> We will support candidates for office who align with our core principles so that we can reform the system and make it more responsive to the American people. This means that we will support Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - as well as candidates identifying themselves as Forward Party members.
Yang definitely hates Trump. He's not about to put him into power any time soon.
Yang is more about wielding influence on political discussion and trying to move the country away from incumbency than anything else. I really don't foresee anyone building a campaign on the forward party, but I can see a democrat or republican leveraging the forward party's ideas in the right environment to get endorsements from it to win in tight elections.
We will support candidates for office who align with our core principles so that we can reform the system and make it more responsive to the American people. This means that we will support Republicans, Democrats, and Independents - as well as candidates identifying themselves as Forward Party members.
> The party, which is centrist, has no specific policies yet. It will say at its Thursday launch: "How will we solve the big issues facing America? Not Left. Not Right. Forward."
Universal basic income was a major part of Yang's campaign in 2020. Given enough time, I suppose it could become centrist. In the meantime, this raises the question of what positions this new party will support exactly.
> .. The leaders cited a Gallup poll last year showing a record two-thirds of Americans believe a third party is needed.
One of the reasons they do so badly is that American third parties have almost nothing to do with respect to local governance. They tend to be focused on trying to win national elections. It's hard to build a bench of electable national candidates when so few of them have run a city or state under the banner of the party they're running with.
Unless this third party is willing to make a serious investment in local governance, I doubt it will do much better than the others.
> However a third party could be disastrous for the democrats,
The US has several hundred political parties. New ones rarely move the needle on national campaigns even on the margins, and the exceptions invariably are founded by candidates that made major marks in recent-prior national campaigns as an independent without a party apparatus energizing their nee party drive, and still underperform the founder’s independent campaign before fading into irrelevance.
Yang might launch an Nth party, but it’ll make less difference in 2024 than Kanye West did in 2020. to
> A third party could be really beneficial in some areas where democrats dominate everything.
In a number of those places, nationally-minor parties (e.g., Greens) already outperform Republicans (and in some, they dominate local offices, though Democrats tend to win the State/Federal ones.)
I'm not a huge Yang fan but any viable third party would be welcomed. Much of the political deadlock and stagnation of the US comes from there being two parties that both try to appeal to the largest groups of people possible.
Yang has never been my top choice, but I think he's generally a good dude. However a third party could be disastrous for the democrats, who can only just barely win elections due to the current structure of the electorate. Hopefully he will be more strategic than that, however. A third party could be really beneficial in some areas where democrats dominate everything.
I think the best way to think about this party is that the goal isn't to win elections (get the majority of votes, beat out the republican/democratic party) - it is to wield influence via a platform.
If you think Andrew Yang is establishing a political party to win a government race, I think its a bit too naive.
I think he is trying to use a third party lever to influence a bunch of small things to snowball into larger things, and he doesn't have the space to do that in the existing parties.
Ranked choice vote seems like the best low hanging fruit. If Yang can bring 5-10 more of these issues into the public eye, he will be the most influential person in politics, whether he is in office or not.
> I also find it much more plausible that a third party would make inroads at the state and local level and build momentum from there, rather than a third party candidate emerging out of nowhere and taking the presidency outright.
For example, and independent in Vermont could become a mayor, then Governor, then Senator, and then have a shot at the White House.
> The only way the people take this country back is to start a third party.
If a party was started, it wouldn't be a third party, it'd be something like a fortieth party, excluding strictly regional parties.
The reason additional parties aren't competitive is structural in the electoral systems used in federal and state elections, and adding more parties isn't going to change that.
> The obvious answer is to say, "Don't associate yourself with the D/R Party unless you agree with all of their viewpoints," [...]
Well yeah. The point of a party is to obliterate the minor differences and bull forward efficiently. You're supporting all their platforms even if you only like a few.
> I believe we can end up with an even better answer that allows people to get organized
But can you think of one that doesn't involve signing up for someone else to represent you, lock-stock-and-barrel?
I think so, but I think we need to look beyond parties.
"So for the 2020 election I would love to see a truly forward looking candidate who does not tie their fate to one of the existing parties but rather establishes a movement of their own..."
In case the author has forgotten, we had two candidates in the last US presidential election who were not tied to the major parties: Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. Neither of them got a single electoral vote:
(Looks like there was a candidate from the Independent Party too, but he got so little coverage I never even heard of him.)
The problem is that the media pretty much ignores them, they're not included in the important debates, and most people won't vote for them since they don't want to "waste their votes" on someone who they don't think can win. Unless these problems can be solved, the US system is going to be dominated by the two big parties forever.
True, but what you go to as a starting point is telling.
"A lot of people on Twitter like this" is a naive seeming starting point. It just seems like an extension/abstraction of Yang's candidacy. My key point is that a party is not that.
There are lots of starting points, all incomplete, that he could have chosen. Multiple, politically credible people. Another option might be organisational novelty: This is how we'll recruit & nominate candidates.
Certainly not discounting that this can't be straightened out later, just that it is not straight now. At this point it's not that different than a book tour. It's a set of policy ideas, an author making the rounds defending them, with supporters and detractors in the public or press.
Calling that a political party should be a statement of intent. What is "the party," meaning Andrew, intending?
> Platform: Putting People Before Corporations [..] Opening up Government [i.e. transparency]
Every party makes similar promises. Instead, lead with what makes you different - your focus on IP law and digital rights. Perhaps even emphasize your flexibility or neutrality on other issues, so that your voting base isn't decimated by your positions on wedge issues.
This might be a controversial take but candidates for the Libertarian party should be libertarians. If Yang wanted to run under an existing third party then the Green Party would make more sense.
> But if all the splinter third party candidates got their act together and mobilized themselves and developed a solid platform
Yeah, but, see, the Libertarian Party and the Socialist Party (and those aren't even the most divergent among the non-major parties) aren't going to unite around a common policy platform. In fact, each of them is closer to policy commonality with one of the major parties than they are too each other.
No, their strategy is to focus on reform from the bottom up: getting local officials elected at the city, county, and state levels in order to pass electoral reform (states control election in the US) to make our national politics less inflammatory. Parties matter less at these levels. Their main goal right now is to get ranked choice voting passed in as many states as possible (focusing their energy on ballot initiatives). They are also not a "party" (they are registered as a PAC). This way, republicans or democrats can receive a foward party nomination without having to leave their own parties and run independent. They just have to be aligned with forward party goals. They have maybe 1 or 2 US representatives that they're tracking, but Andrew Yang is not running for president in 2024 because it would just be a waste of money to them. The vast majority of their advocacy is at the state and city level
> The Forward Party is a PAC that plans to grow its support and then petition the FEC for recognition as a political party when we fulfill the requirements, which include operating in several states, supporting candidates, getting volunteers signed up around the country, and other party activities.
The Forward Party is a PAC that plans to grow its support and then petition the FEC for recognition as a political party when we fulfill the requirements, which include operating in several states, supporting candidates, getting volunteers signed up around the country, and other party activities.
Yang definitely hates Trump. He's not about to put him into power any time soon.
Yang is more about wielding influence on political discussion and trying to move the country away from incumbency than anything else. I really don't foresee anyone building a campaign on the forward party, but I can see a democrat or republican leveraging the forward party's ideas in the right environment to get endorsements from it to win in tight elections.
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