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Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

forwardparty.com

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Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#191

Post by chalst »

Karto wrote: post #158

The top line, "Not Left. Not Right. Forward." kind of reminds me of Macron's "En Marche" ("Let's Go") that took over France in a storm, taking over the presidency AND the parliament only one year after its foundation, with very few previously known political figures in its ranks. The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics, and offered an alternative to fed-up voters who didn't dare turn to the…

    En Marche benefitted from the peculiarity of France's electoral system, which combines proportional representation in a 1st round with a "sudden death" 2nd round for the powerful presidency with only the two best-polling parties taking part. When it became clear that the far-right would be the largest single party, people ditched traditional party allegiances to back a candidate they found tolerable.

(Apologies for posting my half-mangled recollections without checking and thanks to the commenters who fixed my incorrect claims).

France's electoral system is not well-suited to its current political landscape.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#192

Post by vadfa »

Karto wrote: post #158

The top line, "Not Left. Not Right. Forward." kind of reminds me of Macron's "En Marche" ("Let's Go") that took over France in a storm, taking over the presidency AND the parliament only one year after its foundation, with very few previously known political figures in its ranks. The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics, and offered an alternative to fed-up voters who didn't dare turn to the…

"forward" means "progress" which means "left". I don't really see the point there :P I've seen many parties claim "we are not left-wing or right-wing" but they evidently have to be either.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#193

Post by hef19898 »

disneygibson wrote: post #189
hef19898 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the 5th French Republic is going well since the 50s, isn't it? As is the post-war BRD in Germany. Both used to have an Emperor at some point, Italy went from Kingdom to Facist regime to democracy. So yes, if the situation changes you can change your government form. Basing 21st Century politics on something written in the 18th century is... weird. Especially as it is more the interpretation of what the authors…

No, it isn’t weird, it’s simply rejecting the frankly naive notion that you should change everything all the time according to the whims of the populace. History and human nature didn’t begin in 1950. Again, the US has never had anything remotely as horrible as the French Revolution or Nazi Germany. That’s likely a consequence of a constitutional government with limited powers. The United Kingdom is in a very similar…

Funny. It was the French Revolution that paved the way for modern democracies in the West. If I remember correctly, the American Revolutionary Army received quite some assistance from them. It is ironic so, the the French ended up with an Emperor so, I have to agree. Not comparing anything to Nazi Germany, but didn't the US have a pretty nasty Civil War?

Also, changing things based on the whim of the population is pretty much the core believe of democracy. As long as that change is following some process and is happening peacefully. Just a disclaimer, demonstrations that end in some violence are still what I would consider "peaceful", as opposed to outright anarchy or civil wars.

EDIT: Yep, the French revolution happened after the American one. The French helped the US as reaction to the Seven Year war, basically to stick it to the British. That Napoleon became Emperor was also caused by the various wars the French Republic fought against the various European monarchies. History is ironic sometimes.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#194

Post by asdff »

Apocryphon wrote: post #57
spyckie2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I think the best way to think about this party is that the goal isn't to win elections (get the majority of votes, beat out the republican/democratic party) - it is to wield influence via a platform. If you think Andrew Yang is establishing a political party to win a government race, I think its a bit too naive. I think he is trying to use a third party lever to influence a bunch of small things to snowball int…

Ranked choice voting in theory patches up the spoiler effect, which will paradoxically make voting third party more appealing.

It still suffers from spoiler effect

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#195

Post by lucienmaxwell »

jagrsw wrote: post #159

".. because our founding fathers .." It's interesting to see that all sides of political dispute in US, even parties (like this one) which want to cater to the seemingly more rational and less emotional part of the populace use the argument of "the founding fathers wanted it this way, so... that must be the correct way of doing things forever".

This is actually not true at all, especially if you consider wings or movements within the two dominant parties. Examining American political history over the past century reveals all sorts of differing views on the Founding, including a president that was openly hostile to many of their thoughts and ideals (Wilson).

Part of the general trend of radical adherence to the Founding is an understanding of the equally radical philosophies they championed and that many (if not all) of these are universal and timeless. Rights like being able to say just about anything without being detained or killed by your government don’t expire — they’re central to liberty, period.

Also, the Enlightenment was a movement very much based in rational thinking. There’s lots of American political rhetoric based in emotion, but respect and adoration for the Founding is hardly the worst of it.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#196

Post by qsort »

Karto wrote: post #158

The top line, "Not Left. Not Right. Forward." kind of reminds me of Macron's "En Marche" ("Let's Go") that took over France in a storm, taking over the presidency AND the parliament only one year after its foundation, with very few previously known political figures in its ranks. The whole thing looked like doing management rather than politics, and offered an alternative to fed-up voters who didn't dare turn to the…

I suspect a huge part of Macron's success was his opponent. France elections have a top-2 runoff, and I wouldn't be surprised if many electors were like "I don't like Macron but I really don't want Le Pen to win".

The whole "socially progressive, economically middle of the road" political coalition that would win every election on HN is extremely unpopular in the real world.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#198

Post by asdff »

doomrobo wrote: post #153
vkou wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Platform page lists a selection of positions that I think would not be very controversial. The positions may not be, but voting for anything but R or D is very controversial, because by voting third party in the US, you are helping the choice you like least win. There is exactly zero chance that a third party will gain any meaningful amount of power, so all you are doing is throwing your vote away. Maybe you're…

NYC mayoral elections are ranked-choice

And it didn't get rid of the spoiler effect exactly. Every system has tradeoffs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/27/new-yorke...

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#199

Post by donpott »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #173
xscott wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Approval voting makes much more sense to me. Consider ranked-choice if it were applied to the presidency: Given that some states are slow to report their results, there are scenarios where you can't fall back to people's second choices until all the votes are in and finalized to determine who lost the first round. With approval voting, you can declare a victor without running a state machine.

Why is this a problem in the age of computers and internet?

Because Electronic Voting is generally considered too attack-prone to be trusted.

Relevant Tom Scott video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#200

Post by mjevans »

didibus wrote: post #56
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ranked choice seems to be the best one I've read about. Could you help us understand what voting system might be better?

I've seen people argue for Schulze or Ranked pairs over it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_pairs The main distinction is that Ranked Choice can elect someone which is not the best compromise of everyone's choices, while Schulze and Ranked pairs will always elect the best compromise of everyone's choices. If there is a candidate who is preferred over the other candida…

The fallacy in the argument is that, first choice only, NO candidate has even a slim majority, let alone a strong one.

If you decay the hypothetical 3 party set of options by eliminating the least popular candidate then you're back to first past the post which is the current status quo in the US.

Schulze and similar methods use the ranked lists to evaluate pairs of candidates and eliminate the candidates that are universally the worst first / retain candidates that rank well in isolation. This is more likely to result in a compromise that works best for the most people.

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