So...this forward announcement is a complete crapshow. As you guys know, I'm NOT happy with it. As I see it, Yang is selling out everything he believed in order to grow his organization. I'll be discussing this in more detail if I unpack his op-ed, but yeah, this doesn't look good.
A lot of Yang gangers are contorting themselves into justifying the decision. Suddenly, it's totally okay if UBI isn't part of the platform. And as I criticize the party, these guys are sounding a lot like democrats. Saying we can't have that and blah blah blah and you gotta support the movement anyway. Only RCV matters, nothing else. I mean, if I was gonna hold my nose and vote for a centrist movement that doesn't stand for anything, I would just vote for the democrats.
I admit, RCV is important, and I'm glad Yang expanded his platform to include it. I'm going to be honest, i LOVED forward party 1.0 and was a day 1 supporter. But....the original platform is important too. And as I've figured crap out the last couple years, I actually became more and more sympathetic to his platform and the choices he made in designing it. But...this new forward is weaksauce. He barely stands for anything now, and his original vision is completely gone. He literally just threw his entire 2020 platform under the bus.
ANd that's why I'm mad. No one wants a movement that doesn't stand for anything but vague overtures of "centrism". I'm not even against a lot of his "centrism" in FWD1.0. Because it mostly meant centrism on culture wars. A rejection of crazy ideologies and focus on common sense solutions. It was very palatable to my humanist worldview.
But now, centrism means teaming up with ex republicans who think trump was just a little too crazy. I mean, this is the same issue the democrats have. being a "big tent" party that doesnt stand for anything and aspires to "centrism". I'm sorry, if this is the future of forward, I am DONE.
At the same time, the left is extremely caustic toward yang, and their toxicity is...grating. To be fair, they did this last time he had a "centrist" party. Hurr durr the democrats are already centrist so now we're going full on center right? I've heard it again and again. It seems valid this time, whereas it just seemed hacky and this weird saber rattling for "ideological leftism" common within the progressive movement previously (if you dont agree with them 100% you're evil to them).
Still, they're still doing that. And even worse, these guys have been ripping on Yang for stuff that isn't even bad. I've seen nothing but derision from "progressives" on his UBI. Sam Seder, Jimmy Dore, TYT, etc. Oh, it's replacing welfare, oh, its a regressive tax, oh, it's bad, and then they support the kinds of UBI I keep telling people just don't work financially. The worst was probably ana kasperian and emma vigeland going on about how we should have a jobs program instead.
Ugh.
Comments I see on places like reddit aren't any better. Again, ideological leftists just crapping on yang for not conforming to their vision of leftism. It's obnoxious.
Like...maybe I AM more centrist than a lot of the left. Maybe UBI, M4A, and human centered capitalism is too "moderate" compared to what these guys want. We just did the "worldviews" thing. Humanism IS actually more moderate than the likes of marxism or postmodernism. And it's a lot less purity testy. After all, the whole point is not being dogmatic and believing in reason and evidence.
But...if you're running a movement, you need SOME purity tests. yang is going so full on "anti purity test", he won't even purity test on the freaking thing that made him and his movements famous. And thats MY problem with Yang here.
Again, as I see it, take 1-5 policies and make them do or die. Take maybe 5-10 more and make them nice to haves that you openly advocate for, but you can be a bit more flexible on.
And then with the rest, well, you can compromise.
Yang does have 3 "policies" he's do or die on: RCV, nonpartisan primaries, and independent redistricting commissions.
And again, I'm not really opposed to these, but again, his original platform was BETTER. This is a MASSIVE DOWNGRADE.
But yeah. I'm just to the point I'm like screw politics again now. The dems piss me off. The republicans, well, don't get me started on them. The left pisses me off. And now the yang gang is alienating me. Ugh...
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