Didn’t we just agree that the numbers are up? So I guess a lot of people think that just because we’re doing better, it doesn’t mean we’re done addressing it.
I’ve started listening to Andrew Yang’s Forward Podcast, which he started when the pandemic first broke out back in March 2020.
I listened to the first couple of episodes, jumped to the newest one, and went back to the episode where he assessed why he lost the mayoral race. Andrew still excels in long form discussions, and the podcast is pretty great.
My favorite is this episode:
Where Andrew interviews Lee Drutman, a political scientist who wrote Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop and The Business of America is Lobbying.
Aside from Lee thinking open primaries isn’t the way to go, the two pretty much are in sync on everything else, especially ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, enabling an environment for 4 to 6 viable political parties, and curbing the influence of the lobbyists.
It’s great to hear politicians (which I guess they technically aren’t, as neither have been elected), to have actual solutions and plans to achieve their goals, instead of just pointing out issues and just say “believe me”.
In the mayoral race postmortem episode, Andrew and his team feel the theme of the race shifted from the economy to crime and safety once the city reopened, and even though Andrew got the endorsement from the police and fire departments, conventional wisdom of electing a cop to fight crime coupled with the media’s deliberate unfavorable coverage eroded Andrew’s early support. The fact that the pandemic and the state of the city didn’t drive out more New Yorkers to vote was also a factor. A 10% increase to a already low turnout rate wasn’t enough to budge those primary regulars who are connected to the establishment. Although ranked choice voting almost got us there.
By then, Andrew was already working on forming the Forward Party from his experiences in both national and local primaries. I think he realized real change like ranked choice voting and proportional representation won’t happen nationally, if the primaries are always decided by the establishment. That’s probably why he is in favor of open primaries.
Because the poverty rate is still at 11% (down from 20% before Great Society policies)? The violent crime rate has been cut by more than half since 1990; property crimes more than two-thirds. As a result, I’m sure you support defunding the police.
Some talk about Forward from their Finance Director.
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Huh I don’t know he left the dems.
Good. I like his ideas, except the social bonus points, but I think that train has left the station. I’d prefer tax breaks for composting though, none of that throw. Baseball out to start the playoffs crap. Reward me for doing right. Positive reinforcement. Hello. It works.
I’ll waiting to see what kind of platform they’ll have, it’s all vague now. I align with their core values though, and I’m 95% sure they’ll have my support. First, it’s a solid chance to break up the duopoly. If they push one of the other parties into more pro working class positions, that could be a positive as well.
They have to poach some heavy no-Bernie hitters from both sides. Should we start a list and send it to him? He’s a local boy and we have Taiwan connections. He might actually respond! 
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forward party conjures images of the great leap forward. it seems an unfortunate word choice to me, especially considering his ethnicity.
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Their main platform is electoral reform, and for now concentrates on encouraging the adoption of ranked choice voting in all party primaries in all states. Eventually they would like to see electoral reforms in actual elections as well, like the last mayoral election in New York City. In his podcast, Yang repeatedly said their goal isn’t to run as a third party because running as a third party candidate with the current first past the post system is meaningless.
Right, but they’ll have to adopt a platform with positions on major issues, sooner or later. At least, their individual candidates will. They are now clearly establishing a third party though
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/27/forward-party-new-centrist-third/
Platform:
On guns, for instance, most Americans don’t agree with calls from the far left to confiscate all guns and repeal the Second Amendment, but they’re also rightfully worried by the far right’s insistence on eliminating gun laws. On climate change, most Americans don’t agree with calls from the far left to completely upend our economy and way of life, but they also reject the far right’s denial that there is even a problem. On abortion, most Americans don’t agree with the far left’s extreme views on late-term abortions, but they also are alarmed by the far right’s quest to make a woman’s choice a criminal offense.
Pretty solid presentation of this:
Every single Unity ’08 ’12 ’16 ’20 ’24 op-ed uses this framework: compare some unpopular fringe left-wing position held by virtually no Democratic legislators with an unpopular position Republicans on the Supreme Court think is required by the Constitution, and conclude that both parties are equally radical. (Remember how every six months Tom Friedman would write a column wondering why no political party in America was willing to offer Barack Obama’s agenda to the voters?)
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I was thinking the same. Terrible name. They really need better branding.
In my experience, most Americans wouldn’t immediately connect the word forward with the Great Leap Forward, mostly because they don’t care to know about the Great Leap Forward.
I think most educated Americans would know about it, and a larger number would have heard of it and associate it with vague negative connotations. It also sounds progressive, which is something I’d think a politician with a centrist platform would want to avoid.
I don’t think Andrew Yang cares about labels such as “centrist” or “progressives”. However, since his goal is to improve the current political system, I think he would be categorized as a “progressive” in the original, non-hijacked definition of the term.
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Yes, like I said, he has a branding problem. Which is probably one of the reasons he’s not going anywhere.
Since 2020, 3 states have adopted RCV for future presidential races.
The in addition to Maine, Alaska has adopted RCV for state and federal elections.
Nevada, Wyoming and Kansas used RCV in the 2020 Democratic Primaries. Indiana and Virginia used RCV in their Republican conventions.
At least 50 cities around the countries will be using RCV in their next election.
I don’t think they need to win an election to change the country, and that’s probably what Yang was aiming for.
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Could be, but wouldn’t winning elections be even better?
Yes, since that would mean that election has been changed to RCV and their candidate was preferred by over 50% of total voters in a non-binary, multi-party, multi-candidate race.