Andrew Yang builds his Party.....

[brooklynite]

Link to tweet

[a kennedy]

1. Damn, damn, damn.......

[Cha]

2. So they Acknowledge that Stein

RF the Democratic Party, the country and the Planet in 2016.

Link to tweet

They aren't fooling anyone. Losers' party

[bluewater]

3. Clueless.

[brooklynite]

4. Next audition: Tulsi Gabbard?

[brush]

5. Poor Yang. He took his ball and went to start another party...

when he couldn't win with the big kids. This will end sadly.

I thought he was smarter. Seems he's just another pol, an inexperienced one at that, addicted to attention and too proud to run for a lower office than for THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THEN THE MAYORALTY OF THE BIGGEST CITY IN THE COUNTRY.

[bluewater]

8. "Seems he's just another pol addicted to attention."

Seems so.

[walkingman]

6. Stupid - I liked Yang but he understand that in America it is a binary

choice and anything else just help the GOP and we sure as hell do not need to help them. The Democratic Party is becoming a Progressive Party and Yang needs to help with that movement.

These nasty white folks are not going anywhere and we need to stop them not help them.

[brush]

7. Yeah, you'd think he'd be smarter.

[Ocelot II]

9. Do they understand that the other advanced democracies have parliamentary systems

in which coalitions of parties negotiate to form a government, and there's no formal division between the executive and legislative branches? Whole different ball game, kiddos. If he's joining up with a nutball like Marianne Williamson there's no hope for him.

[brooklynite]

10. In the 1880s, the Populist Party had multiple House and Senate members elected...

Today's Third Parties seem to think that the path to success is to start at the top with a celebrity Presidential candidate.

[Ocelot II]

11. It can be done to a limited extent in state and local elections, but

the Electoral College really makes presidential candidates from more than two parties impossible except as spoilers.

[Caliman73]

13. I think that what brooklynite is saying ...

Is that if you actually want to build a solid 3rd Party, you have to start from the ground (local and state level) and move up with infrastructure. Instead, we try to form parties behind cults of celebrity.

I do agree that because of the nature of our elections (Money being key to elections) it would still be extremely difficult to establish any kind of larger than local presence for any party not named Republican or Democratic.

[Ocelot II]

19. Both points are true, and historically new parties have appeared -

but they tend either to replace an existing party or disappear after one election cycle. Before the Civil War a variety of parties quickly rose and then declined, usually falling apart due to internal disagreements, like the Whigs. Eventually it became apparent that multiple, splintered parties couldn't form majorities sufficient to win presidential elections under the Electoral College system. If modern third parties want to do that by becoming one of the two major parties, obviously they can't start with a presidential candidate; they will have to build enough support and raise enough money at the local level and that isn't possible unless they start fielding local candidates. Here in Minnesota an especially weird governor, Jesse Ventura, was elected as a third party candidate, mainly because the two major parties had unusually weak, boring candidates - but Jesse's party rapidly evaporated when his single term was over.

[LiberalFighter]

17. Third parties must have a different definition for celebrity.

[brooklynite]

20. Sometime in the 90s, the Green Party ran Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) for Governor in NY

Then there was that whole unpleasantness with Ralph Nader...

[betsuni]

12. What DO they want?

Who are they targeting as supporters? People who don't understand how the American government works? Why are these two in politics?

[Caliman73]

14. Let's look at this from two angles.

Ascribing"pure" motives:

They are looking at a system that appears broken into a binary struggle, with both political parties taking (to a certain extent) their voters for granted. Given that there are only two choices, there are many people who get lost in the shuffle. With one party going extreme and the other struggling to hold the line and struggling internally to maintain a united caucus, other parties with diverse interests would allow more voices to be heard.

Ascribing self serving motives:

They have a poor understanding of the political system as it is, AND they see politics as another avenue for celebrity and importance in a fractured political landscape. They may not be in it to actually make meaningful change but to be self important.


I personally think that it is some combination of the two. Our political system is broken. It isn't really working for a large group of people, which is why at best we can only get around 60% of the eligible population to vote. That said, 3rd parties are not the optimal solution because we do not have a parliamentarian system where governing coalitions are created. Though some of our founders abhorred political parties or "factions", we have historically been a system where 2 parties have been the predominant form.

Political reform needs to start with getting money out of politics. Then we need to make districts equitable in their representation so that politicians actually have to COMPETE for votes. Finally, something needs to be done about right wing propaganda like Fox and their ilk.

[betsuni]

24. Here's Yang's angle: "If I had won, I was going to say that, 'Hey, I'm an independent, and I'm

starting the Forward Party,' Yang said. 'There were two versions of the world, one where I was the mayor of New York City, and I planted the flag, and one where I was roaming the country building the party. We're in world number two.'"

Democrats obviously do not take voters for granted. Republicans do because they're the post-policy white supremacist party.

The political system is obviously only broken because of Republicans.

"Money in politics" isn't the only reason for dysfunction in government. A radicalized, post-policy 100% obstructionist nutty corrupt Republican Party is. The Democratic Party isn't corrupt.

Both Sides is bullshit.

[Caliman73]

35. Okay. Have you watched Star Wars?

Only the Sith think in absolutes.


I completely agree that the majority of the blame lies on conservatism and the Republican party. Conservatism is a failed ideology that needs to be gotten rid of.

If you do not think that money creates situations where All politicians have to consider where their donations for their campaigns, which cost upwards of 10s to 100's of millions for House and Senate, and billions for the Presidency, then I am not sure what to tell you.

Money in politics creates that push for a "radicalized post-policy 100% obstructionist ...."

No one said that the Democratic party is corrupt so it is interesting that you infer that.

Do you know that there are studies that show that the top 10% of income and wealth holders in the country get between 60% and 90% of their preferred policies passed? The other 90% of the population see about 30% at the high end. Party affiliation doesn't seem to matter much in that equation, does it?

Just because it appears you will jump on the "both sides" thing again, I will say, Republicans by far and almost exclusively are responsible for failure in government. That is their brand. The problem is when government fails, both parties get blamed, and worst yet, Democrats get blamed BECAUSE we believe that government should be used to help all people so we are associated with the party of government and governing.

The political system is broken because it was set up to favor the wealthiest people, or has been corrupted to do so. The tool that has allowed that to happen is the use of money to influence elections and policy.

[jalan48]

15. This is true.

"But in any other country, any other advanced democracy, they have multiple political parties."

[JHB]

16. About those other countries, Andrew, I have one word, just one word. Are you listening?

Parliament.

They may not all use that word for it, but they all have parliamentary systems. The whole point with those is coalition-building among the multiple parties.

It doesn't work that way here.

[BluesRunTheGame]

18. When I heard Andrew Yang was starting a new party I wasn't very interested...

...but now that I know Marianne Williamson is involved, sign me up!!!

[lagomorph777]

27. I'll hold out until Tulsi Gabbard, Jill Stein, and Joe Manchin join.

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Other countries with muiltiple parties are parliamentary democracies, not presidential republics

what works well in one system isn't necessarily going to transfer to another. Smaller parties in most parliamentary democracies have a better chance because of proportional representation; every party that receives a number of votes above a certain threshold (usually 5%) gets representation proportional to their vote share. In the US, with winner take all being the rule in most places, running for office under the banner of a new third party usually ends up being more of an expensive exercise in vanity than any kind of avenue to real political power.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

22. I hope that he has a ton of money

Getting onto the ballot as a third party takes money and hard work

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. This is exactly why New Yorkers rejected Andrew Yang

Link to tweet

[betsuni]

25. +1

[Ron Green]

26. This needs to become a trend. It could be a hope for America, and therefore

a hope for the world. The dualistic, winner-take-all system is killing any goodness that might ever emerge in politics; Ranked Choice Voting, seen now in a few spots, can help.

[joetheman]

28. Now is NOT the time for this! They will be worse than Jill Stein for the Democrats. Who is paying

them to do this?

[MineralMan]

29. What if you gave a party, and nobody showed up?

People sometimes worry about that when they plan a big to-do. Usually, people do show up, but it's always a worry.

I'm thinking that Yang needs to worry about that, frankly. Yes, I do.

He doesn't inspire, it seems to me. He has ideas, of course, and some of them are probably very good ones, but he didn't capture the public's imagination when he attempted to run for President. I don't think his new "party" is going to be well-attended somehow.

[budkin]

30. He's that ignorant?

Other counties have parliamentary systems.

[we can do it]

31. Grifters aren't always repukes.

[hamsterjill]

32. Just another billionaire with nothing to do

Think of what good all that money spent on this ridiculous new venture could do if invested in people.

He’s fast becoming the same as Jeff Bezos to me.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

33. This appears to be a PAC and not a party

Link to tweet

[Vinca]

34. Well, isn't this special? Trump must be giddy.