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Who is your favorite US politician of the 21st century?


vcczar

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I've never really understood the idea of having a "favorite" politician. There really aren't any that I would admire because they are all so very, very flawed. They're our employees and the overwhelming majority (at least in the U.S.) are wholly incompetent at serving us. With that being said, I suppose my most preferred politicians would be Barbara Lee and Bernie Sanders, and a couple of only locally-known progressive city councilors who were recently elected in my city.

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If the question was about the 20th Century, Reddit's answer would probably be Huey P. Long...

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On 3/14/2022 at 9:17 AM, vcczar said:

As the title says, who is your favorite US politician of the 21st century?

I've got three: Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich, and Elizabeth Warren.

Kucinich used to be the clear leader, but he's sort made some questionable statements in the last 10 years or so. He hasn't been as bad as Tulsi Gabbard and Mike Gravel, two other progressives who became bombthrowers. I used to really like Gabbard and Gravel, but they're way down my list now, especially Gabbard. The primary reason Kucinich could have been 1st over Sanders and Warren is that he reached prominence before then. He was speaking out about the issues of the 21st century--along the same lines as Sanders and Warren--before Sanders and Warren were receiving attention, although Sanders had actually been active longer. 

My primary issues with Warren and Sanders is that they both peaked at an advanced age. Sanders is closer to my ideal than Warren, but Sanders can be rigid ideologically, although not as rigid as Ron Paul. An inflexible politician isn't very effective in some cases. I see Warren as a more effective progressive in action. 

 

Pete Buttigieg, of course.

Barack Obama and George W Bush are both up there as well -- but they've naturally become tainted by having to actually lead the country, which involves making unpopular decisions sometimes.  Pete hasn't had to that yet (some day, I hope), and thus hasn't been brought down by reality yet.

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20 minutes ago, Patine said:

Gee, @Dobs, it's been two days. Did you just get distracted and forget about this? It was meant as a sincere and honest seeking of information. There was no baiting or rhetorical trap planned at all. Could I please get an answer in good faith? I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume things just piled up. 😉 

Yes, apologies.

School vouchers are a relatively recent alternative solution to public education. The systems works as such: a tuition certificate (or voucher) is given to families who qualify in often low-income areas. These vouchers are then used to pay tuition costs at the private school of the family's choice. This is why vouchers are very often attached to the concept of "school choice."

They are different from charter schools in that while charter schools are specifically schools which are directly publically funded but privately run, vouchers are public funding for individual student to attend privately run and otherwise privately funded institutions.

I am a great proponent of school choice and I think vouchers are a great step in the right direction towards education reform which encourages competition and decentralization.

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