 So, the task forces that Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden formed at the end of the Democratic Party primary have come to a conclusion, and after months of deliberation on issues such as education, criminal justice reform, healthcare, climate change, they have predictably produced nothing of value. And I say that because, I mean, listen to Joe Biden's rhetoric. Has he moved at all on the issue of healthcare? Well, here's what he said in an interview with Medicare for All activist Adi Barkan. It's no secret that I support Medicare for All. I don't. So obviously he hasn't budged at all. But don't worry because he thinks that healthcare is a right and not a privilege, wink, wink. I mean, it's just it's embarrassing. And in 2019, if you were against Medicare for All, you should at least be moved a little bit in the direction after a pandemic, right after the Supreme Court held that Donald Trump can let employers deny healthcare coverage on the basis of what they don't want to be offered if they're religious. I mean, he still hasn't changed in spite of all of this. You had no argument in 2019 and in 2020, you definitely don't have an argument. But regardless, he's standing strong. It's no secret that I support Medicare for All. I don't. I hate him so much. I hate him so much. Now if you ask people on the task forces, people who Bernie Sanders specifically appointed like AOC, they don't necessarily feel as, you know, depressed about the outcome of these task forces as I do. For example, AOC tweeted today, the six Biden Sanders unity task forces are unveiling final language. The climate task force accomplished a great deal. It was an honor to serve as co-chair with Secretary John Kerry. Among the notable gains we shaved 15 years off Biden's previous target for 100 percent clean energy. The climate task force has agreed to elevate Biden's climate standards across the board and adopt a whole of government mobilization, including ambitious construction, mass transit and transport and ag standards plus investment, creating millions of good jobs, centering climate justice standards. So she feels as if they accomplished something on top of that. Dr. Abdul al Said, who was appointed to the healthcare task force alongside, you know, Pramila Jayapal and others by Bernie Sanders, also feels as if these task forces were relatively successful saying Joe Biden isn't Bernie. He does not support Medicare for all. We deeply disagree on this, but he does support universal coverage, expanding public coverage, reigning in pharma and health equity, things we do agree on our task force recommendations build upon these aims. Now listen, I truly respect and admire the effort that was made by people that Bernie Sanders appointed to these task forces. I think that AOC and Dr. Abdul al Said, they were trying their best to, you know, make progress where it's possible. But I think that this is in the end, it's putting progressives and the left at a disadvantage because we're already showing our cards, right? We're telling the establishment, we're definitely willing to compromise and this is what we take. So if they know that we'd be willing to water down our own policies, then why would they give us the full package? They're going to give us what we've agreed to water down and probably less than that, right? Because when you already pre negotiate, well, you have to assume you will be negotiated down even further. And it's just, it's a bad strategy. And when it comes to something like Medicare for all, we shouldn't have to propose things to Biden to consider. He should be proposing things to us to get us on board, right? And the response shouldn't be, well, since, you know, you don't support Medicare for all, we'll accept, you know, reigning in big pharma. No, our response should be we're planting our feet in the ground and we're not budging. It's going to be Medicare for all. And if you are elected president, we're going to do everything in our power to fight to pass Medicare for all through Congress. And if you don't sign that fucking bill, we will stand outside of the White House with signs every single day until you do. We're going to fight you until you pass our policy. So, you know, it just, it seems like it's bad. It's getting progressives to show their cards and admit that we will accept the half measures that Democrats will only give us. And you just, you don't want to do that. And I want the left to be more savvy. Now, I'm not saying that there's like no potential for these task forces to produce good. Like, let's say, hypothetically speaking, we get one win without watering down any other policies. Let's say we don't get Medicare for all, but in exchange for him not adopting Medicare for all, he agrees to, you know, sign on to legalizing cannabis nationwide. That would be beneficial, but we didn't get that either. As Politico reports, amid nationwide protests against police brutality, the criminal justice panel formed by Biden and Sanders got into heated debates in recent weeks over qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields police from being sued for misconduct. Progressives pushed to end it. But Biden appointees agreed only to sign on to a commitment to reign in the rule. Another flashpoint over marijuana ended similarly. Sanders' team argued in private meetings that they should legalize cannabis, but that idea was rejected. One task force member described the disagreements over qualified immunity and pot as huge battles and multiple people involved said the criminal justice panel presented some of the biggest challenges for compromise. Now, what I don't understand is let's say, hypothetically speaking, that the Sanders people were successful and they got the Biden people to agree to adopt legalizing cannabis. So they, you know, they printed out, they put it on Joe Biden's desk and they say, we recommend that you agree to legalize cannabis. He can unilaterally just say, no, I don't support it. So I mean, like at the end of the day, I just, I'm failing to see the utility in this. It's good for corporate Democrats like Joe Biden because he knows we're already willing to concede and accept his half measures rather than like pulling him, you know, with his feet dragging to our side, we're having to go the distance to meet him halfway when he should be meeting us halfway, right? So we're having to compromise, but he's not willing to compromise. That's the issue here that I'm having with this. It seems weird to me that, you know, you have a bunch of people on these task forces come up with policies to recommend to a candidate who can unilaterally accept or reject any of them. So I mean, if they agreed on everything, if these task forces all held hands and sang kumbaya, Joe Biden doesn't necessarily have to agree to adopt these policies. And even if he did agree to adopt these policies, you know, there's no guarantee that he would fight for them. So these, these are just, these seem like pointless efforts here. And again, I'm trying not to like shit on what people like AOC and Dr. Abdul-Isaid tried to do because I mean, I think they were trying, but it just, it doesn't seem conducive to anything that will benefit the left. And if anything, it's going to lead to us being placated. Now, the entire document is more than a hundred pages, so I can't possibly go through all of it. But it seems like a lot of the victories, the key victories for the left come in the form of climate change, immigration and a lot of Obama era executive orders that Joe Biden is going to sign into law. As NBC News reports, the recommendations, though, include a significant number of actions Biden could direct the executive branch to take without congressional approval, much as the Trump administration has systematically reversed Obama era actions over his four years. They include executive orders on issues that are currently on the forefront of people's minds, like helping frontline workers, new guidelines on policing, use of force measures, housing, outsourcing jobs, addressing health care disparities, and undoing Trump's executive orders on immigration. So in other words, the biggest victories that it seems like we got out of these task forces is that Joe Biden is being recommended to sign executive orders that undo the executive orders that Trump signed, which undid the executive orders that Obama signed, which I fully expected Joe Biden to do anyway. But the people involved seem very optimistic. Bernie Sanders tweeted, while Joe Biden and I and our supporters have strong disagreements about some of the most important issues facing our country, we also understand that we must come together in order to defeat Donald Trump, the most dangerous president in modern American history. Though the end result isn't what I or my supporters would have written alone, the task forces have created a good policy blueprint that will move this country in a much needed progressive direction and substantially improve the lives of working-class families throughout our country. I look forward to working with Vice President Biden to help him win this campaign and to move this country forward toward economic, racial, social, and environmental justice. Yeah, I mean, to me, all of this, frankly, seems like window dressing. It's not going to make Joe Biden more appealing if he agrees that these recommendations from the task forces to throw progressives a little bit more crumbs is going to be what he's going to do. The reason anyone would vote for Joe Biden is because he's not Donald Trump. Period, end of story. So you don't have to create this false appeal that's not there. And we wanna make sure that Trump doesn't appoint another Supreme Court justice. You can make the case for Joe Biden without forcing progressives to show our cards and admit that we're willing to water down the policies that we support rather than holding strong. Him just not being Donald Trump is probably enough for most people. But to me, when I see this attempt to throw crumbs to progressives, I just feel insulted. It puts us in a worse negotiating position later on when we actually do have power because we're already showing the establishment that we're more than willing to water down our own message. And it's just, it's all around, I think, harmful. So this didn't produce anything. I mean, we'll have to wait and see, right? I mean, maybe Joe Biden will say, wow, I really like these recommendations. I'm going to adopt X, Y and Z. But at the end of the day, Joe Biden is Joe Biden. Like these recommendations mean nothing if Joe Biden himself doesn't actually change. And if they recommend something that he thinks is a little bit too extreme, he could just unilaterally dismiss it. So it's not really that inspiring to me. Like if Joe Biden truly wanted to reach out to the left, this task force isn't necessarily the way to do that. He could just offer us policy concessions that he knows we want, right? But I mean, in terms of Bernie Sanders, I get that he doesn't want to be blamed for Donald Trump getting reelected and he shouldn't and won't. But this is not the way to do it. It feels disingenuous. It feels manipulative. You don't have to try to lie to us and get us to think that Joe Biden is more progressive than he is in actuality. Joe Biden is appealing to people because he's not Donald Trump. And that's it. He's not progressive. We know exactly what we're getting with Joe Biden. Maybe a Supreme Court appointee that isn't extreme, right? Isn't some far-right goon like Brett Kavanaugh. But what we do know is that this unity task force isn't going to move Biden because if he were moved at all, don't you think that a pandemic would have moved him on healthcare? If a pandemic doesn't get him to change his mind on healthcare, for example, then I don't think that a task force's recommendation is. So I feel like I'm a Debbie Downer here. I don't want people to be like, I don't know overly doomish and gloomish about this, but I just feel like there are better ways to affect change. There are better routes that the left can take to influence people in power. And I feel like this is the least productive, if not harmful way at going about doing that. You know, you know this, you know this thing, thing. I don't. You're getting nervous, man, man.