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A thought on progressive policy & political strategy for 2021-2022: Harmful unintended consequences from policies advancing social justice frequently stem from some *other* injustice. That's worth keeping in mind as our priorities are pitted against each other. (1/9)
Why? I believe that this fact alone provides a strong rationale for holistic, multi-pronged solutions. (2/9)
What do I mean? Think about free community college. Some experts will argue that it will (unintentionally) push some people away from more beneficial four-year colleges and programs. (3/9)
Even if that's true, the problem here is that public four-year colleges are often prohibitively costly--not that community colleges aren't. (4/9)
One challenge is that Congress--and its committee system--is not well-organized for holistic solutions. (In this example, the same House & Senate committees could address both injustices.) (5/9)
Another challenge will be the arbitrary spending constraints imposed by elected officials. We should take that challenge head-on, AND democracy fundamentally requires some compromise. (6/9)
But we cannot allow divide & conquer strategies to succeed. Powerful people will pit valuable spending against each other. (7/9)
This is just one reason why I'd urge people to consider the value of chipping away at multiple injustices simultaneously, if that's all we can secure in the end--rather than fighting over a strong set of just policies amongst ourselves. (8/9)
One important counterpoint is that policies should be powerful enough to make a tangible difference in people's lives. I think that's correct: there are minimum policy thresholds below which we might be better off waiting to fight for our preferred policy another day. (9/9)
