So...a large faction of the Yang gang has gotten rather...sycophantic if you ask me, and are largely defending Yang's Forward Party merger. They seem relatively unconcerned with the removal of UBI as a key part of the platform and basically say "well you can't pass UBI in the two party system anyway, so you might as well just vote for Forward to break the two party duopoly." And I'm going to say...no, that's not convincing to me. While it's true that UBI isn't really on the table given the current parties in the two party duopoly, I feel like dropping UBI to focus on RCV is a massive tactical error, and I'm going to explain why.
What is our goal?
I think laying out our ultimate goal is important here. And my ultimate goal is my platform. UBI, Medicare for all (whether through single payer or adequate public option), free college/student loan forgiveness, climate change legislation, and housing are my top five priorities. RCV and other such reforms are #6. And for me, it doesn't really matter if we break the two party duopoly, or if we just cause a party realignment. I'll take whatever approach gets me to my goals.
If anything, I'd prefer to work within the democrats if possible. I feel like the democrats have a good platform in a lot of ways, and their coalition, while having some problems leading to the current structural issues, really just needs a good realignment in order to fix.
As you guys can tell by my isidewith, I actually agree with the democrats on paper like 80-90% of the time, and the GOP 10-20% of the time. This makes me lean VERY heavily to the left. Perhaps I'm not as extreme as them on every issue, and perhaps on others I'm MORE extreme than them, but that's kind of the thing. I actually think the party has a good base to work with, it just needs some modification.
The fact is, the democratic party is far too moderate on economic issues. They have too many suburban centrists in their party, and these suburbanites are basically fiscal conservatives who are relatively wealthy and don't want nice things. Whereas, my ideal economic platform would be soaking these guys for taxes. The Biden administration promised not to raise taxes for anyone under $400k. Which....greatly limits our ability to raise revenue for the large universal programs I support. My plans would raise taxes on people who make below, say, $80k individually or $160k for a couple, as I understand that how much money people actually make in this country is often A LOT lower than that. The median household income last I looked is only $69k, and individual income is only like $43k. That means that's the 50% mark. 50% are richer and 50% are poorer. My ideas would help say, the bottom 75%, but raise taxes on the top 25%. But it just to happens the democrats are trying to cater to that same top 25% and win them over through moderate combined with cultural issues.
Speaking of which, that's the other side of the coin of the democrats, the democrats are too extreme culturally. In order to overcompensate for their lack of economic message, they've gone all in with postmodernism and identity politics, in order to woo over voters based on their identity. While the conservatives tend to rally working class whites into a tizzy over a loss of living standards, immigration, and taxes, the democrats tend to play up identity issues to win people over. They focus excessively on racism and sexism, and have a culture about them that is extremely insufferable and alienating to most Americans. While issues of systemic racism and sexism are something to consider, and we should definitely lean left on cultural issues, I feel like the more secular humanist framing would actually be more effective with most people...granted we don't explicitly bash religion as a whole like new atheists often do.
Essentially, if the left argued for separation of church and state, and giving people freedom and liberty, we could win over people on issues like abortion, gay marriage, and transgenderism without being extremely over the top jerks about it. The democrats tend to be locked into a cycle in which their current demographic makeup makes them impotent and ineffective on dealing with most issues that need to be addressed. Their hands are tied on economic issues, due to their centrist wing running the show, and their overcompensation with social issues is extremely alienating to most people. The fact is, we need a new version of the left that is more effective at dealing with the economic issues, while being more culturally moderate, while still delivering the goods.
Enter Yang/Human Centered Capitalism
And this is where I start bringing Yang into this. There's a reason I like and champion Yang so much on here. It's because he gets it. He understands the problems, as I generally understand the problems. You can kind of see the link lately between the War on Normal People and the message within, and my politics. I live in the rust belt, in an area without many jobs. I understand that our problems are systemic, and I advocate for solutions based on what I think would best fix the problems.
I understand that jobs aren't the answer for many of us. There aren't enough of them, they don't pay well, and they're often degrading. While normal lefties try to make jobs work for Americans, and while I do feel like there is some value in doing so, I understand that the jobs situation is just too dire to fix. There's nothing positive about the good old American job right now for many of us. We live in areas where pay is low, work is precarious, and all the traditional band aids, while they help, won't solve the problem. We need a universal basic income, and we need it now.
I understand that healthcare is broken, costs are unaffordable, and despite the ACA, millions still lack insurance. I understand that the way to bring costs down and to guarantee access is to bring health insurance to all Americans directly, through either a public option or single payer. I ideally like single payer, but I can compromise on it given the public option is good.
I understand that the education system is broken, and is churning out millions of graduates who then can't get good jobs in their field, and often end up struggling and suffering under the post industrial hellscape I painted above. And how we need to ensure college is free for all Americans like K-12, and that we need to forgive student debt, as millions of college grads are deep in debt with no hope of ever realistically paying it off.
Basically, I understand that the American dream isn't working for people, so I propose fixes I think would do the most good to people, while liberating them from the tyrannies of the system. I believe that these ideas would improve the living standards of millions of Americans, give them more freedom and bargaining power they need, and ensure a basic standard of living for all Americans, regardless of their economic situations otherwise.
And Yang, while not perfect on this front, is one of the best people to push the ball forward, as he agrees with at least the first two priorities on paper, with weaker agreement on the third (and the third is least important).
And Yang...on social issues, he represents the same kind of cultural centrism I've been advocating for. We looked at his 2020 platform. It wasn't bad. He was more progressive on abortion than most candidates. He was pro gay marriage, etc. And his policies would disproportionately help the underprivileged.
But...the democrats weren't buying it. And now we're going to look at why.
A closer look at the democrats' structural problems
We have witnessed multiple primaries by now, and I think it's fair to say a certain pattern emerges. Generally speaking, I like to separate the democratic party into three major factions. You got the centrists, who are generally older, financially well off, and want the status quo. They're culturally left but fiscally conservative, wanting basically the status quo, with some tweaks along the way to help those they deem deserving of help. You got POC, who primarily vote based on identity issues. While concerned with economic justice, it seems to play a back seat to their loyalty to the democratic party's establishment wing, and their own identity based priorities. And then finally, you got progressive. These guys want change, and often support many of our key priorities, but also tend to be quite dogmatic. After all, these guys have risen to prominence in the democratic party not due to Andrew Yang and Human Centered Capitalism, but due to Bernie Sanders and his brand of Democratic Socialism. I try to be allied with these guys, but they are very purity testy and are way too willing to engage in friendly fire against the Yang gang to ensure their purity. Still, while we don't see eye to eye on every issue, I feel like the infighting between us and these guys is a bit excessive and mean spirited. it just doesn't need to happen to the extent it does, even if there are some points of difference between us (like UBI vs Green New Deal).
In your typical democratic primary, this is what happens. The centrist wing panders hard to the POC wing of the party, pushing identity politics and postmodernism and claiming that progressives and the like aren't good for black people and stuff like that or whatever, and they end up with a dominating coalition that the progressives can't overcome. This leads to the pattern of pushing moderate candidates who are extremely culturally left, while candidates with more bold economic visions but who may be more moderate socially (like myself, or Yang, or even Bernie) end up losing.
This leads to the democrats pushing people like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Shontel Brown, or Eric Adams over candidates like Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Nina Turner, or Maya Wiley.
And given the hostility of the progressive wing toward Yang and UBI, a lot of us who fall more on that side of things just don't fit well within the democrats at all. And it's starting to be clear that the only way to really solve the democratic party's issues is by approaching them from the outside. We can't win within the democratic party. The democrats have an iron grip on how primaries play out, and then they rely on bullying the dissenters into supporting them or else. As long as we play by the democratic party's rules, we won't get change.
So what is to be done here?
My own approach to this issue is to split the democratic coalition, and even parts of the republican coalition. And with that, we need a third party. But, my goal of third parties is essentially to raise awareness of issues which are being neglected by the two party system. That's what they're good at. In the 1840s and 1850s, the main third parties were abolitionist parties, unhappy with how the two party duopoly handled the slavery issue. The two parties were too busy pushing incremental steps and compromises that just left people feeling alienated, and this eventually led to a civil war that forced the issue. In the 1880s onward to the 1930s, a lot of third parties focused on things like workers issues. While the two parties once again quibbled over minor details and weird issues like the coinage of silver, third parties were pushing for things like the minimum wage and a 40 hour work week. And eventually in the 1930s, those parties had their day. It's also worth noting in the early 20th century there was a third party movement around prohibition of alcohol, and this eventually made it into the mainstream as well, although the policy itself was a failure and it was later repealed. In the 1960s, George Wallace pushed for a third party around racism and segregation and opposition to Johnson's civil rights legislation and effectively split the democratic party, leading to a coalition of working class whites which were absorbed into the GOP.
And that leads to the problems we have now. Those coalition that formed, in the 1970s and 1980s on the GOP side, and 1990s on the democratic side, are now getting old and failing to address the issues we need addressed any more. So we need another realignment. But, the democrats have gone all in with a strategy of economic centrism and cultural leftism, which helps polarize the country around social issues that don't do much to help people, and the republicans have gone all in with economic populism and cultural conservatism, to the point of bordering on fascism.
If these trends continue, nothing good will come out of them. The democratic party will continue to lose elections as the economic centrist platform does nothing to improve peoples' lives, and the cultural leftism is alienating to wide swaths of the population. But at the same time, the GOP is gaining support. While before 2016 they seemed like they were dying as their coalition aged, Donald Trump's populism has brought new energy into the party, while Hillary's centrism killed the energy that was growing during the Obama era toward a more progressive platform.
And this is not good. Ultimately, for us to have a GOOD outcome, we need to move left on economics, while deemphasizing cultural issues somewhat. Don't get me wrong, I'm still left on most cultural issues, but I'm center left. I'm a libertarian who focuses on the idea that Americans should be able to do what they want without interference. And I feel like the culture war is winnable for the left on these terms, but the shrill self righteousness and bullying of the postmodernists is alienating.
The fact is, the democrats are alienating and lack the ability to push for positive change at the moment. Because, again, on economic issues they're hamstrung, and on social issues they're alienating. Meanwhile the GOP is generally better on culture war issues, and despite their own positions being unpopular, unless they do something stupid like repeal abortion rights (cough), they can run on the left being a bunch of people with a stick up you know where and win that way. And because the democrats don't really stand out on economics, many people will focus on the cultural issues where there is a difference.
The fact is, if the libs aren't going to stand for something positive, the masses will vote against them based on the idea of spiting them. "Owning the libs" is what drives the right to the polls. nothing about their platform is popular, I'd argue the right doesnt have much of a positive platform at this point. But because the democrats dont either, people swing to the republicans because at least they can spite those insufferable liberals in the process.
Enter Forward
When Forward appeared on the scene, I was iffy on it, but I'm going to be honest. I loved the concept. Yang's core platform, UBI and human centered capitalism (but no healthcare, sadly) made it into the core of the platform. And then on top of that, Yang focused on political reform. He himself studied the issues, and you can see how his biggest solutions would actually solve the democratic party's biggest problems. Ranked choice voting would make it where people would be able to walk away from a hostile democratic party that does nothing for them on the issues. And open primaries could solve the demographic issues with the primaries I mentioned earlier. So, combining Yang's normal UBI/human centered capitalist advocacy with his calls for political reform seemed good to me.
And while his centrist framing seemed weird, after researching and decoding what he meant, it seemed clear he was trying to depolarize Americans, particularly on those culture war issues people were riled up about. So Yang's forward party, at least in its original form, seemed to be just what the doctor ordered, and I quickly latched onto its overall ethos.
I admit, I didn't really think that RCV would take off or go anywhere, but it was a nice thought. Ultimately, what I wanted was for forward to grow enough where it could form a coalition between disaffected dems and some working class republicans who were attracted to the human centered capitalist message, especially in absence of alienating postmodernist rhetoric. The core hope for me, was for forward to gain enough steam to be able to be able to take its mandate to the two parties. If forward started getting, say, 5%, 10%, or even 15% of the vote, the two parties wouldn't be able to ignore it, and would have to shift to absorb its coalition.
And ultimately, I hoped that the democrats would be able to bring some working class economic populist trumpers into their coalition, and the more stuffy suburbanites would screw off to the GOP where they belong.
And this would effectively break gridlock. The suburbanites would be a moderating influence on the GOP, allowing the crazies to be diluted, and the party to focus on economic conservatism and social moderation, and the democratic party to also be socially moderate (but more left) while pushing a human centered capitalist framework, which would appeal to everyone from the left and the progressives, to the center right trumpers who came in.
If we did that, we could get the conversation away from these BS cultural issues and toward actual substances, in which the democrats would start winning like FDR did.
But then Forward cratered...
And then Forward ended up merging with the Serve America Movement and Renew America Movements, two movements created by ex Trumper Republicans who left the republican party because it got a little too crazy. These guys are CONSERVATIVES. Die hard conservatives. The types of people who we call moderate now by virtue of them not being Trumpers, but who stand for everything the republicans stand for, fiscal and economic conservatism. And now THESE guys are merging with US in FORWARD.
And that's bad. Because that's exactly the fate I've been trying to save the democrats from. You see, the democrats are trending toward winning over these people. Heck, they're what basically stopped the left from being able to have nice things in the first place. We had freaking JOHN KASICH speak at the DNC back in 2020. And now forward is FULL of these same guys.
And suddenly, UBI, human centered capitalism, and all ideas of note other than the ranked choice voting stuff are GONE. I feel like the movement has been compromised, like it sold its soul to make a deal with the devil. And while ranked choice voting will help, don't get me wrong, RCV was always a long shot for me. I don't think it can realistically happen nationwide. And if it does, well, then forward would shift its advocacy elsewhere. And much like the democrats, the party would focus on its stakeholders and ignore progressives who want nice things. We will never get UBI back, because demographically, the original yang gang coalition will be outnumbered by all of these other movements.
Quite frankly, I felt like I finally found my "tribe" so to speak, and then the rug was pulled out from under me. And now forward barely stands for anything. And it just has enlightened centrist takes on every issue, and blah blah blah.
And honestly, even if it did succeed, I don't think UBI would change things much.
Ranked Choice Voting is nice, but won't get us to UBI in itself
I want to bring attention back to the NYC mayoral primary Yang took part in. He got FOURTH. And RCV, as good as it is as a voting method, would ultimately, default to the same overall duopoly anyway.
Think about it. Say there are 6 parties. 3 on each side. A libertarian party, a constitution party, and a nationalist party on the GOP side, and a centrist party, a progressive party, and a postmodernist party on the democratic side.
How do you think people will vote?
Ultimately a lot of people won't get their first choice, they'll get their second and third choice. Say I vote for a human centered capitalist party, now MUCH smaller because not many people are attracted to it over other movements, the progressive party, and then the centrist party. How would things turn out? Well, the HCC party would get like 2% of the vote, and then would be eliminated, my vote transferred to the progressive party. And then because the postmodernists back the centrists, the progressives would lose to the centrists. And my third choice (the centrists) would get my vote.
Meanwhile on the republican side similar things happen. Libertarians and nationalists vote for the constitution party, and then the constitution party wins. And then the centrists and constitution go at it, and ultimately one of those win.
It's the same crap as if we had a primary season, and then went to FPTP in the general. Ultimately, only two parties would actually be viable. We might get our say, and be able to vote for who we want as a first choice, but then they lose, our backup options win, and we get the same boring centrism we always do.
And while I guess there is more room for us to leave if our ideas aren't considered, ultimately, the situation would mirror the two party system, with people not backing the moderate options as a backup only when they're really pissed off and the system isnt working. Ultimately, whomever wins would represent a coalition, same as they do now, and some elements of the coalition may be ignored. Just as they are now.
I mean, it's not a path to UBI.
If I was gonna push for UBI...I'd just...push for UBI. Im just as well off using a movement like forward to push for UBI within the two party system as I would be in this new arrangement. Because ultimately, the parties that win will have to govern in a big tent coalition sort of way or lose their voters. It's just that its a little more easy to walk away in these other systems. But still, does walking away have more leverage within a more open system? I'm not sure that it does. Currently walking away hurts both groups involved. It hurts the person walking away in that it actually leads to vote splitting causing us to not get what we want and for the opposite party to win, but it also leads to the party we are closer to but not quite serving our needs losing, which should motivate it to cater to us better next time.
Honestly, I don't think RCV would really get rid of the underlying political coalition problem that plagues the system. it would just allow us to more ineffectively protest vote, as doing so would carry less political risk for both sides. People wouldnt actually be walking away from the party they're protesting as they would still be one's second or third choice, and as the party of choice inevitably loses, their votes would get transferred to the party they're protesting anyway. It would allow us to make more symbolic protests, but also take away the meaning from them to some extent.
Regardless, I do still support ranked choice voting and open primaries. I just don't think that they're going to solve our issues or allow us to get UBI more easily. I have no illusions to that fact. Ranked choice voting would allow us to more easily protest larger parties we don't like, but that doesn't necessarily mean they will be forced to listen to us either.
Forward vs Democrats
That said am I really going to prioritize ranked choice voting as a way to own the duopoly? Probably not. It's a nice thing to have, but it's not going to trump my actual priorities and policy preferences on OTHER issues.
And if Forward takes on a conservative culture much different than my own, not just on my top priorities, but also on the culture war issues I still lean at least nominally left on, i have ZERO reason to support this movement.
Quite frankly, I'll get my progress where I can get it. And Forward isn't it. The democrats, despite their flaws, are doing SOME things I like. The inflation reduction act might be a horridly watered down climate plan, but it is still a climate plan. And Biden's student debt forgiveness plan does positively impact my life, despite the fact that it don't go anywhere near far enough.
What does forward offer me other than promises of a better life in some distant future where RCV is passed? None. It just doesn't stand for anything.
As such, I just don't feel like I can support it.
Now, that doesn't mean I won't support individual forwardists. Obviously, I will be reviewing the candidates individually insofar as my purity tests go and making decisions based on that.
But let's look at how that would work, say I expanded my 200 point test I've been tweaking to be 250, and include a housing program and ranked choice voting (priorities #5 and #6). If you're a conservative forwardist, you will get 25 points out of a total of 250.
But, as we've analyzed, even a weak democrat like Buttigieg can get like 50. Biden can get like 70. And that's not even including their housing programs since that was under my 200 point 4 issue test.
So....RCV isn't going to matter much to me.
Don't get me wrong. If Yang runs on the 2024 ticket on UBI, medicare for all, RCV, and a few other things, he could easily get like 150-200 on that metric. And I would vote for him. But honestly, being for RCV only isn't going to get you a lot of support from me. And if you're a conservative who is say, pro life, or authoritarian on LGBT issues or something, your forward support would likely be cancelled out by your regressiveness. You dont need to be a full on SJW to get my support on social issues, mind you. I hate SJWs for a reason. But if you're like a fundamentalist christian or one of those weird fascist types running as forward....uh....yeah, no, sorry. No support from me. The fact is, I'm not gonna vote for someone I disagree with 90% of the time just because RCV is in their platform. Other issues matter more.
That said, sorry, but you can't just have a single issue party around ranked choice voting and expect my support. I care about more issues than that. And I'd vote for a duopoly candidate over a forwardist conservative. Sorry, I just would. If Forward candidates want my attention, they need to run on more than JUST RCV.
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