I raised over 400k for Andrew's POTUS run and devoted a year of my life to running his official Reddit (104k subs at peak), then joined a SuperPAC to further his positions after the run.
The campaign team was full of fools who squandered almost every good turn received, most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage, and Andrew eventually stole the pac's name and branding - Humanity Forward - put everyone out of a job, and then did basically nothing with the organization.
I've given so much time to this person it's insane. He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people, and he never pays off on what he promises. Just dip your toes into YangGang social media and see how his former fans act now, or the stories of abuse within the campaigns that Andrew hardly acknowledged.
Inspiring message, but I've been close enough to the sausage factory to know it's fluff.
Beware. If you are interested in this endevour do the best you can to build your own power base, do no rely on Andrew's circle to help you in any way other than a retweet.
What's missing here, IMO, is a party. Who's with him? Do you have defectors from the 2 parties? Independents or popular figures joining up? Candidates being stood?
A political party is not a manifesto, it's an organisation.
I actually think there's room for a party to start gaining ground in the US. There are so many elected offices that the surface area is huge. Great for "guerilla tactics." IE, earning easy victories by picking the battle..
Maybe your pick a thousand low key positions, and work on them. Standing a thousand candidates with success, even if the offices are minor, makes you a full fledged party by default.
Uncompetitive regional strongholds, are another opportunity. You could split the large party's vote and earn immediate relevance. You could even split the small party's vote and try to steal 2nd place. That might make you one half of a dichotomy the next time. You could run candidates in republican or democratic primaries. The primary electoral system is diverse, so you can choose to do this where it has a chance.
So, where's the party? Who's running? Where/what? Who else is involved?
A political manifesto is OK, I guess. A party manifesto... that would be a lot more interesting. What are you planning to do?
> 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.
Everything must have a start. He of course have supporters and media attention. All of the questions are valid, I guess. But I would not call it a missing party, just you didn't find it yet. Also, ask on Twitter and you might get a lot of responses.
There is no room for a third party to start gaining ground in the US. We already have a third and fourth party - the Libertarian and Green parties - that have been trying to gain traction for years. Neither has been able to. The Greens came the closest with Nader in 2000.
The reason for that is structural. The Democratic and Republican parties have structurally built themselves into the election system in a way that shuts out any attempt to gain traction by third and fourth parties.
Just think about the fact that the Federal Election Commission, the organization that oversees our elections, is legally required to be half Democrat and half Republican. That tells you everything you need to know.
If we're going to change it to make room for additional parties, we have to take over one of the existing parties with an explicit election reform agenda that removes them from the structural landscape and then restructures it (with things like ranked choice voting or a senate that works on proportional party representation) to allow for third parties to gain traction.
A political party in the USA needs an engaged, interested, reliable representative for every single county election commission, at the very least.
The Libertarians don't have that. The Greens never bothered with rural areas. The Perot believers and the Tea Parties had boots enough but no co-ordination.
Since everything is politicized, the perceived stakes are so high that social / legacy media would not allow something like this to get going.
Take a look at Unity 2020, an effort to recruit a third party for the presidential run. It was banned on Twitter immediately upon creation. No explanation was given (they're a private platform).
Hopefully it'll die down a little bit now that we may have more traditional candidates on both sides, but I don't know because there are just as contentious issues today.
Everything is view from a lens of agenda. When decisions are made, they're made in the context of "what would this mean for [x]?". For instance, if a story, no matter how newsworthy, could lead to lower vaccination rates, it is more likely to be buried. And when you have organizations filled with people that believe certain ideas or politicians would literally end human existence, the stakes couldn't be higher. Any effort that could be seen as helping the wrong side is dead on arrival.
He would do better running as a Libertarian IMO. There's been support for UBI within the LP for a while, the party simply lacks candidates with a compelling story.
In 2016 though, if the people who voted Green Party would have voted LP the LP would have earned 5% (instead it earn 3.5%) of the popular vote granting it full federal funding through the entire next election cycle.
It's the closest any third party has come to being validated in decades. During the 2020 cycle, both candidates were duds unfortunately and it showed in the voting.
The top line, "Not Left. Not Right. Forward." kind of reminds me of Macron's "En Marche" ("Let's Go") that took over France in a storm, taking over the presidency AND the parliament only one year after its foundation, with very few previously known political figures in its ranks.
The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics, and offered an alternative to fed-up voters who didn't dare turn to the usual far-right and far-left "protest votes".
Headed with a nimble tactical vision, the formula was extremely efficient... for one mandate.
I suspect a huge part of Macron's success was his opponent. France elections have a top-2 runoff, and I wouldn't be surprised if many electors were like "I don't like Macron but I really don't want Le Pen to win".
The whole "socially progressive, economically middle of the road" political coalition that would win every election on HN is extremely unpopular in the real world.
I hadn't realised just how much Macron's party materialized from nowhere. Must have been huge pent-up demand for an alternative. However I suspect that only works in systems that aren't FPTP in the first place, and I suspect Macron is going to the same nowhere that all American third-party candidates go.
Especially if he starts by aiming for the top. What might work is a third party taking a city and then a state. This is how third parties practically operate in the UK, they're all local - SNP, Plaid, the various Northern Ireland factions.
In Brazil a couple parties sprouted up in the past few years: Novo (New) and MBL (Free Brazil Movement). They both position themselves as being "outside" of the left-right spectrum.
And of course, it's a marketing trick to capture people who are 'fed up with the system' and don't realize it is an impossible proposition. If you're in government you'll inevitably have to position yourself on all issues, including labour laws, social safety nets, property rights and so on.
Invariably these parties sit on the right of the political spectrum. The current government already ran with this idea back then, made of "outsiders" who incidentally have really far-right ideas and associate with the military. But they see themselves as "apolitical", whatever that means...
It's also almost the tagline Rita Verdonk used to use: "Niet links, niet rechts, maar rechtdoorzee" ("not left, not right, but straightforward").
This was when she started her own party after being sidelined by the party of the current prime minister of the Netherlands, after getting more votes than he did. Her party failed miserably, and ten years later he's still prime minister.
Which is to say: success doesn't just come from the tagline, I suppose.
"forward" means "progress" which means "left". I don't really see the point there :P I've seen many parties claim "we are not left-wing or right-wing" but they evidently have to be either.
Macron (a banker) was strongly supported by mainstream medias. And when people realized he was a potential winner, many politicians from left and right started to rally him.
Macron's "En Marche" never took over France "in a storm". That is just media spin. Macron is your typical establishment droid and has always been perceived as such by the majority of the French population. The only reason he won the presidency is because of the extreme vilification of Marine Le Pen by mainstream media.
En Marche benefitted from the peculiarity of France's electoral system, which combines proportional representation in a 1st round with a "sudden death" 2nd round for the powerful presidency with only the two best-polling parties taking part. When it became clear that the far-right would be the largest single party, people ditched traditional party allegiances to back a candidate they found tolerable.
</strikeout>
(Apologies for posting my half-mangled recollections without checking and thanks to the commenters who fixed my incorrect claims).
France's electoral system is not well-suited to its current political landscape.
While Macron did indeed win the second round of voting in a landslide, I think that had more to do with an overwhelming rejection of the social-nativism of the National Front. In the first round of voting, it was striking how evenly split four of the candidates were. This is particularly interesting because (as a general political rule) as the margins between candidates decrease, tactical voting tends to correspondingly increase. This is why you very rarely see four-way (or more) splits in voting, and means voters must have been especially divided along multiple axes (i.e. not just "left" and "right"!). Macron was really the candidate of the "internationalist right" - a supporter of global institutions who opposed redistribution (see his abolition of the ISF - the wealth tax).
This. I want someone who will throw the culture war out the window (both the left and right wings of it) and focus 100% on competent problem solving and execution and on real world practical problems facing the country.
These are problems like infrastructure, transportation, water security in the West, energy modernization and decarbonization, repatriation of critical manufacturing capabilities (or at least making the country attractive for it), bringing government services into the digital age, and so on.
"Competence!" should be the battle cry of this movement.
The culture war gets everyone to focus on culture war issues instead of the basic competence of the candidates, leading to the election of the likes of reality show star bullshit artists and people with early stage dementia.
The was once the slogan in ex Yugoslavia, death to fascism, freedom to the people.
Socialism/communism light followed.
Eventually, once that failed, people started saying f##k communism, death to fascism, freedom to the people.
Things never meaningfully changed, though.
Macron presented itself as the "reasonable" option between classical left & right & the extreme right.
He seems in a pretty good position as far as poles go. The left will be divided as usual. The right is struggling to find a candidate, has many court cases to deal with, and has yet to find its position relative to the far right. The far right is torn with crazy extremists such as éric zemmour.
While Macron has made many communication mistakes, his success with the vaccine pass and his ability to deliver good speeches at the right time may allow him to win a second mandate. After that his party will probably collapse.
> "En Marche" ("Let's Go") that took over France in a storm (...) with very few previously known political figures in its ranks
"En marche" is not "Let's go" ("allons-y") but "March on", a military reference. They had key figures in the previous government, for example Macron who was ministry of economy and supervised the destruction of working law protections (2016 reforms) for the "socialist" (huge quotation marks) government.
His first prime Manuel Valls minister was also part of the previous government, where he supervised the crushing of popular uprising as ministry of interior. They both represent the national-capitalist turn/wing of the "socialist" party that emerged in the 80/90's. They both have countless blood on their hands, and have betrayed all their campaign promises. For example, Macron campaigned against Le Pen's racism, then passed racist laws doubling retention times (90 days) for undocumented people, pressured against rescuing the Aquarius...
It's also important to note that if they appear to come out of nowhere, they are not emerging challengers. They have been chosen by the oligarchy (media and land/industry owner establishment) to represent their interests, and have been heavily promoted across private/public media as an "alternative" to the politics we knew. As you could guess, this "alternative" was always more of the same: less public services, more cops/prisons, less taxes for the rich, more corruption in the heart of government.
> The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics
That's politics, too. Just very reactionary, anti-humane politics that destroy people's lives and autonomy in the name of micro-managed stats. You may be interested to know that historically, having a strong government managing society without "politics" (huge quotation marks, everything is political) is Mussolini's historic definition of fascism:
> "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
PS: "Neither left nor right" is also a popular fascist meme.("third position"). In France, it's still represented by famous holocaust-denier Alain Soral ("working Reft, traditional values Right") or Troisième Voie (the neofascist militias who were dissolved after murdering Clément Méric). Hitler was also famously "neither left nor right", and actively campaigned against existing parties, claiming the plurality was a form of chaos that ruined efficiency. He historically managed to convince some workers that he was going to be their defender against the bosses, while at the same time taking considerable funds/support from the German industry owners who he convinced he would be their defender against "communism".
Not exactly sure what to make of this, conceptually it just sounds like 90s era Clintonite/Thatcherite consensus with some ranked voting and other stuff thrown in. The reason why the US is polarized (and most other places to a slightly lesser degree) is because that quadrant of the political spectrum is dead[1], and people have overall grown tired of this liberal (in a broad sense of the term) anti-politics which aims to disguise managerialism and technocratic government as 'non-ideological'.
It's interesting to see that all sides of political dispute in US, even parties (like this one) which want to cater to the seemingly more rational and less emotional part of the populace use the argument of "the founding fathers wanted it this way, so... that must be the correct way of doing things forever".
I was excited about Yang’s candidacy in the NYC mayoral election, but it didn’t take very long to see that he was out of his depth. In the end, he didn’t even rank in my top 5 (NYC has ranked choice now). Why does he keep running for top positions? He clearly doesn’t have a record of success as an executive, either in private or public sectors. He seems like a nice guy. If he wants to get into politics, why not start as a city councilor or something?
It's important to note that Yang's organization is just a PAC, and not a political party (yet). Yang doesn't need to outline a full platform because the organization will support any politician that lines up with the platform. Once the group does become a political party, it will most definitely need to stake positions on more "controversial" issues.
> The Platform page lists a selection of positions that I think would not be very controversial.
The positions may not be, but voting for anything but R or D is very controversial, because by voting third party in the US, you are helping the choice you like least win.
There is exactly zero chance that a third party will gain any meaningful amount of power, so all you are doing is throwing your vote away.
Maybe you're one of the five people in the country who don't actually care which of those two will win, but for some crazy reason still go to the polls - but if you're not one of those five, the best you can hope out of a third party is to produce better candidates in your preferred party's primary races.
I'll admit some degree of ignorance on all of the considerations with introducing a new party. But on a surface-level, I welcome more competition for ideas/platforms/parties in the American political system.
My naive fantasy would be that an increased number of viable parties would have a knock-on effect of reducing polarization/tribalization in American political discourse, and hopefully spur bottoms up thinking on good policy. If there were 6 parties for instance, it would hopefully force voters out of the 'good party vs bad party' or 'us vs them' dynamics that a 2 party system invites.
Political allegiance is a social signal today, and there are pressures to not question the party your social group votes for lest you be confused to be a bad person of the other side. This doesn't invite holding government accountable when it's your side doing the questionable things.
I feel like a lot of people take it as obvious that ranked-choice is just better. I have an alternate take:
We just went through a simple first-past-the-post election in the US that a significant percentage of voters believe was rigged. This is the simplest system imaginable, the data is easily available to verify it was not rigged.
Do we really think the average american will be able to grok how ranked-choice voting works? Imagine for a moment the reaction from people when their candidate appears to be "winning" and then ends up 3rd after the "recalculation."
I feel like the first priority of a voting system needs to be transparency and being easy to understand, RCV isn't that. Maybe works well on small scale, I highly doubt it's a good idea nationally.
Edit: I was wrong, he's doing exactly what I thought he wasn't. See Hannibalhorn's comment below for more details.
I'm glad he supports Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), but I think he's going about this the wrong way.
Right now, he's creating a new third-party within an electoral system that effectively defaults to two existing and dominant parties. Those two parties currently control every federal and state legislature and/or election committee that has the power to alter how elections are run.
Working against them, in a system that is extremely hostile to third-parties, makes it very hard to effect change because you are almost always guaranteed to be a loser, and be viewed as an opponent.
If his interests are truly about implementing RCV nationwide, a better course of action would be to endorse and campaign for the Democratic and Republican candidates that are willing to commit to implementing RCV.
In any state where you can get a filibuster-proof majority of those candidates elected, you would have a much better chance of changing the electoral system.
Simply put, lobbying for RCV would be more effective than introducing a third-party within our current electoral system.
I love “grace and tolerance” as a core principle. One of the things I used to respect about Americans is their ability to deal with the reality of the world as it is, including having an aloofness from politics. It wasn’t like Bangladesh where the losing party calls for violent strikes after every election. That confidence has been totally shaken over the last five years. Our mentality is becoming like that of a third world country.
As long as the first-past-the-post voting system is used in the US such movements will go nowhere. Unsurprisingly ranked-choice voting is mentioned as their first core value.
To me, it seems our current system has us stuck in a prisoner's dilemma of sorts.
Each side has a large base of constituents who don't love their own party but feel it's a non-negotiable to keep the other major party out of power as much as possible.
For example, I dislike both sides, but there's one party I dislike more than the other, so I vote in such a way to keep that party out... which ends up supporting a party that a lot of people hate. If you're in the US, it's likely you can relate.
Big time fail not making cannabis legalization a top-line plank in their platform.
It's overwhelmingly popular, and because this party (like every third party) is doomed to be a spoiler at best, they could attract enough voters with cannabis legalization to perform (optimistically) in the high single digits instead of the high fractions of a digit. High single digits is enough to swing elections, which is enough to force the major parties to adopt the popular elements of your platform.
One thing people misunderstand about third parties is that they don't need to win. If they're structured correctly (this is by far the most difficult bit), they can have significant political influence without ever winning a single election.
For example, love him or hate him, Ralph Nader probably swayed the 2000 Election and had incredible influence over the outcome (for better or worse).
Coming back to the Forward Party - what I'd personally want is some minor third party that has a series of very modest goals to complete each year. If this party can complete said goals in a grassroot manner in succession every year I believe they'd eventually be a dominant (third party) player.
I think third parties should focus on minor results and less on rhetoric. Unfortunately this is very difficult to do in modern American politics. Oh well.
* Ka-Ping Yee showing how voters' preferences would translate to ballots, then how different election methods picks winners from those ballots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7btAd1HYvjU&t=1329 (watch about 10 minutes).
My immediate thought: no third party can succeed in the US first-past-the-post voting system. Then I visit the website, and the most prominent policy preference advertised is Ranked Choice voting.
I can't support a politician or party that doesn't make healthcare a major tenet of their platform. The US is the only first world nation without universal healthcare, and it pays more than those nations for worse results[1][2].
Also, it's interesting that the "Democracy Dollars" page[3] identifies a real problem, but then does nothing to actually address the core of the issue. Doing something about Citizens United would, though[4].
From[3]:
> Legislation and policy don’t reflect the will of the people because our voices have been flooded out by wealthy donors, corporate lobbyists, and special interest groups flooding the system with their money.
> *The rich thus have outsized influence, and they have very different priorities than the rest of us. Generally, the wealthy are more conservative, respect current authority, and encourage a less radical or rapid approach to change. Candidates and politicians quickly become subject to the donor class.
This guy just wanted to make a buck…this was announced the same day his book called Forward came out.
No one will be paying attention to this in a year. New political don’t start from 1 person who has not held office and failed twice to win an election.
[+] [-] realce|4 years ago|reply
The campaign team was full of fools who squandered almost every good turn received, most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage, and Andrew eventually stole the pac's name and branding - Humanity Forward - put everyone out of a job, and then did basically nothing with the organization.
I've given so much time to this person it's insane. He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people, and he never pays off on what he promises. Just dip your toes into YangGang social media and see how his former fans act now, or the stories of abuse within the campaigns that Andrew hardly acknowledged.
Inspiring message, but I've been close enough to the sausage factory to know it's fluff.
Beware. If you are interested in this endevour do the best you can to build your own power base, do no rely on Andrew's circle to help you in any way other than a retweet.
[+] [-] netcan|4 years ago|reply
A political party is not a manifesto, it's an organisation.
I actually think there's room for a party to start gaining ground in the US. There are so many elected offices that the surface area is huge. Great for "guerilla tactics." IE, earning easy victories by picking the battle..
Maybe your pick a thousand low key positions, and work on them. Standing a thousand candidates with success, even if the offices are minor, makes you a full fledged party by default.
Uncompetitive regional strongholds, are another opportunity. You could split the large party's vote and earn immediate relevance. You could even split the small party's vote and try to steal 2nd place. That might make you one half of a dichotomy the next time. You could run candidates in republican or democratic primaries. The primary electoral system is diverse, so you can choose to do this where it has a chance.
So, where's the party? Who's running? Where/what? Who else is involved?
A political manifesto is OK, I guess. A party manifesto... that would be a lot more interesting. What are you planning to do?
[+] [-] Igelau|4 years ago|reply
FAQ:
> Is the Forward Party a political party?
> 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.
[+] [-] irae|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbingham|4 years ago|reply
The reason for that is structural. The Democratic and Republican parties have structurally built themselves into the election system in a way that shuts out any attempt to gain traction by third and fourth parties.
Just think about the fact that the Federal Election Commission, the organization that oversees our elections, is legally required to be half Democrat and half Republican. That tells you everything you need to know.
If we're going to change it to make room for additional parties, we have to take over one of the existing parties with an explicit election reform agenda that removes them from the structural landscape and then restructures it (with things like ranked choice voting or a senate that works on proportional party representation) to allow for third parties to gain traction.
[+] [-] bingohbangoh|4 years ago|reply
If Yang had major defectors from both parties, this might have a chance.
As it is, its just a party of one.
[+] [-] h2odragon|4 years ago|reply
The Libertarians don't have that. The Greens never bothered with rural areas. The Perot believers and the Tea Parties had boots enough but no co-ordination.
[+] [-] simorley|4 years ago|reply
It's not a party. It's more of a organization to fund politicians who align with their "core values".
[+] [-] bko|4 years ago|reply
Take a look at Unity 2020, an effort to recruit a third party for the presidential run. It was banned on Twitter immediately upon creation. No explanation was given (they're a private platform).
Hopefully it'll die down a little bit now that we may have more traditional candidates on both sides, but I don't know because there are just as contentious issues today.
Everything is view from a lens of agenda. When decisions are made, they're made in the context of "what would this mean for [x]?". For instance, if a story, no matter how newsworthy, could lead to lower vaccination rates, it is more likely to be buried. And when you have organizations filled with people that believe certain ideas or politicians would literally end human existence, the stakes couldn't be higher. Any effort that could be seen as helping the wrong side is dead on arrival.
https://medium.com/arc-digital/unity-2020-a-tragicomedy-ac01...
[+] [-] brightball|4 years ago|reply
In 2016 though, if the people who voted Green Party would have voted LP the LP would have earned 5% (instead it earn 3.5%) of the popular vote granting it full federal funding through the entire next election cycle.
It's the closest any third party has come to being validated in decades. During the 2020 cycle, both candidates were duds unfortunately and it showed in the voting.
[+] [-] Karto|4 years ago|reply
The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics, and offered an alternative to fed-up voters who didn't dare turn to the usual far-right and far-left "protest votes".
Headed with a nimble tactical vision, the formula was extremely efficient... for one mandate.
[+] [-] qsort|4 years ago|reply
The whole "socially progressive, economically middle of the road" political coalition that would win every election on HN is extremely unpopular in the real world.
[+] [-] pjc50|4 years ago|reply
I hadn't realised just how much Macron's party materialized from nowhere. Must have been huge pent-up demand for an alternative. However I suspect that only works in systems that aren't FPTP in the first place, and I suspect Macron is going to the same nowhere that all American third-party candidates go.
Especially if he starts by aiming for the top. What might work is a third party taking a city and then a state. This is how third parties practically operate in the UK, they're all local - SNP, Plaid, the various Northern Ireland factions.
[+] [-] ricardobeat|4 years ago|reply
And of course, it's a marketing trick to capture people who are 'fed up with the system' and don't realize it is an impossible proposition. If you're in government you'll inevitably have to position yourself on all issues, including labour laws, social safety nets, property rights and so on.
Invariably these parties sit on the right of the political spectrum. The current government already ran with this idea back then, made of "outsiders" who incidentally have really far-right ideas and associate with the military. But they see themselves as "apolitical", whatever that means...
[+] [-] Vinnl|4 years ago|reply
This was when she started her own party after being sidelined by the party of the current prime minister of the Netherlands, after getting more votes than he did. Her party failed miserably, and ten years later he's still prime minister.
Which is to say: success doesn't just come from the tagline, I suppose.
[+] [-] vadfa|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yodsanklai|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokai|4 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way
[+] [-] datenarsch|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chalst|4 years ago|reply
(Apologies for posting my half-mangled recollections without checking and thanks to the commenters who fixed my incorrect claims).
France's electoral system is not well-suited to its current political landscape.
[+] [-] ekianjo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whakim|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnL4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|4 years ago|reply
This. I want someone who will throw the culture war out the window (both the left and right wings of it) and focus 100% on competent problem solving and execution and on real world practical problems facing the country.
These are problems like infrastructure, transportation, water security in the West, energy modernization and decarbonization, repatriation of critical manufacturing capabilities (or at least making the country attractive for it), bringing government services into the digital age, and so on.
"Competence!" should be the battle cry of this movement.
The culture war gets everyone to focus on culture war issues instead of the basic competence of the candidates, leading to the election of the likes of reality show star bullshit artists and people with early stage dementia.
[+] [-] _gohp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbergot|4 years ago|reply
He seems in a pretty good position as far as poles go. The left will be divided as usual. The right is struggling to find a candidate, has many court cases to deal with, and has yet to find its position relative to the far right. The far right is torn with crazy extremists such as éric zemmour.
While Macron has made many communication mistakes, his success with the vaccine pass and his ability to deliver good speeches at the right time may allow him to win a second mandate. After that his party will probably collapse.
[+] [-] southerntofu|4 years ago|reply
"En marche" is not "Let's go" ("allons-y") but "March on", a military reference. They had key figures in the previous government, for example Macron who was ministry of economy and supervised the destruction of working law protections (2016 reforms) for the "socialist" (huge quotation marks) government.
His first prime Manuel Valls minister was also part of the previous government, where he supervised the crushing of popular uprising as ministry of interior. They both represent the national-capitalist turn/wing of the "socialist" party that emerged in the 80/90's. They both have countless blood on their hands, and have betrayed all their campaign promises. For example, Macron campaigned against Le Pen's racism, then passed racist laws doubling retention times (90 days) for undocumented people, pressured against rescuing the Aquarius...
It's also important to note that if they appear to come out of nowhere, they are not emerging challengers. They have been chosen by the oligarchy (media and land/industry owner establishment) to represent their interests, and have been heavily promoted across private/public media as an "alternative" to the politics we knew. As you could guess, this "alternative" was always more of the same: less public services, more cops/prisons, less taxes for the rich, more corruption in the heart of government.
> The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics
That's politics, too. Just very reactionary, anti-humane politics that destroy people's lives and autonomy in the name of micro-managed stats. You may be interested to know that historically, having a strong government managing society without "politics" (huge quotation marks, everything is political) is Mussolini's historic definition of fascism:
> "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
PS: "Neither left nor right" is also a popular fascist meme.("third position"). In France, it's still represented by famous holocaust-denier Alain Soral ("working Reft, traditional values Right") or Troisième Voie (the neofascist militias who were dissolved after murdering Clément Méric). Hitler was also famously "neither left nor right", and actively campaigned against existing parties, claiming the plurality was a form of chaos that ruined efficiency. He historically managed to convince some workers that he was going to be their defender against the bosses, while at the same time taking considerable funds/support from the German industry owners who he convinced he would be their defender against "communism".
[+] [-] disneygibson|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Barrin92|4 years ago|reply
[1]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DyE_4e9V4AAW0od.jpg:large
[+] [-] jagrsw|4 years ago|reply
It's interesting to see that all sides of political dispute in US, even parties (like this one) which want to cater to the seemingly more rational and less emotional part of the populace use the argument of "the founding fathers wanted it this way, so... that must be the correct way of doing things forever".
[+] [-] digbybk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aazaa|4 years ago|reply
https://www.forwardparty.com/platform
Surprisingly, the issue that Yang is known for, UBI, is not on the list.
UBI is, however, present here:
https://www.forwardparty.com/whyforward
I wonder if that was accidental.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a_t48|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vkou|4 years ago|reply
The positions may not be, but voting for anything but R or D is very controversial, because by voting third party in the US, you are helping the choice you like least win.
There is exactly zero chance that a third party will gain any meaningful amount of power, so all you are doing is throwing your vote away.
Maybe you're one of the five people in the country who don't actually care which of those two will win, but for some crazy reason still go to the polls - but if you're not one of those five, the best you can hope out of a third party is to produce better candidates in your preferred party's primary races.
[+] [-] Zanni|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FFRefresh|4 years ago|reply
My naive fantasy would be that an increased number of viable parties would have a knock-on effect of reducing polarization/tribalization in American political discourse, and hopefully spur bottoms up thinking on good policy. If there were 6 parties for instance, it would hopefully force voters out of the 'good party vs bad party' or 'us vs them' dynamics that a 2 party system invites.
Political allegiance is a social signal today, and there are pressures to not question the party your social group votes for lest you be confused to be a bad person of the other side. This doesn't invite holding government accountable when it's your side doing the questionable things.
[+] [-] carlosdp|4 years ago|reply
We just went through a simple first-past-the-post election in the US that a significant percentage of voters believe was rigged. This is the simplest system imaginable, the data is easily available to verify it was not rigged.
Do we really think the average american will be able to grok how ranked-choice voting works? Imagine for a moment the reaction from people when their candidate appears to be "winning" and then ends up 3rd after the "recalculation."
I feel like the first priority of a voting system needs to be transparency and being easy to understand, RCV isn't that. Maybe works well on small scale, I highly doubt it's a good idea nationally.
[+] [-] ameetgaitonde|4 years ago|reply
I'm glad he supports Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), but I think he's going about this the wrong way.
Right now, he's creating a new third-party within an electoral system that effectively defaults to two existing and dominant parties. Those two parties currently control every federal and state legislature and/or election committee that has the power to alter how elections are run.
Working against them, in a system that is extremely hostile to third-parties, makes it very hard to effect change because you are almost always guaranteed to be a loser, and be viewed as an opponent.
If his interests are truly about implementing RCV nationwide, a better course of action would be to endorse and campaign for the Democratic and Republican candidates that are willing to commit to implementing RCV.
In any state where you can get a filibuster-proof majority of those candidates elected, you would have a much better chance of changing the electoral system.
Simply put, lobbying for RCV would be more effective than introducing a third-party within our current electoral system.
[+] [-] rayiner|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcfrei|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TimTheTinker|4 years ago|reply
Each side has a large base of constituents who don't love their own party but feel it's a non-negotiable to keep the other major party out of power as much as possible.
For example, I dislike both sides, but there's one party I dislike more than the other, so I vote in such a way to keep that party out... which ends up supporting a party that a lot of people hate. If you're in the US, it's likely you can relate.
[+] [-] mullingitover|4 years ago|reply
It's overwhelmingly popular, and because this party (like every third party) is doomed to be a spoiler at best, they could attract enough voters with cannabis legalization to perform (optimistically) in the high single digits instead of the high fractions of a digit. High single digits is enough to swing elections, which is enough to force the major parties to adopt the popular elements of your platform.
[+] [-] endisneigh|4 years ago|reply
For example, love him or hate him, Ralph Nader probably swayed the 2000 Election and had incredible influence over the outcome (for better or worse).
Coming back to the Forward Party - what I'd personally want is some minor third party that has a series of very modest goals to complete each year. If this party can complete said goals in a grassroot manner in succession every year I believe they'd eventually be a dominant (third party) player.
I think third parties should focus on minor results and less on rhetoric. Unfortunately this is very difficult to do in modern American politics. Oh well.
[+] [-] troydavis|4 years ago|reply
* Voter Satisfaction Efficiency: https://electionscience.github.io/vse-sim/VSEbasic/
* Ka-Ping Yee showing how voters' preferences would translate to ballots, then how different election methods picks winners from those ballots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7btAd1HYvjU&t=1329 (watch about 10 minutes).
[+] [-] seancoleman|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rectang|4 years ago|reply
OK, you've passed the first test!
[+] [-] heavyset_go|4 years ago|reply
Also, it's interesting that the "Democracy Dollars" page[3] identifies a real problem, but then does nothing to actually address the core of the issue. Doing something about Citizens United would, though[4].
From[3]:
> Legislation and policy don’t reflect the will of the people because our voices have been flooded out by wealthy donors, corporate lobbyists, and special interest groups flooding the system with their money.
> *The rich thus have outsized influence, and they have very different priorities than the rest of us. Generally, the wealthy are more conservative, respect current authority, and encourage a less radical or rapid approach to change. Candidates and politicians quickly become subject to the donor class.
[1] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/quality...
[2] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-hea...
[3] https://www.forwardparty.com/democracy-dollars
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_amendm...
[+] [-] dadoge|4 years ago|reply
No one will be paying attention to this in a year. New political don’t start from 1 person who has not held office and failed twice to win an election.