such decision processes for those more qualified than me, despite that it feels to me as if we could be being too determinative. But, maybe operation hope is intending to develop our qualifications?
That tangent aside, other than what is most passable, I might guess a campaign legislative platform should also include one of our most popular ideas so as to expand wider popular support; I mean to say, something so popular that Trump voters would join in political support, which I might guess could be my deep [state] capture industry idea. By the way, things like the anti-corruption measures idea as well as the campaign finance reform idea would be included within my idea, since such issues are mostly products of deep capture operations. Though, since my idea is more of a tactical series of legislations and other politicking than it is just a singular piece of legislation, perhaps initiating my idea with something like the anti-corruption measures would be the better path forward on this front, (if still presuming it would expand our political support among the right wing, and presuming such should be a goal represented among our three legislative priorities).
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If we really want me to guess a third legislative priority, I would think it should depend on the shortcomings from whichever the first two legislative campaign pillars actually end up being. For instance, perhaps the deep capture industry idea lacks crucial coverage for widening popular support (guessing: possibly pro-establishment democratic voters). And perhaps the student loan forgiveness idea might actually invite some liability (I’m blind to) which our third legislative priority could try to balance in some way. (I’m probably hammering too hard on my point that I don’t know how to politically prioritize and strategically weave this all together, but hopefully my collaboration still helps guide us). EDIT: And /or maybe there is a third consideration other than something passable and something popular which our third legislation should fulfill.
Lastly, I have a question which might help me understand how to have better replied. What does @alison_hartson mean by the things she suggests we consider? Perhaps we could have more clear suggestions, and directions beyond one step at a time, so that we can understand the intentions and directionality of our collaboration, and the potential limitations we might should be aware of. Hopefully I make sense; let me know if I can clarify.
Love and peace!
PS, my apologies if my long windedness and double posting are concerning.
PPS, please, if you haven’t yet, go read my thread on running progressive republicans, especially if that sounds unwise; I need more critique over there. Run progressive republican (Justice Republican?)
@jared123456 When you refer to “a campaign legislative platform” are you meaning a platform that Cenk will use in his Presidential Campaign? Operation: Hope is totally separate from that campaign and has nothing to do with it
Ah, yeah actually. Thanks for the clarification. So, how exactly are our legislative ideas supposed to be used? Why have we tried to narrow to three? I guess I presumed these ideas would be picked up by campaigns later, such as Cenk’s, and that we were narrowing to focus on the best ideas for such campaigns.
Secondarily, in general, I actually feel we would work better by not pulling all our efforts into limited sets of (legislative) ideas, because then it pulls people out of the subject matter they would be most useful in, and all these issues need work and action.
I’ve been looking at Operation: Hope as like the TYT Army was but just picking 1 Issue at a time to focus on; were the Army focuses on multiple issues at once. TYT Army also work more at a local level. Think of it like this: TYT Army Cincinnati will have different things it is working on that what TYT Army NYC does. For Operation: Hope I think it will be more of a national thing
Let me see if I can help address your question. I do not speak for Cenk nor TYT - anyone, including any of you, may disagree with this but this is as I understand it /slash/ what I recommend:
Operation Hope’s Ultimate Goal: To build a powerful team of progressive activists that self-organize together in order to help to get legislation passed so that we can make real-world change for our families and communities.
Operation Hope’s Current Objective: To self-organize around our first piece of legislation in order to make real-world change and begin building our experience and strength together as a team.
Operation Hope’s Current Mission:
Decide on top three pieces of legislation (THIS IS THE STEP WE’RE ON NOW)
Decide on THE piece of legislation we will organize around based on the top three list
Develop a strategy for helping to get the legislation to pass
Develop a plan for how to execute the strategy
Execute Strategy
Evaluate
Adjust accordingly
Repeat steps 5-7 until…
Celebrate!
Debrief for learnings in preparation for next campaign
I do want to make sure we talk about Student Loan Forgiveness as an option here too. Originally, I was thinking that we didn’t need to consider it because of Biden actually working on it and making some progress. BUT… It still isn’t enough and if we were to focus on it and it did happen we could use it as a springboard to Pre-K through College/Tech for free. Thanks for making me think on this @jared123456
This makes much more sense to me now! Though, probably many of my concerns are still pertinent, (if previously confused). I could probably reword my previous comments, but, could we still address the concerns despite the confusion?
Other than those, also, I feel as if being limited in scope to legislation is probably not my best place. Since, for instance, my primary topics of running progressive republicans (which would be “a strategy for helping to get the legislation to pass”), and also targeting the deep capture industry are both broader in scope than singular legislation.
So glad that helps! Would you mind repeating what concerns I haven’t addressed yet? If it’s about you and others not necessarily having the experience to know what legislation would be the most feasible - that’s totally okay!
That where Cenk, myself, and all of us will work together to provide guidance. We are genuinely interested in what you all think (and why). We certainly don’t have all the answers either. Plus, remember that this is really about building a self-sustaining, self-organizing team. That’s where our real power lies moving forward.
As a result, we can help with any parts where the community feels stuck or needs guidance/expertise, but we really really want you all to learn together and make it happen together.
I should add, though, that I appreciate your comment about not knowing what legislation to prioritize. That’s actually really helpful for us to know where you all may need guidance and support from us. Not only can I relate to that feeling from when I was getting started in political activism, but I do see that as something that activists in general struggle with. It’s a lot! So, I hope you can take comfort in knowing that we are here to help our TYT fam learn and grow together.
