So, I have a bit of a love hate relationship with the guy. On the one hand I recognize him as the closest to my ideals in the mainstream and openly give him credit for it. But at the same time...the dude just doesn't stick to those ideals. He claimed for be for medicare for all but then went to a public option and then seemed to distance himself from that. (To be fair, I also shifted somewhat to a public option, but mostly due to fiscal constraints and greater loyalty to UBI as an idea). He was "the UBI guy" but then he moved away from that with his forward party stuff. And a lot of leftists constantly give him crap for that, and given I have a bit of the leftie mindset in my thinking, I harshly criticize Yang too.
the fact is, a lot of lefties like people constantly pounding for the same ideas. Look at bernie, love him or hate him, he's largely advocated for the same thing for 40 years. I've been advocating for the same thing (with small revisions and additions along the way) for around 10. But Yang came to the idea of UBI publicly much later than me, and sometimes it feels like he just moved on and doesn't advocate for those ideas any more. A lot of leftists are REALLY harsh on the guy. "Grifter". "He never believed in the stuff", and thats when they're not calling him a techno libertarian or neoliberal who wants to destroy welfare and other dishonest ideological attacks. I try to be a bit more charitable. I recognize that he does (or at least did) support the ideas he claimed, but his lack of ideological consistency is the problem for me. Sometimes he makes it unclear if he still supports the ideas, especially post forward 2.0, where the forward movement had a marked shift from a UBI/HCC party to just a ranked choice voting party with ideological elements opposed to the former goals now a dominant bloc. And if that movement grows with its current ideological traditions in place, I fear it will never again be a force for my ideological goals. In a sense, I argue Yang has been captured, giving up advocating for his ideological goals, and ended up making a deal with the devil in order to grow his organization, in a sense betraying the original goals that got him into politics.
Well, Yang went on Krystal, Kyle, and Friends (Kyle Kulinski's other podcast with his now wife, Krystal Ball) and Kyle, also a critic of Yang's shifts in recent years, asked him directly about it. And Yang mentioned he's still aligned with his original goals, he just doesn't believe we can accomplish them in the modern political environment due to insane amounts of obstruction that come from extreme partisanship, political parties capturing the country and trying to force you to vote for them for the lack of other options, and stuff like that. And until we can address that stuff, we can't pass a UBI.
I mean...in a sense, he's not wrong. It's why I was a day 1 supporter of his original party when he came out in advocacy of not JUST UBI and HCC, but also ranked choice voting, open primaries, and ending gerrymandering. I just got mad when he abandoned the former in favor of the latter. Because I know how these things go. You got a party, it changes its goals, brings in new members, and with those new pressures, well, I dont see forward ever being a pro UBI organization again. As long as the SAM and RAM people remain in the party, the original yang gang and its ideals will kinda be forced out. WHich is what I saw happening. A lot of forward these days ISNT for UBI. Because they're just anti trump republicans. They're LESS progressive than democrats on issues i care about.
Yang says if forward accomplishes his goals, he will advocate for UBI and HCC again as his primary goals. And I believe in his heart he believes those things, but again, given the organizational and institutional pressures of the structures hes creating, I fear that this may not happen in reality. Or we may see the same changes in rhetoric as we see from other groups associated with him like "Humanity forward" which seems to just advocate for any sort of cash relief including the child tax credit. Dont get me wrong, the CTC is a decent policy and one of the best things Biden has done IMO, but it's still a band aid and a shadow of what UBI would be. We shouldnt just be satisfied with extremely watered down iterations of goals.
So idk. I do believe yang is a good person, and I believe that he's being sincere here. I can see how he could make the choices he did. I just question these choices. I dont have anything against working with ideologically opposed movements on common goals like libertarians and greens and anti trumpers. But....I want UBI. It's my greatest long term goal, and all of this RCV stuff is just a means to that end. I fear abandoning the primary goal to push the second order goal could have negative consequences on the advocacy of the primary. And that's my honest opinion here. I respect yang, I understand what he's doing, but as an ideological ally, I can't agree with his exact actions, and feel like questioning him and pressuring him to keep his eye on the ball to be reasonable here.
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