The Lesson From California

Hello, I hope your week has been going great! First a few pieces of news:

The Washington Post published my Op-Ed on the struggles of men and boys. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback for calling attention to such a widespread issue.

The Forward Party in Minnesota just launched! Our first official state party is up and running. Let your friends in Minnesota know, and more states are coming soon.

Also, for those of you who wanted to attend the Forward Tour but didn’t, the video from our New York event is being premiered next Friday via livestream! It should be a really fun group watching occasion.

This week on the podcast Zach and I talked about a few things, including the lesson out of California last week.

For a bit of background, progressives in California have been running on single-payer healthcare for years, and Gavin Newsom ran for Governor on it as well. Democrats enjoy a supermajority (75%) of state legislators. So if there’s anyplace it would have a strong chance to pass, it would be in the Golden State.

Unfortunately, it never even came to a vote. It was derailed by a furious effort on the part of health insurance lobbyists in tandem with moderate Democrats. This was considered a major blow.

I’ve been for some version of single-payer healthcare for years. I met literally thousands of Americans struggling with a lack of access over the last several years.

Seeing it fail in California in this way sent a powerful message – even when Democrats are exclusively in control, they can’t pass a plan because of corporate influence and money preventing it.

I’ve concluded something similar about Universal Basic Income; the duopoly won’t pass a robust version of it because they don’t have to deliver results to stay in power. Actually, quite the opposite, as a lot of corporate interests don’t want anything to change.

That’s what drove me to start the Forward Party – we have to reform the system itself in order for anything real and fundamental to change that will improve people’s lives.

Often, people from one party will say, “If we had a majority we would deliver!” and blame the other side for any inability to get things done. But in California, there’s no one to blame but the party in power. If our politics don’t change, nothing will.