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Comment by 11thEarlOfMar | Hacker News Reader

I registered as a Democrat to vote for Andrew in the CA primary. I find his view of the state of the USA is much more current and much less clouded by the twisted incentives that drive so many career politicians. He has positions on just about every topic and explains the rationale behind them.

It makes me wonder what the narrative against him would be. In the 2020 primaries and election, he wasn't taken seriously by either dems or reps, as if they felt that doing so would confer credibility. He was quashed in the debates in lieu of ratings, and sometimes did quite well.

I suppose the question ultimately will be whether his party pull more votes from Democrats or Republicans, rather than whether they'd win any major elections. As a younger entrant, he should be able to speak to younger voters and perhaps over time, grow a meaningful base. He did admirably in 2020 and I am confident he can build.

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> I suppose the question ultimately will be whether his party pull more votes from Democrats or Republicans

I think it's pretty clear that he'd pull more Dems than Reps. That would be a very bad thing in 2024, so you'll probably see a lot of encouragement from Republicans and an lot of discouragement from Democrats.

The real ultimate question is whether post-Trumpism will unite the Republican Party or result in a schism among Conservatives by 2024.

I'm not sure if it's just a vocal minority, but it sure seems to be the Party of Trump, no longer the Republican Party.

I could see a Trump party on the right, a Yang party on the left, and a third party right down the middle full of disenfranchised moderates from both sides of the aisle

Yang is not a leftist. He's not even left of the Democratic party, and they aren't a left-wing party.

There's a simple litmus test.

Do you think workers should control the means of production? You're a socialist.

Do you think capital should? You're a capitalist.

The Republicans, Yang, and the Democrats are all capitalist parties.

Human beings are really funny.

Ask someone in a neighborhood about how many houses should be built and virtually all of them will tell you that theirs should have been the last one.

Ask someone about what is left and right in politics and they will move the middle around so they aren't either on the far left or right. As if their personal political opinions are some sort of core fundamental property that the universe is organized around.

Looking back in history, humans did the same thing with the solar system. We just tend to assume that we are at the middle of things.

All the Republican Party needs is for DJT to die of natural causes, so that candidates can quibble over who is the true inheritor of his mantle. Eight years after that the name of Trump will be invoked as a meaningless benediction the way that Reagan is used now.

>All the Republican Party needs is for DJT to die of natural causes, so that candidates can quibble over who is the true inheritor of his mantle

I think Trump stopped being a viable figurehead for his own movement once the stop-the-steal movement and insurrection failed to prevent Biden's election, and date after date after date for Trump's triumphant return passed without incident. Republicans are going to have to move on from him either way.

Unlikely; the republicans worship Trump in a way wholly distinct from past presidents (except possibly Reagan) I'm not even certain his death would put a stop to the cult of personality that has arose around him.

Pretty sure they'd nominate Jr if anything happened to Sr.

It's hard to forecast this. Trump supporters are effectively a cult, and every time something came along that made me think "ok, this time he's done it" (e.g., shooting someone on 5th Ave, which he was correct in his assessment), I've been proven wrong.

We are still in uncharted waters.

Nope. They represent the economically moderate, culturally conservative segment of the population. (Fun fact: if you put Germany’s CDU’s positions into NYT’s political party poll, you end up in Trump’s Patriot Party: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/repub....

What's fascinating is that the CDU has long been criticised for having moved left, and that "real conservatives" have no political home anymore. That's part of AfD's success.

You wouldn’t find posters like this even at a Trump rally: https://www.smh.com.au/world/farright-white-noise-of-alterna...

Compared to Europe, Trump’s “immigrants are bringing crime” stuff is on the gamer end of the right wing.

I don't think that's true at all. I just played out the quiz over CDU positions (replacing "America" with "Germany", and correcting for places where German law is already to the "left" of American law). I came up with:

Marijuana: Somewhat pro-legalization

Same-sex marriage: No

Immigration difficulty: Much harder

Reduce regulations: Somewhat disagree

Reduce police forces: Somewhat disagree

Universal health care: Strong agree

Science unimportant: Strong disagree

Raise minimum wage: Somewhat agree

Better Germany than elsewhere: Strong agree

Gun control: Stricter

Whites systematically advantaged: Somewhat disagree.

Abortion: Illegal in all cases.

Economy is unfair: Somewhat agree

Racial minorities can advance: Neutral

Discrimination against whites > blacks: Somewhat disagree

Raise taxes on high earners: Yes

Path to citizenship: No

Wealthy people spur innovation: Somewhat agree

Climate change: Somewhat important

Reduce income differences: Somewhat agree

I think I can cite coverage for each of these positions, and, in come cases, actual votes. Someone reading this actually is a German who pays attention to German politics and can correct me if need be. Remember: these questions are all relative to the American status quo.

I wound up "nearest" the "New Labor Party", but in the top-left quadrant (where there are no party clusters in the American VOTERS data set). As one would expect, as a German CDU member, I'd be much more socially conservative than the "liberal" parties NYT proposes --- but notably distant from the Patriot party! --- and much more economically liberal than the "conservative" NYT parties.

Mainstream German politics are definitely outside of the "liberal" consensus of the US; you're at least half right about that. But there are a lot of positions of the Trump-era Republican party that are way out of the mainstream of the conservative German consensus.

I agree with most of these. The NYT calculator is very sensitive to the marijuana legalization and science questions.

According to this CDU still opposes, though they proposed liberalization as part of compromise with greens: https://mjbizdaily.com/germany-rejects-recreational-marijuan...

On the science question, I think CDU would be a strong disagree. Germans are obviously science driven, but they don’t try to “sciencify” fundamental values questions like Americans. The premise of Christian democracy is religion as a source of truth and values in politics.

The Trump Republican party is trying to cure COVID19 with ivermectin and zinc. The CDU is laughing (ruefully) at them. I stand by my "science" answer.

The CDU is not ideologically compatible with MAGA Republicanism. I think you're keying in on the immigration and abortion stuff, which is a fair point, but really they're just not in the vector space of US politics, which is sort of the point that NYT piece is making.

I see your point, but that’s not how I read that question. I read that question to ask whether the major policy debates of our time can be reduced to disputes over science and facts, which is how liberal Americans tend to view them, or instead disputes over values and principles, which is how conservative Americans tend to view them.

I agree that the CDU is distinct from MAGA Republicanism, insofar as they aren’t driven by a gratuitous “stick it to the libs” obstinance. At the same time, I think German conservatives are much closer to American conservatives than to American liberals in accepting values and religion driving policy, rather than science.

I cite abortion as the example, not because the CDU opposed abortion, but because of how they think about the issue. American liberals are pushing back against heartbeat abortion bans by arguing, for example, that an embryo doesn’t have a “heart” at 6 weeks, but instead it’s just developing cardiac cells. CDU folks don’t talk about abortion in scientific terms. Consistent with the NYT questionnaire, the issue of abortion isn’t a scientific one to them, it’s an issue of morality and religion. And they’re comfortable putting morality and religion into politics in a way that’s quite at odds with how American liberals view things.

Just incidentally, here's a tool Jann Horn put together to chart party-line voting among the various German political parties.

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https:/...

You're right. Most republicans I've talked with, myself included, want someone like trump but more conservative and more effective. Given that that person has not yet materialized, it's the party of trump until they appear.

This is the case with every party when it doesn't have the presidency. The Democrats spent the Bush years as the Party of Clinton and the Trump years as the Party of Obama. The head of the party (e.g. their last President) continues to set the party tone & agenda until the party wins the White House again.

I do not know why you are being downvoted so, but I know a lot of republicans. They adore Donald Trump and have contempt for the GOP leaders who did not “stand up for him” after the election. There is a real sense of anger at the Republican establishment.

I know people who literally mailed back RNC donation solicitation envelopes coated in slurs and swear words after the election.

I have a large number of GOP voters that voted for Biden because they believe Trump is an idiot.

My opinion is that the party will reform under someone new. Trump is too old at this point to be relevant beyond 2024.

Trump is 50% of the Republican Party, but that wing is bigger than Trump. In polls where Trump isn’t running, De Santis picks up most of Trump’s votes: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/14/desantis-poll-2024-...

The establishment Republican leadership is unpopular for pretty much the reasons Democrats have been saying for 20 years: the base is much more fiscally moderate and cared more about social and cultural issues than the leadership.

Personally, I wonder if it's less "party of Trump" and more "party of Winning".

A lot of Social Conservative policy is terrible for business (How much money was lost by states chasing those 'Bathroom Bill' regulations?). A lot of pro-business/Fiscal Conservative policy is difficult to square with traditional moral values (You want a traditional household with a full-time parent, but can't figure out that low wages make it impossible?)

Both factions seem willing to ignore this because they know they can win elections by their combined might.

I suspect if you look at it, you'll see that the party platform has become progressively more narrowly focused and sloganized as a result of that. Focusing on abortion and gay marriage to the exclusion of any more nuanced social issues throws a bone to the morality crowd without having to let them ask "isn't unconstrained billionaire greed a sin?" Simplifying all financial policy to "taxes bad" is pro-business but not as offensive to the morals crowd as admitting "systemic racism is probably leaving a lot of money and productivity on the table"

I suspect backing Trump is just further reaction on that scale. It worked once in dramatic style (they won an election largely seen a formality) so they're doubling down on it.

However, I'll say the same thing applies to a degree on the Democratic side, in a variant form. They've decided to go for "broad appeal" rather than "a few specific silo niches", which results in milk-toast moderate candidates that can't possibly offend anyone.

What's interesting is that any electoral success for either of these paradigms just reinforces them, but any failure never seems to cause rethink.

After his performance in the NY mayoral election where he went from frontrunner to 4th place behind people who never had a national spotlight, he's going to be pulling votes from nobody.

His policy platform came off as uninformed. Overly-naive in certain respects and overly-corporatist in others - appealing to neither side of the aisle.

This is such a discouraging and sad view point. I'm not saying it's wrong, just pessimistic, and not blaming you for saying it just venting. Who cares if it's more x than y. Most voters are moderates. Myself, and many moderates, feel completely unrepresented by either side. Not liberal enough to vote D, and not conservative enough to vote R. You'd think they'd be drifting together, but increasingly are drifting further apart. Why not encourage more parties, or at least some middle ground party, if what we have today sucks. Surely there's a better reason than "so the other guys don't win"

The vast majority of US voters are either essentially conservative/Republican or liberal/Democrat, however they identify themselves to pollsters. The very small number of people who are actually swing voters generally aren't that way because they have midpoint positions on the issues, and they are on average also much less well-informed in general.

See https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17575768/swing-voters-exist and links from it for evidence of these claims.

A lot of my views trend liberal, but I don't really feel very well represented by the Democratic Party... really I think we would do better to have multiple smaller parties and a better voting system, and to somehow remove the giant monetary influences that seem to corrupt all decision making.

The past five years have really done a number on us all. You're right about the huge divide that's developed, it's scary.

You might be interested in this:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/repub...

https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/o...

> The past five years have really done a number on us all

Which only got 100x worse in the last 1.7 years. I've traditionally identified as a (D) but holy moly... now I'm partyless....

It just "developed" all on its own? It wasn't that one side went batshitinsane?

Because from here in the Netherlands, it sure looks like the Republicans went totally off the deep end and aren't ever swimming back to shore...

I’ve wondered if Trump drove the party there or merely exposed and harnessed what was already going on. Either way, as a conservative, I find there is nobody representing me any more.

"not liberal enough to vote D, not conservative enough to vote R"? That is a very reductive view. What do you actually support? Is climate change real? Do workers deserve more rights like minimum wage, fedrally mandated paid holidy, fixed working hours? Then there are "social" issues the government shoulden't even have a hand in unless you want a theoracy. The modern right only fights on the basis of said "social" issues. If that is the only thing important to you, vote R otherwise vote D but keep pressuring them. Also, even with countries with multiple parties it just turns into a race between two. In India its BJP or Congress, in Pakistan until very recently it was PPP or PML, now there is also PTI. In UK its conservative or labor. So you kust pick one of the two and push that one for what you want, there is no perfect representation no matter how many parties you have.

> Not liberal enough to vote D, and not conservative enough to vote R.

Is COVID a hoax? "Can't rightly say!"

Does the climate emergency exist? "Some people say otherwise, it's none of my business."

Should American women be allowed abortions? "I really have no opinion."

Is Trump a delusional psychopath? "Can't see any difference between him and Biden!"

Do these people really exist?

----

I moved to Europe in 2016, and America seems increasingly weird to me.

Here you have these two right-wing parties already, and you're like, "No, I need another right-wing party".

Here it is over a year and a half into the worst pandemic in living memory, and no one's even talking about giving people medical care, something the rest of the developed world has had for generations.

Both parties compete to see who will increase the military budget faster and who will suck up to Wall Street harder.

Sure, the Democrats are sane and have flashes of competence; the Republicans are delusional raving loonies who lie every chance they can get and only have a tenuous grasp on reality. Big difference. But still, not so much range.

I have little interest in debating politics, or being told how to vote, but I just wanted to reply to explain it's not like that here. Yes, some crazies exist on both sides. Perhaps more on the R side, probably, but I don't have the numbers.

The majority of both sides, yes even those scary evil republicans you speak of, are reasonable people. To paint one side by their best people, and another by their worst, is not an argument in good faith. I'm sorry whatever media you've consumed has misled you a bit.

Until we get some sort of ranked choice voting it will be this way.

He just didn’t come across as credible or serious during the NY mayoral primaries, and completely squandered an early lead. Just my take from listening in to his zoom, but he seemed light on issues, wasted too much time on gimmicks rather than someone ready to talk about serious problems and how to address them.

> He was quashed in the debates in lieu of ratings

What does this mean? I know what the words mean, but can't catch your meaning.

word soup

I think poster thinks Andrew was not called upon often because other candidates had better draw (for their ratings). Back in the debates it was obvious the party had some favorites and some less than favorite candidates. Andrew was among the latter.

OK that makes sense as the intent. 'In lieu' means 'instead', not 'because', so I think it was incorrect usage that confused me.

There were a number of instances where national news broadcasters just left him out of polls or included his competitors with lower marks.

For instance CNN had a poll for and showed 6 candidates results, the lowest being for Beto O'Rourke, with a result of 1%. But Yang scored 3% in the poll but was just left out because for whatever reason he wasn't seen as a serious candidate.

https://nextshark.com/cnn-andrew-yang-graphic/

The argument against him is the same argument against Obama.

This is the age of Networks. Replacing one central node in a gigantic hierarchy of power doesnt seem to really do anything. There are too many hubs that need to be replaced to get anything done.

The narrative against him is his refusal to adopt better policies. He wants to be seen as supporting M4A but when it's all done and dusted, he doesn't. That alone will prevent me from giving him a second look. We must look to redistributive policies. If an M4A proposal has flaws, for instance, the discussion needs to be focused 100% on closing those specific gaps. Because the problem is poor distribution of wealth and resources and no sign this will change without intervention.

In my opinion a candidate must at bare minimum correctly identify issues and not be afraid to name the unbridled solutions.

Why must we look to redistributive policies? If there is some systemic issue you would like to mitigate with redistribution, why not address the systemic issue?

Is there a specific reason you are against non-M4A type systems? As far as I'm aware Germany and France for example have universal health care but not single-payer.

The issue in the US seems to be some people with good jobs have health insurance they're satisfied with, and so don't want radical changes. So it's harder to form a political coalition to change health insurance for everybody, than it is to just fix the situation for people who don't have anything.

I was a fan of yang, but then he started harping on "illegal food vendors" in NYC, and I realized he's another tech-bro ghoul.

I'd like my political donation back, yang, if you're reading.

>It makes me wonder what the narrative against him would be

I think the question is what the narrative for him is. His views probably most closely resemble what the Niskanen-Center dubbed 'liberaltarian' a few years ago and that doesn't have much of a constituency.

This sort of slightly wonkish, business man, tech bro hybrid will find some voters among the kind of young male demographic you find here or on reddit but otherwise his political campaigns were stillborn. Conservatives don't support liberal social politics and expansion of government spending, Liberals aren't going to support the Milton Friedman-esque UBI ideas and individualistic free-market attitude.

> Liberals aren't going to support the Milton Friedman-esque UBI ideas.

Isn't that a liberal idea??

Friedman did support it, though: https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supporte...

Originally, no. Because originally UBI was designed to be used not as another social program, but in lieu of existing programs. When Friedman invented it, the idea was to get rid of things like public schools or whatever other public welfare program, fire all the public workers involved and instead give money to people so they would choose those services in the open market.

As far as I know that is still the case with Yang's UBI, which is why I brought it up in my original post.

"The most important part of Mr. Yang’s 2020 guaranteed income plan was not the size of the checks but how he intended to pay for them. He promised to fund the program by implementing some new tax policies and “consolidating some welfare programs.” Anyone who wanted in would first have to make a choice: continue to get the bulk of the direct government benefits they currently received, or forfeit them and instead get $1,000 a month. Other than Social Security retirement, disability benefits (and potentially some other credits), no one could get both a Freedom Dividend and government assistance."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/opinion/andrew-yang-ubi-n...

To clarify a bit, he didn't go nearly as far as Friedman did. As far as I am aware he was still in favor of public schools, dealing with health care separately, etc.

And he proposed people with benefits currently higher than the UBI level be able to stay on them (although presumably people on lower levels of benefits would switch to the higher-level UBI payments that don't come with any strings attached).

I think the poster is saying liberals won't support both. I think they're wrong, I support and see a future with both, but I think a future with both is a very careful series of choices we will have to make.

Gosh, I hate to say it but “Liberal” has basically become a meaningless term. It means something different to everyone, regardless of political affiliation.

It’s a classic liberal idea, but today’s progressives who call themselves liberals bear pretty much zero resemblance to classic liberals.

UBI sounds great to the progressive left until they realize what the “U” stands for and that a Jeff Bezos receives the same exact check as Fred the burger flipper.

Eh, I'll admit he probably does better than average among the tech crowd. But if polling is to be believed, he was one of the most electable (in a hypothetical general election) of the primary candidates last presidential election, so his messaging can't have been that off-putting. And I heard second-hand (from a young/right leaning Trump voter) that he was very popular among the young/right leaning 4chan crowd (which is a pretty far cry from the Niskanen Center).

I think a lot of his lack-of-success for his presidential run could be attributed to a perception that he was an inexperienced political lightweight, who didn't have a serious chance at winning. And he didn't really do all that badly considering where he started, he outlasted quite a few candidates who came in with much more experience and name recognition.

> In the 2020 primaries and election, he wasn't taken seriously by either dems or reps

He was one of two Democratic candidates that had significant right wing support. As far as Dem's not taking him seriously, a big part of that is because he had no political experience and America's experiment in electing someone like that was an ongoing dumpster fire.

He also advocated eliminating the minimum wage. Or in other words…he wanted to slaughter the hell out of one of the two DNC sacred cows.

Can’t have that…radical ideas that aren’t party approved are bad

I mean, the party has to stand for something, otherwise it's not a party anymore. Imagine a Republican candidate who wanted to increase funding to Planned Parenthood and also repeal the Second Amendment. Both are defensible ideas, but if you want to be a presidential candidate with one of those ideas, the Republican Party is not for you. The Democrats are no different.

Sure, but if you are going to have a two party system that work together to disenfranchise any viable additional parties, having sacred cows ultimately hurt the country.

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