Some More News - SMN: What, Why, How, And Who Is The Forward Party?

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Hi. In today's episode, we look at what the Forward Party is, who is actually behind them (in addition to Andrew Yang), and why they refuse to have any real policy positions. Please fill out our SURVEY: https://kastmedia.com/survey/ Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949 SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh   Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news  Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews  Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vvhljb3l_hmDL3CEtI1PszRYtlUWdH2aEg567B5UfpQ/edit?usp=sharing  Athletic Greens is going to give you an immune supporting FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit https://athleticgreens.com/morenews today. Prose is the healthy hair regimen with your name all over it. Take your FREE in-depth hair consultation and get 15% off your first order today at https://prose.com/morenews. #somemorenews #andrewyang #forwardpartySupport the show!: http://patreon.com.com/somemorenewsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Voting. Wombo loves voting. Oh, hello friends. Remember me? I'm Wombo. You remember Wombo? You'll never forget Wombo. And Wombo just wanted to...

Um, yeah. Hi, I'm Wombo. And I just... Hello. I wanted to let you know that this November... Hey, fuckface, stop playing with yourself and hurry up and... Wombo is trying to decide! If you rush Wombo, he will find you and he will make you yearn for oblivion! Voting is an important part of democracy, and so Wombo wants you to all get out and vote. Like Wombo is voting right now.

Okay, let's see. Here's those nasty Republicans. Can't vote for them. Oh, here's the Democrats. Wombo usually votes for them, but it's so hard to know if any of them is part of the too far left that are often just as bad as Republicans. This is so hard. Jesus, man, you're gonna think everything out loud?

Wombo is no man! Wombo is but a cosmic sensation of despair! The weight of dredge in the pit of your heart! Wombo is the shrill of the dying lamb! I was fostered from no womb, nor act of fleshly... Oh, wait, what's this? Forward party? Like, not left or right, but

forward? This intrigues Warmbo. Hey Warmbo! Oh hi, Mr. Cody. Yeah, hi. I uh heard you screaming from the other room. Did somebody put a polling place in my house? Miss Katie said you wouldn't mind. After all, do you not want Wombo to be able to vote, city goat? Don't you advocate for an expansion

of voting rights? Oh, I see. This is one of those things where I hate it. Second question. Did I hear you get excited for the forward party? Yeah, the forward party is not left or right, but forward. Why? Is that bad? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's... Hmm. You know, I don't know. Hey, can we wrap this up?

I gotta take a shit in your bathroom and I don't wanna lose my spot in line. I'm trying to vote. The Forward Party! What? Huh? And whuzzup? Well, okay, so yeah, voting is good.

I'd rather have it happen not in my living room, but sure. And having more options for voting is also good. So in theory, this new third party could be a good thing. So here's some news. Let's look into the forward party with an open mind and see what they're actually about. This could be an illuminating experience and perhaps a rare episode where a thing we talk about

turns out to be not bad. Can you imagine that? Where right now our politicians incentives lie on placating the most extreme 20% of voters in each of their districts because that's the way our system is designed. So what we have to do is change that. We need open primaries and ranked choice voting so that leaders have to appeal to 51% of voters instead of the 20% on most on both extremes. And then you'd see their behavior improve overnight. So that's what the forward party is about. Okay, see, that's something. Open primaries and ranked choice voting are certainly solid ideas that deserve discussion.

And of course, those concepts and variations of them are already implemented in many places. There's a debate to be had when it comes to these ideas, arguments for and arguments against them, nuance and junk. But again, it's at least something tangible they stand for. Potentially good. How would we go about doing it?

Give me those deets. What is your step one, besides a book, an interview, and pushing, and a movement, and tweets, and keep talking about it, but what is a concrete step that's going to take place to get us on that path? You got it and that's actually what I'm most excited about. Okay. Is that one state already passed open primaries and ranked choice voting which has opened up the system so again that leaders have to appeal to a

majority of citizens instead of just 10 to 20 percent there are 24 other states in our country that allow ballot initiatives where if enough of us get together and say we're fed up enough is enough we can actually flip a switch and change the system oh so we just have to get together and and flip a switch i'm sorry not to be a silly goat, but that kind of sounds vague and also like something that's already kind of happening. Again, stuff like open primaries are actually pretty complicated and could be implemented in good or bad ways.

So it would be nice to get a little more deets here before I say that's definitely a good or bad thing. But I'm sure things will start to come into focus once we hear the forward party's other positions, which are. Yeah, but Andrew, you're going to have to have policy positions at some point. How does the forward party feel about Roe versus Wade? Should it have been overturned? Well, I personally think that women's reproductive rights are fundamental human rights. But the forward party

has a not left or right, but forward stance on even the most divisive and contentious issues. What does that mean? Don't you have to take a position on something? Don't you have to take a position on something? You can't just say, well, you know, this is a hot button issue, so I'm not going to take a position on you. You know, if you want to run the country, you're going to have to make some hard decisions, Andrew. Again, the forward party is about that common sense consensus majority view, which is very clear on abortion. It's clear about guns. What about assault weapons? It's actually clear on just about every issue under the sun.

Wow. All righty. So the forward party's policy positions are whatever the common sense consensus majority view is, but they won't specify what those things are or openly advocate for them. So it's a little sketchy. Like what if the common sense majority were to suddenly be in favor of something immoral and atrocious? Would they still support it? Would they say, hold on there, majority. That's not common sense. It feels like I need to keep digging here. They're not left or right, but forward. The opposite of backward.

Womble kinda likes it. Yeah, you would kinda like it, wouldn't you? Fine, great, vote for the forlorn part or whatever. Just hurry up. I only got 20 minutes to get to Panera Bread before my lunch break is over. Hey, voice, person, could you maybe not vote here? This is my home. Whoa, you hear that? This guy doesn't want us to vote. What the hell? Ain't you an advocate for fair and equitable access to polling places? Yeah! What's the deal with this guy? I don't even know this guy!

Democracy hater! Fucking Nazi! Yeah! Eat his flesh! Okay, wow. You three people can vote here, but nobody else! Wombo is no person! Wombo is a symphony of anguish! Hanging up. You know, I think I might have actually recognized the guy

from those clips we showed earlier. I feel like he might've failed at politicking. What's his darn name again? I listened a lot to hip hop during like the 90s and 2000s because- What, like what, Andrew? I gotta know. Well, it was Jay-Z and a little bit of Nas and-

What's your favorite Jay-Z song? I mean, he's a New Yorker. Yes. What is my favorite Jay-Z song? Oh, right, Andrew Yang. I remember him, he was a businessman or something, right? He's the guy who ran for the Democratic nomination for president with a platform of universal basic income

and being afraid of automation, and then dropped out of the race after earning zero delegates. Just like our current vice president. I remember him now. Fun times, fun, fun times. If you recall, which you don't, he also ran for mayor of New York City in 2021, dropping out after a few months when his polling numbers plummeted largely because

of things like this. One thing that I think would be extraordinarily helpful is to have specific shelters for victims of domestic violence who are often fleeing from an abusive partner and it's a distinct population with distinct needs and they should have a separate facility or place that's able to serve those. There are already a number, a number of domestic violence shelters. People talk about capacity issues

with domestic violence shelters, but they do already already exist oh no they of course they do exist fun fun times yeah it seems like he was perhaps a little bit out of his depth along with this moment yang also suggested that new york should institutionalize all the mentally ill people and crack down on unlicensed street vendors he also didn't really endear himself to the people of New York City by saying that Times Square was his favorite subway station and appearing to not know what a bodega is. I think it's a kind of cat. Anyway, then only about two months after dropping out of the mayoral race, Yang said he had changed his voter registration from Democrat to Independent,

and was launching a new political party called the Forward Party. The key principles behind this party, as announced in his book, Forward, are ranked choice voting and open primaries, fact-based governance, human-centered capitalism, effective and modern-day government, universal basic income, and grace and tolerance. So, in case you missed all of that, that's two clear policy positions, rank choice voting

slash open primaries and universal basic income. And four vague made up things that can mean literally whatever, and in some cases seem like active contradictions. And we'll get back to that list in a little bit, which involves why this political party appears to have launched twice. But first, we're going to look at who this guy is in general,

where he came from, and why exactly he might be starting a political party in the first place. It's time to ask, who is Andrew Yang? Other than a huge Jay-Z fan. Don't forget political loser. Sorry, Andrew, that was too harsh. Was it?

I'm sorry, am I? Who cares? Anywho, if you're running for president and mayor and starting political parties, somehow in that order, you better have a good story. Like Brand the Broken, what a great show. Perfect ending to a series that was and always will be about the power of stories.

So Andrew Yang was born in New York State in 1975, just like the band Blondie. In the early 1990s, Yang attended the highly selective Phillips Exeter Academy, not like the band Blondie. And he says he was part of the US national debate team in 1992 that went to the world championships in London. Now the coach of that team said he'd never heard of Yang

and he definitely doesn't appear anywhere in the program of that event. And it's possible he may have meant a separate speech and debate tournament that took place 50 miles outside of London that year, which would definitely not have put him on the US national debate team. But look, we got a lot of stuff to get to. So let's just say, I don't know, maybe he was mistaken about attending a world debate championship in London in 1992. Who among us, you know? Also, not for nothing, but personally, I don't think it's a great selling point that a politician was allegedly trained and successful

in the art of convincing people of things, even if they're not true. Anyway, then he went to Brown University and Columbia Law School, and to his credit, worked only five months as a corporate lawyer before quitting, calling the experience purposeless and empty. Right on, Andrew, right on, Drew. His coworker, Jonathan Phillips, came up with an idea for a startup

that would connect celebrities and their fans with charitable causes while minimizing overhead. And he and Yang started Star Giving together. That company failed after the bursting of the early aughts tech bubble. But Yang later found success with the business test prep company Manhattan GMAT. First as a tutor, but later as its chief executive, where he made a sum in the low millions when it

was sold to Kaplan. Then in 2011, he started Venture for America, a nonprofit that gives recent college graduates experience with startups and supports their entrepreneurial endeavors. It was this nonprofit which got Yang recognized by President Obama as a champion of change and a presidential ambassador for global entrepreneurship. But even the success of Venture for America is a little questionable as the endeavor fell far short of its job creation goals, and Yang even later

said that the praise he got while running it gave him misgivings because he knew the organization wasn't accomplishing what it had set out to do. Again, right on Drew. So in 2017, two years before he would show up on any polls, he quit Venture for America and filed to run for president, the logical next step. And of course we all know how that turned out. Bad, it turned out bad.

We still have to talk about Yang's vision as a presidential candidate and why he is starting a new political party in the first place. But right off the bat, you have to question how Yang's mild tech success and up and down experience with a non-profit could possibly have prepared him to be president. Spoiler alert, it did not. But before we move on, you're really going to want to watch this story that would make

even Bran the Broken squeal in delight. In the form of these ads. The power of story advertisements. Hey, you with the shoes! No not me, you with the shoes! Where'd you get those shoes? The bad shoe store? Sick burn.

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How much of this song can I legally hum till we have to cut it? Hi, we're back from the ads. I didn't go far, just some brief warging. You know what that means? If you get the references to the show that I've been referencing. We were talking about the personal background of Andrew Yang, a man who decided that he has the solution

for what plagues American society, a solution to which Americans politely and repeatedly said, "'No, thank you. Please stop.'" During his presidential run, that solution was universal basic income, the idea that a wealthy country like the United States can and should give payments of a certain dollar amount each month to every adult

to ensure a basic standard of living. And one thing we will give Yang credit for, despite what his specific proposal would have potentially done to various welfare and disability programs, is making the concept of direct, no strings attached payments more of a mainstream idea. welfare, and disability programs is making the concept of direct, no-strings-attached payments more of a mainstream idea. He brought up this proposal a lot during the campaign, specifically

as a way to counter the inevitable wave of unemployment that he fears will result from AI and automation. Yeah, so I've been driven to universal basic income in part because I've been looking at the numbers. So the danger here is to think of it as artificial intelligence is coming. It's actually already eating up the most common jobs in our economy. And it's driving Americans into distress in various ways in the numbers. Wait a minute. I recognize those curtains. Where do I know that from? Is he on the bang bus? I recognize those curtains. Where do I know that from? Is he on the bang bus?

Ah, I was close. It's the J-O-I Rogon Conversants. That's one person whose job AI will never replace. You can't program a robot to nod and say, ah, that's what's wild. When Aaron Rodgers talks about how his latest experience with toad venom was good. Yang's promotion of UBI may not have been enough

to save his campaign, but it did legitimately become an idea more seriously floated in democratic circles, especially in the early months of the pandemic when it essentially got implemented for the equivalent of a couple of months. So, you know, good job. Though it did get a little bit grating to hear Yang talk about UBI as if the idea magically

sprouted from his mind during a wellness retreat, given that the concept has existed for decades and been tried out in a number of notably successful pilot programs. And it's unclear if Yang would still support UBI if AI and automation doesn't cause millions of workers to lose their jobs. And the jury is still very much out on that.

I mean, let's be honest, Captain Kidmaker's self-driving kill bots aren't replacing America's more than 3 million truck drivers anytime soon. So, I know it really seems like I'm picking on Andrew Yang a lot here. So to be fair and you know what? Balanced. I'm going to pick on him some more because while he seems like a nice guy and by many accounts is a good guy to work for, it's also pretty clear that he's pretty naive and clueless and maybe even not as nice as he seems, and isn't a good guy to work for,

he kind of reminds me of someone I might have stuck my hand inside. I forget who, it's a long list. Anyway, for example, a 2020 profile of Yang revealed that former employees found him to be smart and occasionally inspiring, but he stumbled when dealing with race and gender, especially as the head of a nonprofit.

When he ran for mayor, he got a ton of accusations of sexism coming from his campaign office, specifically women getting passed up for positions and being talked down to, and even being fired for reporting harassment. Not great. One could call it bad. Meanwhile, most accounts seem to portray Yang

as clueless of the problems with his staff, because I don't think he's a guy who's particularly interested in like being a boss and generally lacks a degree of self-awareness. In one Venture for America meeting, Yang talked about the Babadook great film and claimed that women should be given more opportunities to direct films and start companies to fill holes

in the market left open by male directors and entrepreneurs. To quote the profile, "'Members of the mostly female team "'recalled exchanging glances. "'To some, it felt as if Mr. Yang were discovering sexism "'for the first time and explaining it to them. Sadly, there is no term for this phenomenon. But that's kind of what this all feels like, right?

Yang proudly explaining stuff that we all already kind of know. Condescension is pretty common in the tech bro world as these hanging dongs very often come up with genius inventions that already existed. And this is a guy who's spent the last few years telling us the system is broken and the rest of us saying, no shit, what's your plan?

And him explaining to us the same things we already know over and over. At the end of the day, he seems to be a C-tier tech entrepreneur who cobbled together a few million dollars selling a test prep company and has had very little in the way of actual success in politics, business, and, we're assuming, book sales. There's no shame in that.

Maybe a little shame if you're feeling shameful, but it doesn't provide great evidence that this is a person with innovative political ideas who will address our current crises. At best, he's a well-intentioned guy who overestimates his ability to inspire genuine change and is probably a little sexist. And at worst, he's an opportunistic wannabe using other people's ideas to try and force himself into political relevance and is probably a little sexist.

And also will like raise money for some Web three crypto things. Boy, don't even wanna unpack that. You also might've noticed that we've already featured a few of his tweets because he tweets a lot, don't we all? And they're frequently cringy and or embarrassing. I sure, I wish, I wish, I wish we could show you a bunch of those tweets in a montage set to like royalty free classical guitar.

So let's do that. That was fun. Weird guy, right? Who still follows me on Twitter, but maybe won't after this. Anyway, Wormbo, did any of this change your mind? Maybe the sexism, or the thing about being pro-institutionalization, or boy, this universal basic income sounds very scary to Wombo.

I mean, I'm all for helping the poor through TikTok stunts or eating their young or wearing a ribbon, but we don't want to turn off normal Americans with extreme liberal policies and a third party could split the vote and usher in four more years of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or that dreamboat Chuck Grassley?

Chuck Grassley is 89, and I don't think he's running for president. He better not. That meanie. Nasty. Luscious hunk of a man. Oh my God, just vote already. I gotta take this dump and meet my wife at Panera Bread. Agreed.

Can everyone please just vote as quickly as possible and leave my home? Oh, more voter intimidation tactics from cody don't get bullied stay in line stay in line stay in line stay in line stay in line stay in line just do it over there! Okay, so we've looked at this one guy, but we still have an entire political party to examine. So why don't we take a look at the Forward Party's website, press materials, and interviews,

and see what they're actually all about. And maybe after that, we can kick out these voters. I really don't like the position they've put me in. Okay, so the Forward Party's homepage is about as boilerplate as you can get without being filled with lorems and ipsums, platitudes about bringing Americans together instead of dividing them,

keeping America free and building thriving communities. But in fairness, it's just the homepage. Both the Democrats and the Republicans' websites have to be pretty similar, right? Creating diverse communities or protecting your community from other communities, stuff like that. So let's dig a little deeper.

In fact, you know what? Okay, when you click on why forward at the top of the page, you do get really specific insights like the Forward Party will welcome new ideas and fearless conversations around the issues of the page, you do get really specific insights like the forward party will welcome new ideas and fearless conversations around the issues of the day. And the forward party will approach each other with grace and tolerance, finding ways to pick people back up

rather than knock them down. And we're moving American politics forward with a party focused on innovative, collaborative and common sense solutions that work for the majority. And the forward party will take you to the Horn Dungeon, an exclusive club only for the horniest dungeon masters. Want to see a naked cloud giant?

Come to the Horn Dungeon. That's from a different browser tab. Okay, we're gonna keep looking. Platform! They got a platform button. Okay, here we go. Let's do it. Finally, the platform. Ranked choice voting, nonpartisan primaries, independent redistricting commissions, and... That's it! Now, once again, those things are worth exploring. Ranked choice voting has various potentially positive and negative effects on governance and voter turnout. And independent redistricting commissions are necessary

to prevent partisan gerrymandering in ways that disenfranchise voters, particularly voters of color. Of course, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that could eliminate the ability of state courts and independent commissions from throwing out racist gerrymandered maps, which would likely negate the federal law

the forward party wants to establish to make such gerrymandering illegal. And wow, Supreme Court, way to rain on the forward party's parade. The one law this entire political party supports at the federal level, and you're about to make it impossible since you are, legally speaking, gaping dickholes.

Dickholes so big you could fit dicks in there. But Forward is not a non-profit advocacy group for new election laws. It's a political party. They have a whole webpage after all. Presumably they want people to join and donate to and campaign for and maybe even vote for this political party.

As Jim Acosta said to Andrew Yang in that interview, "'You're gonna have to have policy positions at some point.' And that point at the moment appears to be far down the X axis, maybe off the sheet of graph paper, perhaps even in someone else's geometry class, a horny cloud giants geometry class in the horn dungeon? Who knows anything's possible

in the sexy, sexy imagination. But amazingly, instead of rushing out policy positions to blunt this criticism, the forward party is doubling down on not having them. In a post on the party's blog called Open Letter to Forward Skeptics, Florida forward party leader Nate Smolenski suggests that skepticism is based entirely on the brokenness of the two party system and not the party's lack of definition itself. Smolenski writes, quote,

"'As to our philosophy and guiding principles, "'some may have been thrown off "'by the open-endedness of our messaging. "'Unlike most political parties, "'we're not interested in putting forward a top-down dogma of what we deem right on each and every issue. Instead, we believe in building a coalition of pragmatic, independent, innovative thinkers.

And then what, Nate? What do the innovative thinkers think, Nate? Former Republican Congressman David Jolly, now one of the leaders of the Forward Party, addressed this as well at the party's kickoff event in Houston on September 24th. And before we get to the clip, let me tell you, this thing was a fucking rager,

by which I mean it seems like there were a lot of white guys named Ray there. Yeah, this is a very critical question, and as what I referenced earlier, this is a different kind of party, By which I mean, it seems like there were a lot of white guys named Ray there. that today's Democratic Party writes off half of the country as being antithetical to their values and Republicans write off the other half as being antithetical to their values. Republicans don't try to win anything in California. Democrats don't try to win anything in Alabama. It seems kind of silly. What if you built a party big enough, broad enough, to represent the entire country, to actually have forward party elected offices in Alabama and in California. Think about it.

Wow, what an original idea to have candidates closest to their communities articulate an important position of their community. Like some kind of representative, such a different and fresh concept as opposed to our current system of representational democracy. Listen, I get it.

Our current system is extremely partisan and super not great. We talk about this all the time on the show, but he's literally just describing a democracy as if he just invented it. The thing our system is supposed to be, and technically still is, politicians represent the states they are elected from

to the point that they will go against their party or morality or dignity if they think it will help them get reelected. The Democrats went all out this year to support anti-abortion Democrat Henry Queller against the primary challenger in the red state of Texas. Joe Manchin's a Democrat and he won't do anything unless West Virginia's 10,000 or so coal miners are okay with it. Kyrsten Sinema is a Democrat

and actively thinks her own party should not be able to pass any legislation whatsoever. Remember when that GOP weirdo ate a burger in front of the US Capitol because they thought AOC was going to outlaw meat or whatever? Well, that guy was representing Utah, which has an economy hinged on livestock. I get that it's frustrating when national progress is halted because one person is concerned about the industry in their state,

or more likely being paid lots of money by that industry. There's absolutely a problem in this country with how unbalanced and corrupt our representation is and how partisan the entire process has become. It is a busted two party system where both parties still manage to come together and agree that two things that still kick ass are capitalism and war.

But the answer isn't to add a political party so generic that they stand for absolutely nothing in fear of angering a portion of Americans. Not to go all the dictionary on them, but the definition of a political party is a group of people with shared views about how power is to be exerted and to what ends. There's simply no getting around that. If your selling point is that you fundamentally believe in nothing, you're not a political party. You're the nihilist from the Big Lebowski. We wants the policy, Lebowski.

We will get to why the Forward Party refuses to have policy positions in a minute. But for now, after looking at their announcements, press materials, website, and public statements, the most you can say is that their pitch is, we are a third party. Nearly every article announcing the launch of the party uses the same quote,

that it wants to give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future. Those second and third things are vague and don't mean anything. And the first is announcing that they are an additional choice with no selling point whatsoever.

All while ignoring the fact that there are already other choices. It's like if you were tired of Coke and Pepsi, and then some other company started advertising bubbly dark mess, or if you opened a store, didn't sell anything, and all of your advertisements were about how we need more stores, donations accepted. Their entire selling point is that they exist

as a third option, as if that's new and exciting. The Forward Party is more of a vibe than a political movement. You can't describe it, bruh. It's like a feeling. They're the hip shortening of the word forward to FWD. You know, like the kinds of emails you delete. They're also this star triangle letter A thing. These tri-colored arrows, these zigzagging paper airplanes, and this low production value ripoff of ASAP science. What is gerrymandering and why is it bad in 60 seconds? We all like to think that we choose our elected officials. In reality though, they choose us. Every 10 years when the census comes around,

legislators in all 50 states redraw their district maps. My God, pick a theme and design scheme already. I don't know what the common sense majority view is on the best graphic to convey the concept of forward, but I'm pretty sure it's not thwud. And if the people in charge of this party can't agree on what color the arrows should be, or which way they should be pointing,

how are they going to agree on things like, I don't know, what to do about the imminent fucking climate catastrophe, or more specifically, what to do about anything specific? The only consistent idea is that most of their imagery is about three things, three arrows, three points on a star. This graphic Yang tweeted showing that

while partisans are two things, forwardists are three. As in third party, as in our only idea is to exist as a third option. Listen, if you're in the forward party and all you want is ranked choice voting and other electoral reforms, there are advocacy groups that have been fighting for those things for years.

Maybe toss them a few bucks or volunteer, you know, get involved in your community or, and this is a wacky idea, join one of the political parties that also wants those things. The Green Party supports ranked choice voting as well as a bunch of other common sense things. Not saying everyone should vote for them. Green is objectively the color of boogers, but that party does exist. In fact, I hope it's been clear from watching this

that I'm not criticizing third parties as a concept. Other political parties can and should present new ideas and alternatives to the existing two party system. But in terms of why this party will be the one to break through where others have failed, I just don't see a compelling argument. If the forward party has other tangible political positions and actual changes they want to make to American society,

people have to know what they are. And if those positions really are the common sense consensus majority view, great. Then post on your website that you want legal access to abortion, background checks on your website that you want legal access to abortion, background checks on all gun purchases, public health care, free COVID tests and masks delivered to the home,

and yes, even age limits for holding public office. But they're not advocating for those things. That's strange, isn't it? How so many consensus reforms are being ignored by them. Could it be that most of those things are things that one of the two major political parties already kind of much of the time is at least claiming to be in favor of?

Or maybe it's because the vast majority of the forward party's current membership doesn't want those things. Which leads us to the broader who of the Forward Party. Who is doing this if it's not just Andrew Yang? It's time to explore that question. More specifically though, it's time for ads. Then time to explore that question.

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and get 15% off your first order today go to pros.com slash more news that's p-r-o-s-e.com slash more news for your free in-depth hair consultation and 15 off do it or i'll send nana Nana to get you. We are back in the sex dungeon, which is what I call my sex dungeon. We were talking about the who and the why of the Forward Party, because if you'll remember, I mentioned that this political party

strangely launched twice, once in 2021, and then again just a few months ago. What is the deal? It turns out there are a few months ago. What is the deal? It turns out there are a few other groups that merged earlier this year with the Forward Party, i.e. Andrew Yang, necessitating a second, bigger announcement.

Those groups are the Serve America Movement, or the SAM Party, and the Renew America Movement, or RAM. And instead of renaming the new group the Forward America Movement to keep it all in the fam, they decided to stick with simply Forward, and label themselves as a collective of former Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.

But when you look into who started these other groups, those S's on the end of Democrats and Independents are doing a lot of heavy lifting. Those S's are going to be Joe Rogan swole by the time they are done lifting that phrase. The Serve America movement was founded in 2017 by Morgan Stanley executive Eric Grossman. And to hear him talk about the party early on,

it sounds strikingly similar to what Yang has consistently said and not said about the forward party. For example, the Sam party boasts a core conviction to bridge the growing political divide in America through civil dialogue and finding common ground. And their platform page says they reject the approach of having predetermined policy positions. Their greatest and only success early on

was getting a candidate on the ballot in the 2018 New York governor's race, the formerly Democratic mayor of Syracuse, Stephanie Minor. She came in fifth place with less than 1% of the vote and was listed on the ballot under the Sam party. Other than Minor, however, the vast majority of the Sam Party's leadership were never-Trump Republicans,

like the Lincoln Project's Reid Galen and Sara Lenti, and also former Republican Congressman David Jolly, the guy who pretended that he came up with the idea of local politics in that clip from earlier. Oh, and the vast majority of the funding for the Sam Party came from former Philip Morris executive, Charles Wall, who spent most of the 1990s defending tobacco companies from lawsuits,

even arguing to the Supreme Court that they should be shielded from being sued given the health warnings that were legally required on tobacco products. Cool guy. The Renew America movement, the other group Forward merged with a few months ago, started with a political manifesto

signed by 150 Republicans literally the day after Liz Cheney was ousted as the chair of the House Republican Conference. That is to say, it started not as a genuine political party with its own set of ideals and priorities, but as a Republican response to the MAGA movement and a rejection of the extreme elements of that ideology.

And to give credit to their manifesto, a call for American renewal, or you know, a call to make America new again, it also does oppose the disenfranchisement of voters and condemns the very sort of bigotry that so many Republicans are now using as the basis for their campaigns. But it was remarkably thin on expressing an opinion

about anything other than a rejection of MAGA ideals, cronyism, and racist nationalism. You have to squint to see what specifically, if anything, the collective stands for. And then in your squinting, you can make out the phrases limited regulation and encouraging self-reliance, and it becomes perfectly clear who these people are and have always been.

The call for American renewal was initiated by Evan McMullin, a former CIA agent and investment banker who left the Republican Party after Donald Trump became his nominee in 2016, and also Miles Taylor, a congressional staffer during the George W. Bush administration, who later served as chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security under Trump. He's the guy who wrote that 2018 New York Times op-ed, I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration. But before you give him a hearty pat on the dumper

for his brave resisting, you should know that he wrote in that op-ed, quote, to be clear, ours is not the popular resistance of the left. We want the administration, to be clear, the Trump administration, to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. Again, that is one of the founders of a group that just merged with the Forward Party, arguing that, like, the Muslim ban

and a cocktail napkin drawing of a border wall were making America safer and more prosperous. Unrelated, or maybe a little related, Miles Taylor is, or was, it's unclear, a Havana Syndrome sufferer. You know, the mysterious vague symptoms impacting US officials that definitely isn't a mass psychogenic illness caused by terrifying clicking that definitely isn't crickets.

It was sort of a chirping, somewhere between what you would think is a cricket or sort of a digital sound. I didn't know what it was, but it was enough to wake me up. What was really strange about it is I went to the window, opened up my window, looked down at the street. And keep in mind, Scott, this is probably 3, 3.30 in the morning. And I see a white van and the van's brake lights turned on and it pulled off and it sped away. How long did it last? This whole episode only lasted about seven to 10 minutes. How did you feel the next day? Off, off, not ready to go to work. You know, kind of wanting to take the day off. You know, sick. And look, not to discount the symptoms, okay? I do believe that Taylor felt off, like, you know, sick that day. But coupled with an anonymous op-ed that turned into an anonymous book, a very public statement

of principles, and ultimately a merger with a bunch of other notable Reagan and Bush acolytes, it seems more and more that we're looking at the actions of people trying to stay relevant and in the public eye as much as possible. This collection of anti-Trump Republican organizations, which a number of articles strangely refer to as centrist groups, that's who this new forward party is. So when they say they're a collective of Democrats, Republicans, and independents, what they mean is that they are a group of Democrats represented by Andrew Yang and like the 500 or so people

who liked this tweet of him and Mark Cuban. Republicans represented by most of the other members of the party, including former New Jersey governor and Bush administration official, Christine Todd Whitman, who is now the forward party's co-chair. And independents represented by, I don't know, the Mooch. He signed that manifesto and doesn't seem to have much else going on, so why not? Independent, former press secretary for Donald Trump, the Mooch. And that brings us,

finally, to why the Forward Party has been so bad at presenting any policy position so far. Remember that list of key principles Yang presented in his book that were going to form the cornerstone of his pre-Sam and pre-Ram Forward Party. What lives on the party's website now on their Why Forward page is very similar, promoting ranked choice voting, and even Yang's vague notions of grace and tolerance.

But you know what's not there? Universal basic income. The one major policy proposal that elevated Andrew Yang's campaign for president and made him a household name is curiously absent from the forward party's press offerings and messaging. The only references to UBI on the website now appear to be abandoned holdovers

from before those other groups joined. And Yang himself even suggested in a tweet in May that he was moving on from that proposal, and he hasn't mentioned it since. Could it be that Andrew Yang doesn't think that the looming threat of automation is the national emergency it once was, like a year and a half ago?

Or that universal cash payments would be less effective than targeted aid to low income communities? Or, and you might wanna sit down and swallow your kombucha lest this suggestion initiate a spit take that short circuits your laptop and sets your house on fire. Maybe it's that all of the people Yang joined forces with to try and stay relevant are a bunch of neocons

who have no interest in any progressive policy proposals. He can go on television and say, "'Common sense consensus majority view view as much as he wants. But when the entire organization is run by former Bush administration goons and Republicans for whom Trump is just a little too openly racist, that's going to send a pretty specific message of what you stand for.

Trickle down for the reboot. Yeah, trickle. Trickle down, reboot. Yeah, trickle all the way down that reboot. Now look, in terms of being a political party that actually runs candidates and competes in elections, the waters here are still a little murky. After all, Evan McMullin, the former CIA guy who initiated the Call for American Renewal, is running, poorly, for Senate as an independent, not as a member of the Forward Party. Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona is also listed on the Renew America Movements page as a renewer, and has been endorsed by the Forward Party. But he's still running for re-election as a Democrat. The Forward Party itself says it has

no plans to run a presidential candidate in 2024 2024 and has no candidates in the current midterm cycle. They have endorsed a small number of candidates in the midterms from a number of parties, but the Forward Party does say they plan on having candidates at some point. Their national political director and chief strategist, Joel Searby, says they're in U.S. politics for the long haul, just not for this cycle and 2024. Though I have to say, just from a PR perspective, if you're trying to build confidence, maybe don't introduce your chief strategist like this. It is my pleasure to welcome to Forward, a man who has lost more independent political races

than anyone else in the country, perhaps the head of political strategy for forward Joel Searby. Welcome, Joel. I know you all think I'm a big loser who can't win anything, but let me introduce to you a big loser who can't win anything. Take a bow, fuck brains. What I really want to emphasize here is that the forward party or any third party could become a major force in American politics, but it would require real vision and a desire to fundamentally upend

our current electoral system. Rank choice voting and crossing your fingers that the Supreme Court will continue to allow independent redistricting commissions isn't going to be enough. It doesn't change the fact that our system is designed to coalesce voters into the two biggest possible tents in order to compete for power. Not to get too legal or French, but this idea is known as

Duvergier's Law, which says that systems of first-past-the-post, win-or-take-all districts, will naturally favor two party systems. As smaller parties will find it difficult to win any seats and voters will be wary of wasting their votes on anyone they deem unlikely to win. And while Duvergier's law has been challenged and debate continues on how much of a law it really is, it's not hard to see how the American system

makes it extremely difficult for a third party to succeed. For example, remember this guy? If not, go ask your parent, guardian, or sexy uncle if they remember this guy. His name was H. Ross Perot. The H stands for howdy. And he ran the most successful third party presidential campaign in recent memory.

In 1992, the year Andrew Yang maybe went to some debate event somewhere, Perot took advantage of a recent recession, the willingness of cable news to feature him prominently, and low poll numbers for George Howdy Whitey Bush to become a major factor in that election. He was part of the debates, impersonated by Dana Carvey on SNL, and paid for 30 to 60 minute long infomercials on TV networks.

It was a major story and a hugely successful campaign. And in the end, Ross Perot garnered 19% of the popular vote on election night. Good enough for zero electoral votes. So yeah, even in this perfect storm where voters were desperate for an alternative and one fifth of them voted for a third party candidate, they got absolutely bubkiss in terms of representation.

And that's the real problem here. And it's one that the forward party for all its bluster about a broken system has not put forth any solution to address. And they could address it, for example, and this is just spitting on my balls, they could advocate for abolishing the Electoral College. It's a common sense consensus thing that most Americans want.

Or how about this? Promote a proportional representation system, which would determine leadership based on the proportion of voters who selected each party, thus encouraging voters to choose whichever party most closely aligns with their viewpoints. Could there be any drawbacks to this? I mean, sure.

Sweden just made some neo-fascist their second largest political party, and Italy elected its most far right government since Mussolini. And that might explain why the forward party isn't promoting it. Giving voters many options typically encourages a wider distribution of votes,

not just consolidation toward the center. But you know, that's, that's democracy for you. Democracy, occasionally ushering in fascism since 507 BC. The Forward Party hasn't proposed any of these things because it doesn't want to actually change the system. Despite what they say, I'm not sold that they ultimately want to run political candidates at all.

It seems like maybe they just want attention, that they're a group of people who lose every election they're in, take every opportunity they can to go on TV and prove what a good person they are, and want to make themselves feel better after their longtime political party turned into this guy's voter chum bucket.

It's an empty vanity exercise. It's a cry for help. It's a desperate attempt to prove that you really did have what it takes to make it in american politics and if it doesn't work out well maybe we're a year or two away from andrew yang being revealed as the frog prince on the masked singer should be a good season a good dystopian season i can't even believe that show is real it's so weird when you see clips of it you've seen clips of that show and it's like, this is fake. You're faking me out right now. Anyway, I'm actually going to wrap things up here by defending the

forward party a little bit, because if you've been watching any coverage of it on cable news, one of the top criticisms is not that these are essentially Republicans or that they're pretending to be the first people to come up with the concept of a third party, but that the forward party will help Republicans beat Democrats in elections. This stands out as a really stupid idea. Ralph Nader basically elected George W. Bush in 2000.

Jill Stein basically elected Donald Trump in 2016. And the only possible thing this could do is bleed some moderate Republicans off of voting for whoever the Democratic nominee is. What Louisiana Skeletor is pushing there is the prominent narrative that Democrats need to get more centrist, since the only way they can win elections is by winning over the mythical moderate Republicans who might one day vote for them, despite the fact that they never, ever have or ever will. And in fact, sometimes write op-eds that support the Trump administration on principle and policy, but not his rudeness. I don't know where Louisiana Skeletor got this idea.

Too much cayenne in the crawfish? Maybe. But the argument that third-party candidates tend to help Republicans win is fucking false. A 2021 analysis of 2016 voters found that, quote, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein did not deprive Hillary Clinton of an electoral college majority, nor Donald Trump the legitimacy of winning the national popular vote. We estimate that most Johnson and Stein voters would have abstained from voting if denied the choice to vote for their preferred candidate,

and that most of Johnson's remaining voters would have supported Trump. Even in 2000, analysis shows that at least 40% of Ralph Nader voters in Florida would have voted for George W. Bush if Nader had not been on the ballot. Why would they have done this? Again, who knows? It's a cayenne in the crawfish scenario. Crawfish, of course, being my slang for the anus. But there were plenty of other third party candidates

in that election as well. Any one of whose voters could still have put Bush over the top. It's a false narrative meant to deflect attention away from the real ideas that third party candidates often put forward. So no, the forward party is very likely not going to help Donald Trump win a second term,

even if they got very popular, and that's a horny cloud giant sized if. There's no indication that it would peel off more moderate Democrats than moderate Republicans. After all, the core of their pitch seems to be Republican discourse grievance filtered through noncommittal, banal Democrat appeasement rhetoric. Also, again, if your idea for a political party is for people to come together and come up with popular policies to implement, you've come up with the idea of government, of having representational democracy.

And sure, in a lot of ways, we don't have that, but surely you don't need to pretend that that's not what you're proposing. Also, also, one of their other couple of proposals, you know that open primary thing in which party primaries aren't exclusive to those within the party? So let's say open primaries, all right?

Where let's say a progressive, more green candidate could run and win a Democratic primary. Or let's say, let's say there's a group of mostly Republicans who mostly just didn't like Trump's boorishness. So let's say maybe they, you know, get the nominee for the Democratic Party. Wouldn't that be interesting if that's what a lot of them wanted to do?

But if you're some high-fiving teenager that totally exists and you're still excited for the forward party, don't let this idea stop you from voting for them. Vote for whomever. Don't vote. Vote for the horny cloud giant. We're not your boss.

It is good to have more options. It's good to point out that the current system is broken and needs to be fixed. But also, maybe don't vote for them because you can't actually until after 2024, allegedly, maybe. Generally, probably not until they like, have clear political positions. That seems reasonable.

You know, the common sense consensus majority view that a political party should actually stand for something. Boo! Hiss! Slander! Oh, right, you're still here. Wait, why are you mad at me? Mr. Cody, you don't seem to understand that the system is broken and the Forward Party is the only way to fix it.

Wait, weren't you, like, against the Forward Party? But now you're... you gotta make up your mind, man. Thank you! Well, that was the case. But then you brought up my beloved nephew, Ross Perot, and Wombo remembered that when he was working on the 92 campaign, he got to drive around Iowa in a big bus with Perot written on the side, singing Tiny Dancer. Okay. That's a lot of new information about you.

The far left and the far right are both too extreme. We need radical centrists brave enough to say things like politics are bad. Hashtag Yang for life. For God's sake, just hurry up. Panera Bread is closing soon. Don't worry, they just opened a Panera Bread next door by this coffee table.

Okay, I'm texting Katie. The Panera Bread in my living room is pushing it. Oh, are you saying it should be illegal to give food to people in a long voter line? Cody's trying to suppress voter participation by getting the Panera Bread shut down. If you haven't received a

Bacon Turkey Bravo Sandwich yet, stay in line. Stay in line! Stay in line! Stay in line! Stay in line! Stay in line! Anyway, I hope you all learned something about the forward party. Hey, get this line out of the road. I got to deliver concrete for the new J.Crew by the breakfast nook. Blue jean Jean, baby.

L.A. lady. Simpsons 4 is banned. You shouldn't. You know what? Screw it. Hold me closer. Time to dance. Can't have us on the highway.

Had to have high, high hopes for a living. Shooting for the stars when I couldn't make a killing. Didn't have a job, but I always had a vision. Always had high, high hopes. Oh, yeah. Yes. I am fucking apt to vote. Fuck yes, time to vote. Hey everybody, thanks for watching. Sorry, he's just, if I don't let him look at porn for an hour a day, he will eat me.

He doesn't even do anything, he just looks at it. Check out our patreon.com slash some more news. And we've got merch at a merch store with links available. Like and subscribe, like the video, subscribe to the channel. Do the YouTube things that I just said. And we've got a podcast called Even More News. And we've got this show as a podcast. If you prefer to not be looking at the screen right now,

turn back time and listen to it instead. So I'm just gonna, I guess, be here for the next 58 minutes. Good lord.