Rereading Forward Part 1

 So I've decided to go back and read forward (Andrew Yang's second book) too. I thought I already reviewed the book once on my blog, but I can't find it, so I guess I'll do it again.

Unlike the previous book, this book isnt entirely substantive. The entire first part is about Yang's experiences running for president. While it has some substantive parts, I'm likely going to gloss over much of it.

Introduction

Here he just outlines the purpose of the book and how it is much broader than the war on normal people, which focused exclusively on the economy and UBI. Here, he focuses not just on the economy but also the problems going on with our democracy. This is also an important topic, and as you guys know, I have strong opinions about the state of our democracy too, and at least in part agree with Yang. 

Chapter 1

This is more about his past, some experiences on the campaign trail, and him deciding to run for president because the economy is screwed. We already know Yang's past, so there isnt a ton worth discussing here. As you guys know, I fully agree with his motivations, and see the world in a similar way, despite approaching it from the opposite background.

Chapter 2

Here he talks about how experiences starting out, and how most people seemed to not take him super seriously. Conversations with people were awkward. He mailing list was his personal gmail list. Most people who arent from an established political background arent taken seriously when they run for president. Yang was just as weird as anyone else from a non traditional background I guess. When you think about it it's amazing he got as far as he did.

I remember I heard of his candidacy back in 2017 and not even I took him seriously then. Much of this was due to his lack of policy expertise. I took one look at his basic income plan and it was markedly worse than mine, or other plans I've seen passed around on reddit. So I just kinda didn't take him seriously until his Joe Rogan performance. I watched that mostly to size the guy up. I wanted to hear him in action, to see if he was worth taking seriously, dude be spitting. But yeah, that's how shaky his campaign was when it started. Me, the UBI guy was like this guy? No, he's too amateurish even for me.

I mean really, I tried to go back and look at previous threads on the subject on r/basicincome. My comments seemed nominally positive in retrospect, but yeah, anyone who knew what they were talking about knew his plan was kinda bunk. Even i did. Hence why I didn't take him seriously until 2019. 

Chapter 3

Here he talked about some of his early experiences, and how the media kind of shaped the coverage from the get go. In his personal life, he tried to avoid mentioning running for president because it led to awkwardness. But publicly he was still trying to gain attention. He was largely overlooked at his first speech at the wing ding in 2018, and he mentioned how the media seemed to gravitate toward some candidates regardless of how good they were, while overlooking decent candidates with decent backgrounds like himself, Marianne Williamson, and Joe Sestak. I admit the media gets a bit weird with this, and it's a long standing criticism I've had of the media and how they treated Bernie in 2016 for example. The media, if fair and balanced, would give everyone a fair shake, but they clearly play favorites, which is something yang came back to in later chapters.

Chapter 4

Yang started talking about him getting savvy at using social media, and how this led to him growing. he got used to twitter, tried to engage early on, but then he learned to back off because as we all know, trolls exist and not all of them are there to discuss issues seriously. While he failed to gain the attention of traditional media, he did very good with podcast's like Sam Harris' podcast, and Joe Rogan's, which was his big break through moment (and the moment I started taking him more seriously). And that's what grew his campaign. And that's why I took him more seriously as time went on. Even I initially blew him off, but yeah, after Joe Rogan? I was totally on board, at least until he started backing away from his policy proposals. Then I got alienated and switched to bernie, because hey, im voting for policy here. And yang didnt have much other than a very flawed UBI plan.

Chapter 5

Yang mentions how surreal running for president is, and the optics of it. People mess with camera angles to ignore the fact that their audience is about the size of Jeb Bush's, and Yang mentioned publicity stunts he did like giving away $1k a month to people to demonstrate UBI's effectiveness and stuff like that. Again, most of this stuff is more personal on his end, but it's still interesting. But yeah, I dont have much to say on it. 

Chapter 6

This is probably the most interesting chapter of the section since it mentions media bias more directly, and the crap Yang had to put up with. Some experiences with media seemed more neutral. Like he described how uncomfortable going on CNN was given the format, but he wasnt particularly treated badly on there (I noticed CNN had it out for Bernie, MSNBC had it out for Yang). Early on, he mentioned getting no coverage, surprise surprise. He got most of his breaks from, again, podcasts. He mentioned how MSNBC seemed to explicitly ignore him, calling him "John Yang", minimizing coverage in debates, and once they asked for an interview and he asked for an apology for mistreatment in the past. MSNBC blacklisted him after that, getting offended at the idea of treating Yang unfairly (of course they did, their entire business model is gaslighting, after all). 

Honestly, it's crap like this that enrages me. I believe that more mainstream media like on TV and stuff should strive for objectivity. Instead we get these highly partial networks that basically ruin campaigns out of the gate while propping up mediocre candidates most people dont care about. While I do believe internet media should be free to be as biased as they want, when you're on like TV, I kind of would like to see a return to the fairness doctrine. Because these people influence the perception of candidates to millions of people, and many people simply dont have access to information about candidates like Yang if they're not really online a lot like me and other younger political junkies. 

Chapter 7

This is a fairly short chapter that talks about how power messes with peoples' mind and makes them less empathetic. After reading this, I understand why Marianne Williamson may or may not have lashed out at people. Anyone, no matter how good hearted they are, when their experience is being handled by all of these staff members, i guess it becomes very easy to be that crappy boss who loses empathy and starts bullying people. it's kind of a system problem. And it's actually one of the reasons im for UBI. Without a UBI people are subjected to this labor market that strips them of their very humanity. Markets are great for producing goods, but as Yang would at least imply, they're quite inhuman in terms of how the sausage is made. And yeah. This is why Im so supportive of UBI as freedom as the power to say no. Because the only counterweight to this dehumanizing process is to give people an opt out mechanism. People wont put up with abuse if their well being isn't based on doing so, which is currently is. I know it's weird to push for a UBI in a topic that isnt directly about UBI, but it's just how I would expand my ideology to yang's quandry here.

Chapter 8

Here, Yang discusses dropping out and the end of his campaign. He didn't want to at first, but given he couldnt win, he was lectured about being the math guy and why would the math guy stay in if they dont have a chance? Also calculated was the media splash of doing so. If he stayed in, the media would marginalize him, whereas they'd give him a nice bump if eh drops out.

I think that dropping out was a mistake. It mightve been inevitable given covid hit in march and even Bernie, who normally would stay in until the end, ended up backing out, but even if you can't win, campaigns arent just about winning. It's about pushing ideas. And I do think yang shouldve went a little longer. Not saying he would win. Yang always had an uphill fight, and I know I had some cringey wishful thinking posts about him being a breakthrough candidate, it never really happened. Still, again, it's about the ideas. Idk about you, but I'm the kind of guy who is in it for the ideas. And given Biden didnt support the ideas, I think Yang let himself get bullied by the dems and the media a little bit. Getting him to drop out is what they wanted. They want a short, swift primary with everyone backing their crappy candidate, and Yang backed out and ended up backing Biden. A lot of Bernie Bros never forgave him for that. I understood but yeah, Yang doesnt have the best judgment sometimes. 

Conclusion (mine)

All in all, it's a good book, this is my second read of it. My first was in late 2021. I liked it back then and was a lot more on board with him then, this time around I found it interesting to revisit, but yeah. It really does show the institutional disadvantages Yang had. He was a nobody, the media didnt take him seriously, he struggled to get any attention at all, and he dropped out. The fact is, media coverage makes or breaks candidates. And the media is not impartial, the media are cheerleaders who typically do their preferred political party's doing. So when they push Biden and Kamala, and Buttigieg, it's no wonder they get support. But as we know, between Bernie, and Yang, and others, the media just flat out shapes coverage against candidates they dont like. Either through ignoring them, or hating on them. I mean, remember when Bernie started winning and Chris Matthews was having a panic attack on air going on about "brown shirts" and stuff? Seriously. They love pushing their narrative, and the second the shoe is on the opposite foot, they make sure that the candidates they dont want to win cant win. We really do live in an oligarchy. And this is gonna happen in 2024. Biden is gonna get the nomination without much pressure from any breakoff faction, and most people will be gaslit into supporting him. That's the nature of the two party system. 

Knowing Yang's solutions to the economy, while his ideas help, i dont think they really get us UBI, or really improve our changes that much. The media just has too much of an outsized influence on the process. Our democracy is really more about elites justifying their candidates to the public, and the public being too dumb to know better. Sometimes yang comes off as naive, and he would be best to at least understand some leftist analyses of why things are the way they are. I feel like yang lacks this and it's this lack of ideological clarity that tends to put him in a tough spot with the left. Yang could have a lot more support if he had a more progressive flair. Instead he's gone in the weird centrist direction trying to appeal to these moderate republican types. No, if you really care about solutions, you need some sort of left wing flair. In American politics, as they say, R is reverse, D is drive. Same as with a car. The further left you are the more for progress you are. The more right wing you are, the more you are for either keeping things the same or going backwards.

As I like to say, conservatives are actually regressives, liberals are the true conservatives in the sense that they're pro status quo, and you need progressivism, to actually be for change.

This isn't to say progressives are perfect. Going down memory lane caused me to come across some video where Yang was talking about Bernie and his jobs program ideas. And I know this is a contentious topic betweeen the self styled progressives and socialists whose idea of progressivism is based in these old new deal or socialist ideas, where they weirdly see Yang as some techno libertarian. I dont think yang is that bad, at least he wasnt. I have more negative attitudes now, but back in 2020, the hard left always got crappy toward yang and it's a huge reason i shifted away from them. But still, my point there is that the bernie wing doesnt have a monopoly on progressivism, and UBI is a progressive idea. The problem is most leftists are just dogmatic, and I really dont like that. 

But I digress.

The point is, we need a lot of what yang offers, but we need to back it up with some flavors of progressive politics, which is a core flaw with the direction Yang's gone in. He sometimes just lacks that left wing understanding of power structures at times, and seems extremely naive in how he views different topics involving why things are the way things are.