The Andrew Yang Conundrum

Andrew Yang (F-NY)

Losing a presidential primary is inevitable.  Most prominent politicians will at some point explore a bid at least once, but simply by virtue of the contest happening once every four years (and with the power of incumbency, frequently less), there simply aren't enough chances for a politician to make a difference in that election.  Politicians as storied as Bob Dole & Hillary Clinton needed multiple at-bats to even make it, and those are the lucky ones.  By my count at least a dozen current senators have run for president, and only one of them (Mitt Romney) has gotten the presidential nomination (and of course, he lost).  Most politicians go back to their day jobs, the itch not really scratched but understanding that they're still some of the most important people in the country.  But not all presidential aspirants have jobs to go back to.  Some have to forge new paths, and one who is doing just that is Andrew Yang.

Yang's presidential election in 2020 was deeply unorthodox.  While he polled decently, he didn't have the traditional structure to run for president, and at times it felt like he didn't care.  He filed earlier than virtually any other candidate (in 2017, putting him in line with someone like John Delaney), and it felt like he was doing this less to run for president and more to promote his book that talked about job displacement in a modern economy and the need for a Universal Basic Income (an idea that, to Yang's credit, has at least gained prominence publicly in a way that it likely wouldn't have without his campaign).  Yang's polling from this developed a group called the "Yang Gang," largely made up of younger people (specifically Millennials & Gen Z) who were intrigued by his unorthodox approach to politics, and it was clear even though he lost that he'd potentially become a new voice in a party that doesn't really rely upon talking heads or media personalities the way that the Republicans do with figures like Tucker Carlson & Sean Hannity.  Yang's politics were hard to define, which made him interesting in an increasingly homogenous landscape, and in retrospect I kind of get why he took off as a result of that approach (even if it was never going to be enough to win the nomination).

But Yang badly misjudged his ability as a candidate who might actually win (rather than just attract headlines), and instead of trying to grow his support, ran headfirst into a second campaign, this time for Mayor of New York City.  This ended badly for him, with Yang starting off as the frontrunner but then making gaffe-after-gaffe (and proving pretty quickly that his connection to New Yorkers was, at best, tangential), and ending up an abysmal fourth.  The emperor, it seemed, had no clothes, and what was once a promising potential path into future office (or at least becoming an important tastemaker in the party) ended with him leaving the Democratic Party and founding the Forward Party, which is a bizarre experiment that has some genuinely good ideas...but feels like it's not capable of success in the hands of a guy who seems more interested in the spotlight & selling books than actually finding the most credible path to success.

I'll point out right now that I don't exactly disagree with Yang on all of his issues, I just think his approach feels more like someone pitching ideas in a brainstorming session than someone who seriously expects to change the world.  Yang's idea of a Universal Basic Income is intriguing, and it gets at the cornerstone of one of our problems as a society-we are too indebted in the United States to our employers & the whims of the corporations that cut our paychecks.  If you lose your job, you don't just lose your income, you likely will put at risk your home, your food supply, your access to healthcare, your pension/retirement, & your access to finding more employment (since it's more difficult to get a job when you're unemployed)-a lot of that is solved from a UBI, where you are able to ensure that the bare essentials are there.  For an economy where even middle class Americans struggle to have more than 1-2 months expenses in their savings account and where at least 40% of Americans will be laid off at least once in their lives, this is a big deal.  Some of Yang's other ideas feel like they're hatched out of a Reddit subfeed (his attitudes toward reframing the GDP feel like they're in a vacuum in a globalized economy, and anyone espousing crypto as anything other than a form of gambling cannot be taken seriously), but UBI is an idea worth exploring for Democrats.

But the big central tenet of his Forward Party is around making sure that voters have a third choice in their voting, and I don't think he's doing it in the right way.  To Yang's credit, he is not putting up candidates in elections that could serve as spoilers in 2022 (though I don't entirely buy that he won't use the platform to run for president in 2024, and won't buy it until ballot deadlines have passed).  But endorsing candidates on both sides of the aisle doesn't underline the clear problem with trying to get voting reforms through both parties-the two parties no longer work together, and making endorsements on a bipartisan manner is foolishness in our current era.  Look at the recent abortion bill that couldn't even get 50 votes in the Senate, despite over 50 senators being nominally "pro-choice"-partisanship matters more.  When you're making endorsements or voting, you're really just voting for whether or not you want Schumer/Pelosi to decide what bills get to be voted on or McConnell/McCarthy...nothing more.  So the only way to do this is to either go state-by-state convincing state legislative Democrats to change their policy (which gets a LOT harder when you aren't a member of the party), or by pursuing ballot initiatives in as many states as possible to implement Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV).

I am a proud Democrat, but I'm also more proudly someone who believes in everyone voting without fear of punishment for their beliefs.  I support, therefore the concept of RCV, which is an opinion I share with Yang.  I think that the only way that third party voters can influence our current system (and I believe they should have that power even if I don't necessarily support their candidates) is through RCV, where they are not punished for voting third party because it's inevitable that a Democrat or Republican will win.  RCV allows you to, for example, vote for Jill Stein in the 2020 presidential race, but if she isn't going to win your state, your vote would go to Joe Biden as your second choice rather than just being discarded, likely helping Donald Trump.  RCV has gained popularity-versions of it now exist statewide in Alaska & Maine, and it is in municipalities like New York City and Minneapolis.

But Yang's approach to it has been wrong.  Leaving the Democratic Party took away most of his power, his ability to try and influence a major party to adopt this from within (because there are advantages to it-you could make a sincere argument that with RCV Al Gore & Hillary Clinton would've both become president if we had RCV across the country, and without runoff elections we wouldn't currently hold the Senate), and frequently it doesn't feel like he has the discipline to keep on message about RCV even if he clearly believes in it.  His public appearances lack the discipline of someone like, say, Stacey Abrams, who spent 2019-21 laser-focused on registering voters in Georgia that turned out to give her party the White House & Senate.  Instead, it feels like his Forward Party is all style and no substance, espousing good ideas but providing no structure or background to provide real support to ballot initiatives (like the one currently ongoing in Nevada) that would ensure the expansion of RCV.  Yang isn't bereft of good ideas, but he has taken the window of opportunity he was afforded after his 2020 run and used it to sell books, get headlines, & prove he is bad at retail politicking, rather than doing the actual work to make some of his better ideas (UBI and RCV, namely) a reality for the party he decided to abandon seemingly with no real game plan.