j.r. leonard

They don't literally round up homeless people, but there are services though which you can hire someone to wait in line for you. Don't really see the problem. It's decent wage work for people who need work.

There's a thing called optics.

Sure. There's also a thing called moral intuition, which sometimes leads to snap judgments. But upon reflection, there are lobbyists who don't have time to wait in line and people who don't have any higher paid employment options. Who's better off if we ended that practice?

Eeeeeeeeeveryone.

I'm with @J_RtheWriter on the notion that if the only change you make is to prevent lobbyists from hiring homeless people and don't change anything else, then you've greatly improved the optics while leaving everything that isn't optics worse off

Oh, I agree with that part. It's the "and also don't criticize it or even show it and in fact maybe do show it and praise it" part that makes me dubious.

There is this notion, near-universal among people who are political junkies, that is totally divorced from reality: that TERRIBLE optics on your side mean nothing and if you just explain to people your intellect will win them over and there will be no price to pay down the road.

That’s a real problem, but it’s also a problem if our response is to just fix the optics no matter what even if it exacerbates the underlying problem. And this is a case where I am more concerned about the latter than the former