So, Yang had a podcast today with his new cochair Miles Taylor, who was head of one of the movements that Forward merged with recently. And this is another story I feel compelled to discuss.
Essentially, most of the podcast was introducing Taylor on the podcast and him going into his political history, and then talking about how he merged with forward and what they hope to accomplish. And, I'm going to be honest, while I kind of like the guy, I still wouldn't necessarily want to be a part of the same movement as him.
Essentially, he was in the private sector until 9/11, after which he was motivated to join the national security industry as a republican. And he served under multiple administrations until Trump came along. He got roped into becoming a part of the Trump administration, and was one of those anonymous leakers writing op eds on the New York Times about Trump's disastrous presidency. And, let's be honest, I kind of knew the Trump presidency was a disaster from within, but his effect on the party drove it in an extremely radical direction, leading to more outright vigilante violence and terrorism.
There was a lot of talk about how 2016 played out, and how the GOP went to war with Trump, and Trump won and is taking over the party, and how the democrats pied pipered him to make their own chances easier until they lost. And yeah, it was a real mess.
Anyway, Taylor is one of those moderate breakaway factions from the GOP that left over Trump and the party being too extreme. And don't get me wrong, I respect that. I mean, while I'm no longer conservative, it baffles me ex conservative self how people could continue to back this guy. I left the GOP 10 years ago and they were getting crazy back then. To support them NOW seems almost like insanity to me. I mean, when I was a conservative, I had this really patriotic love of country/constitution thing. We discussed the Christian worldview in "understanding the times", and it was a lot like that. Human nature is evil and can't be trusted, and one of the brilliance of the founders was creating a constitution based on a separation of powers and checks and balances to try to deter tyrants from arising. And yeah, I kind of was one of those constitution worshippers back then, which is why even now you still see traces of my old conservatism in my worldview analysis. But here's the thing. Donald Trump is everything that my ex conservative self would have feared. He is exactly the kind of person that our constitution was designed to protect us from, and while it ultimately did its job, there were some very clear attempts to subvert the peaceful transfer of power that NO principled conservative should have gone along with. And if Trump wins again, he might try to fill his administration with more loyalists and ultimately succeed if he tries the same thing again. This is why I am so hardcore on prosecuting the guy and barring him from ever holding elected office again.
So, going to be honest, I might not agree with someone like Taylor on anything politically, but he's doing what a principled conservative should do. He left the republicans and mmade a third party because he knows that the republican party is donezo and that its Trump's party now. And you know what? I support that. Just like I support Yang building his own lane after it became clear that there was no future left in the democrats.
But to go back to my own political ideology, what I don't support is Yang and Taylor together under the same party. Traditionally, third parties arising is a sign that the two party system isn't doing the job. They bring up concerns and represent coalitions who feel alienated by the two parties. And, while both movements can agree on the idea that "two choices is too few", they otherwise have NO common ground. They have no platform other than abolishing the two party system. And I honestly don't think that's enough.
The most direct approach to solving the two party system's problems is to realign the democrats. It was the democrats' fault that the GOP won in 2016. And it was because THE DEMOCRATS DIDN'T STAND FOR ANYTHING. They had no unifying political platform. And their response to Trump was to go all in on identity politics, which just made the political division worse because identity politics is inherently exclusionary and leads to people being alienated. So, let's think about the democrats. Again, there's three major factions there, the centrists, the postmodernists (idpol people), and the progressives. And there can be overlap between the postmodernists and the other two groups but let's face it by the numbers most are pushing the centrists across the finish line.
So we have a centrist democratic party that has no real unifying platform on economic issues, and a base that's polarizing in an extreme way on social issues. I mean, I'm a moderate on social issues these days. Being an ex conservative, I'm practically a variant of those "barstool conservative" types and have a more libertarian orientation. But on economics, I have a very significant vision that is basically about as far left as you can get without being a socialist. I support massive expansions of government programs to fix the problems with the economy, problems outlined by the way, in Andrew Yang's "The War on Normal People." And my solutions just so happen to roughly align with Yang too.
So, for me, what we need was....Yang's original forward party. Something socially centrist, that rejects divisive culture war nonsense but has a more laid back and chill version of the left on social issues, but that is very economic progressive and speaks to economic solutions to our problems.
And, don't get me wrong, there's room on the right for a third party capturing anti trump resentment on the right. If we have both parties and as such have a four way race with moderates breaking from the GOP and people fed up with the democrats breaking from them, we could have an 1824 or 1856 type four way election leaning to an interesting realignment in 2028.
But you merge those two movements together, and it's like mixing matter an anti matter, you're just annhilating each other. They cancel each other out. A mixing of a right wing third party like Taylor's with the forward party basically just amounts to recreating the democrats and their brand of centrist nothingness. The coalition is too big and ideologically diverse to really get anything done. It's prone to fracturing. Because while Yang thinks that we can all just, work together and get along, people in politics actually have ideals, and ideologies. Conservatives like Taylor are ultimately supporters of the status quo. They like america as it is and want nothing to fundamentally change. And Yang was originally a change agent, but now he basically stands for...nothing.
Again, look at the democrats. Taylor kept saying the magic words, "third way", "third way" on his podcast with Yang. We tried a "third way". The democrats are that third way. They moderated in the 1990s away from their traditional labor platform. And they suck. And they can't really stand up to trump because they can barely get anything done. The reason the democratic party is so dysfunctional is because it is ultimately a centrist "third way" type organization. One that stops progressives from actually making progress. The solution to fixing america's problems comes from allowing the left to act like the left. Mostly on economics, not social issues. Keep in mind, the left IS extreme on social issues, and it is problematic. And the two parties are basically polarized around that. But on economics, despite whatever surface level fights happen between the parties, both largely want the same thing. One wants laissez faire capitalism, and the other wants slightly regulated market capitalism with SOME safety nets. Actual social democracy is missing. Despite Sanders' "democratic socialist" label his politics are actually quite capitalist and socdem. He has no discernable plans to transition to a socialist economy. His entire political platform in 2020 was based on FDR's second bill of rights for crying out loud.
Sure, his supporters are becoming increasing socialist and inflamed by his rhetoric, but let's explain why. The reason the progressive base is heading full speed forward variations of leftism is because the democrats refuse to adopt their policies. Or any policies that satisfy the progressive base. So the progressives are saying "hey, capitalism has rigged the system against us and we need socialism to fix it". And while they're often too extreme and ideological for me to seriously support any more (not to mention hostile to my comparatively "moderate" form of left wing politics), I understand the anger that burns within them. The democrats are failing their constituents, and failing the country.
And that's another reason why Trumpism has succeeded to the level it did. Most swing voters just go back and forth voting against the current party in power and for the other one. They're not going to settle into a party until one of them actually draws them in with a solid platform that inspires people. The new deal inspired people. Reaganomics, after the 1970s, inspired people. Trumpism is where most swing voters are heading toward. Yang had it right with the War on Normal People and his 2020 campaign.
But, he's just repeating the same mistakes as the democrats, abandoning his platform to go all in with this moderation circlejerk.
You know, I watched a Breaking points video yesterday that discussed third parties and how FDR actually had to contend with third parties, and how he was more concerned at one point with killing these movements than winning against the republicans. ANd that's what normally happens. 1932 was a party realignment. The great depression led to massive existential problems, and the democrats acted to absorb third party movements by shifting left and adopting their concerns to some extent. The dems aren't doing that these days. They basically know they're the only game in town and keep trying to bully people to support their party even if dissatisfied. Which is why I keep calling on people to support third parties. BUT, my own advocacy is about ideas and pressuring the democrats. It's not...what forward has morphed into.
Again, I think this merger never should have happened. Miles Taylor is not a bad guy. His movement is not bad. It comes from a good place and as an ex conservative myself, I have to give it a thumbs up. I just don't want its advocacy mixed with my advocacy for solutions like UBI, Medicare for All, Free college, and human centered capitalism. Because that's "too far left" for the republicans, it's "too far left" for the democrats, but it's somehow too centrist for "the left", who have gotten too extreme and sectarian for their own good that ANY deviation from their own ideas isn't tolerated at all.
Again, there's a balancing act between having too many purity tests, and no purity tests at all. Dogmatically forcing people to hold an entire ideology with no deviation from it at all is unrealistic. But at the same time, if you have no sense of "purity" at all, you just end up with the same problem that makes the democrats so disagreeable. Forward 1.0 had the balance right, Forward 2.0 does not. And that's all I'm going to say for now.
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