I Saw the Hollowness Inside Andrew Yang’s New Third Party | Hacker News Reader

I Saw the Hollowness Inside Andrew Yang’s New Third Party

politico.com

23 pointsApocryphon50 comments

The Forward party is the latest manifestation of Americans’ misguided hope of “rising above” politics (to use the cliched phrase from the Obama era).

Unfortunately there is no way out but through. Talking to your political opponents reasonably and performatively evincing civility and empty slogans such as “there is no red and blue just Americans” ain’t gonna get us there. The filibuster and gerrymandering and the unreasonable power of the Supreme Court and the electoral college and the unfettered influence of money will still be things at the end of all these slogans.

The system is broken and the horrible truth is that unbreaking it (if possible) will require positively advancing specific reform measures and a painful, unglamorous fight.

The forward party is about electoral reform, not just civility. Civility is their message, but their policy platforms are about reforming elections to try to disincentivize radical politics inside the parties

> try to disincentivize radical politics inside the parties

Average inflation-adjusted weekly earnings were higher in the 1970s then now. The average inflation adjusted hourly wage is lower than what it was a half century ago. A the growth in the past half century has been hoovered up by the heirs, by the aristocracy. This has a naturally radicalizing effect, and changing election laws will not change anything other than send that radicalization to the streets.

I don't disagree with you about the problems related to wealth distribution. (I just watched the documentary "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" about 2 days ago and so I'm feeling primed there.)

I do think you're being excessively cynical about electoral reform.

Ultimately, we live in a democracy, and voters have power. The parties putting forward these reforms are advocating for things like democracy vouchers:

https://democracypolicy.network/agenda/open-country/open-gov...

which is a very anti-oligarchic/anti-plutocratic measure.

Reforms like instant runoff voting make third parties more viable by eliminating spoiler effects. In our present system, if you run as (or vote for) (say) a socialist candidate, you end up helping the right-wing by preferentially stealing votes from the moderate left-wing candidate. In this scenario, it's not rational for you to participate in politics because you end up hurting your own interests. Electoral reform can eliminate the perverse incentives here. In this scenario you can imagine the socialist candidate would say, "Hi, I'm the socialist, I care about issue X; and make your option 2 the green party candidate because of issue Y; or your option 3 the democrat because of issue Z". There are incentives for politicians to act civilly (since transferable votes mean they no longer strictly compete) and to offer better options to voters.

See: "Electoral rules discourage problem-solving and reward conflict" in https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-ab...

> Reforms like instant runoff voting make third parties more viable by eliminating spoiler effects.

IRV doesn't eliminate spoiler effects, it just makes them more complex by creating more points where they apply.

It also isn't at all good among single-winner ranked-ballots methods for making more parties viable, and in any case, the by-far best way to make more parties viable is to have legislative elections not run in winner-take-all races, but in multiseat races with an election method that has proportional results (STV in small multimember districts is the easiest candidate focussed system. Party List PR at the whole-legislature level is what most peoole think of when you hear “proportional” systems, and there are a large number of alternatives that are largely in-between those poles in some sense.)

I shouldn't have said "eliminate". I'll defer to:

https://electionscience.org/library/the-spoiler-effect/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...

I don't really have a strong preference for IRV (over, say, approval or score voting), but it does seem to be widely accepted as an improvement over first-past-the-post and also an option that has a realistic chance of adoption (due to slotting into existing electoral schemes without giant overhauls).

I can see why she's the former press secretary. To communicate what the point of the party is, you need to actually understand it, which she doesn't seem to

> Despite the steady drumbeat of this mantra, there wasn’t much internal understanding of what it meant, let alone a strategy of how we were going to accomplish it.

The headline for Forward right now is: get ranked choice voting and open primary ballots passed in as many states as possible using ballot initiatives in the states that have them. That is the main thing they focus on. If she, the press secretary, didn't know that, then perhaps the organization has a communication problem, but that's not a lack of a platform. Forward doesn't take positions on the current hot topic political issues like guns or abortion because they don't believe we can legitimately solve or come to a consensus on these problems with the incentives which exist in our current political system. Therefore, the strategy is to unite people from the left and right to create a new set of rules we can agree on, and then use those rules to solve our disagreements.

Her references to tech companies is a familiar, but irrelevant criticism of Andrew Yang: to label him a clueless tech bro and equate him, somehow, with the financial fraud of con artist Elizabeth Holmes or the market failure of WeWork (two companies which are completely unlike each other) is a common refrain of his detractors (usually, though, these criticisms come from the DNC, not the Republicans). They want to label him as another product of San Francisco tech culture trying to solve complex political problems with engineering-inspired solutions. This is not what Forward is about

> While the party supports electoral reforms such as ranked choice voting, independent redistricting commissions and open primaries, it is agnostic when it comes to having policy stances, believing it is better to not take a stand on voting issues than plant a flag and alienate people.

>That’s right — no platform laying out party principles and positions, no policies, no plan. Only showmanship.

I don't know how she can define the most important policies of the party in one sentence, and in the very next breath claim that it has no policy positions just because their party isn't about getting screaming matches over abortion or transgender athletes.

>Her references to tech companies is a familiar, but irrelevant

they're extremely relevant which is even evident from your post. Trying to tinker with the electoral process to create some sort of value free machine is exactly the 'tech bro' mindset. It is a stance devoid of concrete moral and literally political values. "Just solve politics, and it'll run itself" essentially.

Abortion or guns aren't 'hot button issues'. They're at their core about self determination and Americans deeply and ideologically disagree on them. Firearm politics is as old as the nation, in a sense even older. They can't be done away with by just making some process better, as if factions and divisions are just some sort of hallucination caused by wrong mechanisms.

These issues are so important to people they override anything else. How is brushing that off not exactly an example of the mindset that she criticizes in the piece?

You're right that politics is (partly) about actual disagreements in ideology that can't be hand-waved away.

But that being said, there are more than 2 ideologies in the US! And I think that begs for a system with more than 2 political parties.

When I lived in the Netherlands, I was struck by how there were 21 parties with at least 1 seat in parliament. And I think that led to a healthier political culture, where the parties would form different coalitions each electoral cycle, instead of a constant Us vs. Them, year after year.

With first past the post, it matters little what any third party thinks about those topics, so what's the point? What they are advocating for enables meaningful third party involvement in the conversation, trying to speak on those matter before that only serves to perpetuate the two-party state of affairs (for example, with ranked choice, and individual who is pro-choice and pro-gun-rights might actually be able to vote for a candidate who embodies their views on the matter).

> Abortion or guns aren't 'hot button issues'. They're at their core about self determination and Americans deeply and ideologically disagree on them. Firearm politics is as old as the nation, in a sense even older. They can't be done away with by just making some process better, as if factions and divisions are just some sort of hallucination caused by wrong mechanisms.

I truly believe that most people wouldn't give a shit about either of these issues if they weren't being told to give a shit about these issues. These issues are signals for political tribes and most people are far less ideological than they think they are. The monkey parts of their brains are being manipulated for reasons as arbitrary as the religious wars of the 16th century.

> the strategy is to unite people from the left and right to create a new set of rules we can agree on, and then use those rules to solve our disagreements.

That's a great way of putting it. To spell it out a bit more for people who are unfamiliar: the Forward Party is very interested in ranked-choice voting [0] because they believe it will lead to healthier politics. It makes it easier for candidates from outside the 2 major parties to run, by eliminating the spoiler effect. And it reduces a candidate's incentive to viciously attack their opponent, because they're hoping their opponent's supporters might list them as their #2 choice.

[0]: https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/

> a familiar, but irrelevant criticism of Andrew Yang

I don't know if it's irrelevant. He's the face and voice of the party, if nothing else, so whether or not he's trustworthy is very relevant. Being from that particular segment of the tech industry is one indicator of what his attitudes are.

I'm in favor of ranked-choice voting. I'm pretty wary of the Forward Party itself, though.

I mean that the comparison is incorrect. Irrelevant was the wrong word. There's no similarity between any of the 3

I would really like to see some form of electoral reform passed that would reduce spoiler effects, make third party movements more viable, and change the incentives for politicians in elections (e.g. instant runoff voting as endorsed by https://fairvote.org/ or https://cfer.org/ ; or proportional representation ).

I'm disappointed that two bills for ranked-choice voting have passed the legislature in California only to be vetoed by the governor (Schwarzenegger in 2007, Newsom in 2019): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_California

I hope eventually some of these reforms will get more widely adopted.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/its-time-to-talk-ab...

Today I learned: Electoral reforms are one of the goals for the Forward Party and the Common Sense party. If you're a voter in California, you can help them with this by changing the party affiliation on your voter registration to the Common Sense Party to help them get recognition (they need 72,000 members).

* https://home.forwardparty.com/volunteer_find_your_state

* https://www.cacommonsense.org/

Seems like there's plenty of room for a new party imo, that maybe is just a bit younger an in touch. I think it sohuldn't be too hard to find policies with broad support:

- weed legalization

- right to repair

- 99% vs 1%

- Oversight of corruption/congress

- Envirnonmental safety

- digital privacy

- EULA reform

Sounds like socialism. Why do you hate America?

And with those two sentences your party is done for, regardless of the truth or reality.

I think you over estimate the power of the word "socialism". The reply "yeah, and?" would probably play over pretty well with the kind of crowd that would have a chance in hell of voting for such a party anyways.

While I like this platform, I feel like this is a tech nerd echo chamber party rather than something broad based.

You mean you've never been to those massive, million-person "EULA Reform" rallies?

Just a bunch of people holding "I accept" signs they've never read. Not that different from most politics, I guess.

Honestly the signs should read “I do not accept”, since it’s a protest.

Would be pretty good actually.

I mean people don't go picket over it, but it's got broad enough appeal that one of south park's more famous episodes is ridiculing it.

It's not inside the overton window right now, but no reason it couldn't be. Most people thought AI wouldn't be a political topic 5 years ago.

Well, that's true. You never know what the next big issue is going to be.

policies dont matter

I don't think the average person has a concept of what digital privacy is but its still a fine list of things to work towards.

I think these are policies which are important but parties are built around ideologies right? so maybe by looking at all of these and finding a common thread you could make that the corner stone of the hackernews party or whatever.

Getting people to believe your party aligns with them wont be enough though, you have to get people to believe that by not voting for their favorite entrenched party they aren't helping their opponents to win.

If there's any room for a new party it's probably white folks who want to identify as economically responsible but are embarrassed by the republican party's direction.

Where's the voting reform? Without voting reform, even if this third party succeeds they'll just pull the ladder up behind them.

The divisiveness that's everywhere in the US political system is a feature, not a bug. By casting political problems in terms of tribal loyalty, you can get the voters in your tribe to ignore deeper problems. The deeper problems are, as always, corporate control of laws, policy and regulatory agencies. If a voter suddenly swallows a red pill and starts to see corporate corruption in government, you can always drive him to the other tribe, or shame him back into your own, and the odds are he'll go back to sleep. If you drive him to the other tribe, no harm is done, because both parties obey the same corporate overlords.

Tribalism exists to keep people from paying attention, but the solution isn't more civility, because the forces against civility are very strongly established and will destroy it to keep people distracted, so the corporate money machine can keep going unquestioned.

What we need is more scrutiny of the corporate incursions into news organizations and regulatory agencies. Have you watched the evening news lately? Did you see all those adds for pharma? Have you watched CNN or Fox? Did you see those shills for military contractors posing as authoritative commentators? Have you noticed the revolving door between the FDA and drug companies?

The focus has to be on corruption, not on civility.

Unfortunately, it's just more dull than this.

Corporatism thrives in the absence of strong government because it can draw strings to both sides. Trump demonstrated that even if one side completely fails, propping up it's politicians via dark pools of political influence and lobbying will keep anyone from gaining momentum.

The people aren't really a matter anymore. Republicans have minmaxed the board and carved out a basically unfailable position, while democrats really cannot oust their own politicians because that just cedes random chance.

What corporatism "promise" is a stability, a upgrade from defacto slavery to economic slavery.

I’d question this: “The deeper problems are, as always, corporate control of laws, policy and regulatory agencies.” Cursory look at history shows that the problems with governments are usually not companies. People seeking power just aren’t saints.

> People seeking power just aren’t saints.

Which is why a part of me thinks that desire for office should be disqualification for office.

If you look at the policies these parties are actually backing, they're all about democratic reform:

* campaign finance reform

* voting reform

* legislative transparency

"Civility" would be a consequence of structural reforms; not a good-intentions effort.

I thought the "Forward Party = Theranos" metaphor was bizarre. They're the same because they both wanted to... shake up their respective industries? You could just as easily say "Forward Party = Amazon in the '90s."

You can construct a "this article = Theranos" argument with the same techniques. It's just picking and choosing similarities in order to make insinuations, and it's immediately suspect.

Andrew Yang should read up on Duverger's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

Maybe he hopes to replace one of the existing parties (that is, become one of the two dominant ones).

Sure, that's always the hope. But leaders in two existing dominant political parties have gotten pretty good at triangulation. As soon as a nascent third party starts gaining significant support, the existing parties co-opt pieces of that platform and the third party fades away. So, third parties can be temporarily effective in moving the political needle but they won't win major elections in our lifetimes.

Breaking that is the entire point of ranked choice voting. If the existing parties co-opt that, then the party has succeeded.

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

I'd suggest you read all the way through your linked article, including the subsection "Counterexamples".

Electoral reform is actually one of the biggest issues that the party seems to back. (For exactly the reason you mention.)

Go back to Larry Lessig's inspiration from Aaron Swartz: the political OS is broken. In its current form, it is a pantomime theater that ping-pongs between manufactured populism and stooges of the billionaires. It cannot be fixed from within, much less a third party, because there are no incentives or motivations to stop feeding from the trough of so much fucking money and then the political class has the gaul to pretend that they're not bribes. John McCain's campaign finance reform, Larry Lessig's single-issue candidacy, and Yang's POTUS run underscore the futility of this Sisyphean task.

The only possible change to the US political order would be the concerted effort of ~10M of nonviolent protestors shutting down DC, demanding campaign finance reform, and recalling the most corrupt elected officials. Otherwise, in the absence of gamified popularity contests, a radical experiment for public administration would be a variant of sortition pulling from numerous professional memberships, as an alternative to the corrupting power of influence accumulation powered by media buys. I think Socrates would agree that too much (corrupt or misinformed) democracy doesn't necessarily lead to excellence or ethical outcomes.

PS: An incomplete list of representatives who are unfit for office:

- Mitch McConnell

- Diane Feinstein

- Nancy Pelosi

- Marjorie Taylor Greene

- Joe Manchin

- George Santos

- Kyrsten Sinema

- Douglas Vincent Mastriano

- Jim Bob Duggar

- Madison Cawthorn

(Certain ones omitted for obvious reasons. Sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I'm wondering if dysinformation campaigns by non-aligned countries have indeed greatly bolstered internal divisions.)

Sorry not even going to read the article, from what I can tell Politico's raison d'etre is to shill for the establishment. Big surprise the headline is to tear down a threat to it.

I encourage everyone to read about the DNC fraud lawsuit where the DNC argued that they have no obligation to hold a fair primary because they're a corporation and the nomination process isn't constitutionally protected: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-exposes-...

You're welcome to read the original court docs for specifics.

> I encourage everyone to read about the DNC fraud lawsuit where the DNC argued that they have no obligation to hold a fair primary because they're a corporation and the nomination process isn't constitutionally protected: ...

I mean, they're correct though right? The major political parties used to just decide who the nominee was in whatever shady-ass backroom they felt like. The current system is vastly better than that.

If you want something even better, let's do it, but any real change is going to require constitutional amendments or at least _vast_ changes in many states.

I would say the primary is fraudulent since their representation of the process in court is very different from what they float to the public, and voters are disenfranchised as a result of the misrepresentation (the legal concept of fraud requires injury.)

https://archive.is/ka14y

Hmmm....I think they have a PR problem. Had no idea it existed. Author is definitely interesting.

Andrew must be making headway if Politico is going out of their way to character assassinate him and his party by name.

"First they ignore you, then they shitpost about you on the Internet, then you win." -- Nicholas Klein

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