Originally published at: Watch Andrew Yang fastidiously avoid believing in anything | Boing Boing
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YANG: “Let me answer your question with another question. How would you like $1000 a month, no questions asked?”
INTERVIEWER: “But how would your UBI plan address the complex social and economic issues facing our…”
YANG: “—I believe I just said no questions asked.”
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The Freedom Party with the stated aim of going beyond right vs. left.
(“The narrative of the inexperienced outsider with business experience is sooo… 20teens”)
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Acosta should have asked this Libertarian pseudo-liberal if he believes in his own wonderfulness. That would have gotten a direct (if wrong) answer.
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Uh oh, looks like someone forgot to install the Coherent Ideology patch on YangBot 0.8. He’s just going around in circles.
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“Elect me. I’m cool.”
“Whaddya gonna do if you get elected?”
“Continue being cool, but with unlimited power.”
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Of course he believes in something. . . he believes he wants to be president.
“Let’s get politics out of politics!”
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Just like every other “Third Way” “neither right nor left” party, the actual purpose is to try to split the vote on the left and elect Republicans.
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On all issues there is a clear, common-sense consensus. It’s behind this curtain.
No, you may not know what is behind the curtain.
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“Common Sense” is such a ridiculous policy stance.
By that measure, Yang would’ve been for blood-letting in Victorian England.
There are reasons we elect leaders. and hope they’re wise and have the best interests of their constituents in mind.
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I think that it’s hard for people to wrap their mind around the paradigm of the Forward Party, because it’s not about “taking sides” on divisive issues, but about choosing what’s best for the people (and in turn, letting the people decide what’s best for themselves). I wouldn’t be surprised if the CNN anchor was playing this up to give it friction because it would greatly impact the status quo if left unchecked.
Check out their core principles. They’re about empowering individuals to actually have a choice when electing their representation by giving us ranked choice ballots, which will help with fairer elections for all positions where there are more than two candidates running; nonpartisan primaries, which will give us a better option at selecting ALL of our candidates, especially for people like me who don’t have strong party affiliations; and independent redistricting committees to prevent bipartisan gerrymandering.
I think the hard thing for this CNN anchor (forgive me for continuing to call him that, I have no idea who he even is) and a lot of people to understand is, the Forward Party is defined by the will of the people (bottom-up) and not just the political hot issues as decided by the party (top-down), especially considering how (it seems) that if one party picks Side A, the other party picks Side B, while the best solution might be a mix or compromise between the two.
Granted, the stances I mentioned above all benefit third parties, but, hey, for someone like me, I’d like more realistic options on the shit-sandwich menu that I have to pick every year.
Several polls show that the majority USians support abortion rights and gun control, though.
So why wouldn’t Yang state that as the party’s position?
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I did. The term buzzword bingo does come to mind.
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Their “core principles” page is a list of wishy-washy platitudes that doesn’t come close to representing any kind of coherent, well defined platform or policy positions.
As for advocating for Ranked Choice Voting and similar electoral reform, that would be much more effective when not coming from a partisan organization with a clear interest in getting these rules changed so that they themselves can get elected. Several states have already been making positive moves in this direction without a brand new party of vagueness needed.
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Apparently the biggest financial supporters of his party are…Republican megadonors.
Third parties are, due to our terrible system, only a spoiler and not an option. I’d love to see ranked choice put in place so we could have something like other major countries have. But until then? Yang is basically the wishywashy party.
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So, half-racism? Seems reasonable.
</s>
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“Do you think Roe v. Wade should have been overturned?” is a simple yes-or-no question which is highly relevant to today’s political landscape.
If Yang has a so-called “nuanced, non-partisan” position on abortion then he could have said “Yes, but…” or “No, but…” and then continued to elaborate his position. But refusing to take a principled stand on important issues of the day in the name of “compromise” is some weak-ass shit.
If anything it’s even less well-defined than Yang’s platform when he ran for POTUS the last time around. At least back then he had the one-idea-to-fix-everything plan (Universal Basic Income). Now it’s just “Freedom! Unity! Up with good things, down with bad things!”
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Another tech-bro who thinks it makes sense to try to take the politics out of politics so we can all sing Kumbaya together.
Good luck with that, bro.
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