Andrew Yang along with a group of former Democratic and
Republican officials are doing what literally no one asked for.
They're forming a third political
party dedicated to centrism and unity.
Now, let me give you the details.
The new party called Forward will initially be co chaired by the former
Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and
Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey.
They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and
Democratic parties that dominate US politics.
Founding members say, the leader cited a Gallup poll last year
showing a record two-thirds of Americans believe a third party is needed.
Now, I wanna be clear in my analysis or
what I mean by my analysis in this story, okay?
This is not an indictment of third parties, okay?
This is an indictment of this particular effort and I'll explain why in just
a moment, no, I'll explain why right now I can't help myself.
Their analysis of what is currently transpiring among
the electorate is incorrect.
They have inaccurately identified a need for centrism when in reality,
centrism has really gone against everything that American
voters have been asking for from their elected lawmakers.
And I'll get to those specifics in just a moment.
Now, the merger involves the Renew America Movement formed in 2021 by dozens
of former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan,
George H.W Bush, great, George W Bush, awesome, and Donald Trump.
I mean, do I need to even say anymore guys?
Like, really do I really need to say anymore?
>> Did you read their Washington post op-ed cuz it says nothing about that?
It said nothing.
No, no, it said absolutely nothing in it.
Because they were saying, they drew all these false equivalences.
The abortion debate, there's the extremists on the left who want
there to be late term abortions, which is not what the left thinks.
I mean, just go the full Republican talking point and
say, they want to kill babies right after they're born.
I mean that like, that is just such a strow man, no.
Late term abortions are sometimes necessary for the life of the mother, but
that is not something that anyone on the left and
we're pretty far on the left is advocating for.
So, it's not a straw man, after straw man, after strow man.
>> Yeah, I gotta get to it since you mentioned it, skip ahead and get to that.
Because the Washington post opinion piece that they published on this,
really tells you everything you need to know about whether this third
party is going to represent the interests of progressive voters.
It will not.
And there are plenty of straw mans represented in this piece.
It's titled most third parties have failed.
Here's why ours won't.
And then they proceed to demonstrate how little they understand about the needs
of American voters.
So, they write political extremism is ripping our nation apart.
And the two major parties have failed to remedy the crisis, if nothing is done,
the United States will not reach its 300th birthday this century,
in recognizable form.
That's why we are coming together Democrats, Republicans and
independents to build a new unifying political party for the majority of
Americans, who want to move past divisiveness and reject extremism.
This is just the problem solvers caucus,
which is a bipartisan caucus of pro corporate lawmakers.
In a completely different political party, that will go nowhere.
Now, what do they cite?
They cite as their own positions, basically,
stuff that sounds like what a normal conservative Democrat would say, or
what a normal conservative Republican would say.
For instance, they write on guns, most Americans don't agree with
calls from the far left to confiscate all guns and repeal the Second Amendment.
But they're also rightfully worried by the far right's
insistence on eliminating gun laws.
Okay, I don't know, I genuinely, I'm not making this up,
I genuinely don't know of a significant group of leftists.
And when I say significant, I mean, a big group of leftist, like it is not
a shared leftist ideology to confiscate guns and repeal the Second Amendment.
In fact, it's interesting.
I am seeing more and more leftist calling for arming themselves in response
to the endless threats from right wingers who, like, just open and
will openly and willy-nilly say that they want to slaughter us.
But I haven't really seen this movement within the left to do away with guns in
America, that's laughable.
So yeah, that's part of the strow man that you're referring to, Emma.
I also want to go to this climate change argument that they make in their piece.
They say, on climate change most Americans don't agree with calls from the far left
to completely upend our economy and way of life, but
they also reject the far right's denial that there is even a problem.
Okay, if I'm not mistaken, Emma, the left would
actually like to do the opposite of upending our economy.
I mean, the goal initially during the Biden
administration was to shift investment and
focus into renewable energy both for the environment of course.
But it would do what?
It would create new jobs and the initial idea was to
create unionized well paying jobs within the renewable energy sector.
But of course, those in Congress who are heavily funded by the fossil fuel industry
defeated that effort to the detriment of workers, to the detriment of our economy,
to the detriment of doing something about climate change.
>> Yeah, Yang is such a clown.
I mean, honestly, he's it's, and I know that it's not just him here, but
he's the Democrat representing this very, very serious Forward party.
It's such a confusing marketing too, if you guys are the centrist,
aren't you the inertia party?
Or I mean, aren't you, the status quo, aren't you the stillness party?
You're not supposed to be moving in any direction if you're the center
because that's the reality of centrist politics.
Centrist like to cloak themselves in some artificial superiority.
We are the respectable ones.
We are the standard between the far left and the far right.
And we'll mischaracterize with the left actually represents because then our
arguments a little more shaky cuz most of what the left wants to advocate for,
is common sense.
That's why leftists are historically always proven right.
And that's why usually, in the end, even though due to the work of activists,
the left is able to win in certain areas, even though, hey,
that's more on social issues.
And when capital gets in the way,
that's such a massive mountain to climb, but I digress.
They have to misrepresent what the left stands for
in order to make themselves sound reasonable.
And that is what just stands out to me there, it really is indistinguishable
from, I don't know, say Mark Warner or Joe Machin or Kirsten cinema.
Dude, you already have a home in the Democratic Party, if that's the case,
you're a neo liberal centrists, your Josh gad Heimer.
I mean like the idea that there is not adequate representation for
this perspective is laughable because the president himself represents
this perspective.
And so, we need a lot less of this and we need more of actually standing for
something because as I just said, cloaking yourself in superiority
because you are standing in between two different perspectives.
I actually respect you a lot less because that means that you don't have
the gumption or the intellectual curiosity to look into the issues yourself.
And you are too insecure about your own intellectual fortitude to
look at issues on a case by case basis and stand for a movement in and of itself.
In fact, all you do is just fence it and that is kind of embarrassing and
not something that people wanna support.
>> The only time we saw significant structural changes in America and real
social spending programs that both put Americans to work with good paying jobs.
And provided Americans with the income that they need and
the social spending programs that they need as a social safety net.
Was when we had strong organized labor which of course was a huge component and
made a huge impact in regard to Roosevelt's policies, like the new deal.
And so, when we talk about what the solutions are.
I've been open about how disillusioned and discouraged I've been with electoral
politics and there's a reason for that, if you focus all your energy on electoral
politics without building people power outside of our system of government.
Well, we're always gonna run into these dead ends.
It's gonna happen over and over and over again.
And as I've said before, the one thing that's given me a little bit of
hope in this country is what we've been seeing with labor organizing.
There have been more and more stories of Starbucks stores for instance,
voting to unionize.
There was a trader Joe's store today that announced that they had
voted in favor of unionizing as well.
These are small victories in the eyes of people who might not be working for
these particular companies.
But these small victories really do add up because you need organized labor
to apply pressure to these politicians to compete with these corporate interests.
Otherwise, we have no leverage, we have no power.
That's where we stand today.
And I think that's why a lot of the energy has been focused on electoral politics
because we don't really have any power outside of that.
And we barely have any power when it comes to electoral politics in the first place,
especially with how the system is set up.
So, if you think the only solution is a third party,
I'm just worried that you're gonna be disappointed over and over again.
And certainly when it comes to this particular third party,
I mean, they're just, they published a piece on it in the Washington Post.
Just letting you know, they're making it very clear, we will disappoint you.
[LAUGH] In fact, final thing.
Let's go to graphic 11 here.
What do Americans want?
What do the majority of Americans want?
According to this poll was covered by CNBC 84% want paid maternity leave,
75% want government funding for childcare, 60% want boosting the minimum wage.
57% want tuition free state and public college, 54% want Medicare for
all other polls by the way have an even higher number in the 70s.
And 28%, wow, just 28% say they want universal basic income, which of course
was the policy that Andrew Yang championed during the presidential election.
And look,
it's because I think most Americans want to feel like they have purpose, right?
So, I have nothing against universal basic income, but
I don't think that it's the end all be all.
People want a sense of purpose,
people want to feel like they're contributing to society.
But they also want to feel that they're getting something in return from their
government when their productive members of society, right?
And or when they fall on hard times,
they want to know that they have a safety net to catch them when they fall.
This is common sense.
It's common sense.
People want to make sure that their whole, that they have the basic necessities,
necessary to live a happy healthy life, to raise happy healthy children.
And the idea that we need more centrism instead,
in lieu of all those policies, is just ridiculous.
It really is.
>> Yeah.
And universal basic income just really quickly,
that would be fine as a supplement.
What Andrew Yang was proposing was as a replacement for
all of our other social safety net.
And that is a reallocating of government money that we have paid into that goes
into people's pockets that then they spend likely in the private sector.
And so, that's why Andrew Yang was in favor of it.
And so, fine want UBI, but we also want Medicare for all.
We want to expand Social Security, we want to expand the Social Safety net in
general, so as a supplement, it's fine, but now there's a replacement.
No way.