Live data from Hacker News

Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

forwardparty.com

471–480 of 638 posts

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#471
post #325

What's missing here, IMO, is a party. Who's with him? Do you have defectors from the 2 parties? Independents or popular figures joining up? Candidates being stood? A political party is not a manifesto, it's an organisation. I actually think there's room for a party to start gaining ground in the US. There are so many elected offices that the surface area is huge. Great for "guerilla tactics." IE, earning easy victori…

He would do better running as a Libertarian IMO. There's been support for UBI within the LP for a while, the party simply lacks candidates with a compelling story. In 2016 though, if the people who voted Green Party would have voted LP the LP would have earned 5% (instead it earn 3.5%) of the popular vote granting it full federal funding through the entire next election cycle. It's the closest any third party has com…

This might be a controversial take but candidates for the Libertarian party should be libertarians. If Yang wanted to run under an existing third party then the Green Party would make more sense.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a high level of skepticism for anyone who is a reddit moderator. This is purely speculative and anecdotal, but the ones I've known are not generally healthy, stable people.

I'm a reddit mod for a 100k+ geographical sub. I volunteered when I thought the mods did a poor job on something and DM'ed them, and one invited me to help. So every day or three, I hop on and help clean out the report queue if it's stacked up. Being a decent person, modding can be difficult because the internet is full of bad-faith people and idiots. Applying a consistent standard in a way that keeps the sub clean w…

> straight-up disinfo (I tend to look at their profiles for context) gets deleted quickly.

That makes me extremely nervous. One can imagine a perverse mod who simply deletes comments based on which political subs they post in.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage This is something really strange. If you work for a campaign, it is very very very very different from working for the Mcdonal's. You work for a campaign because you support its ideology, and you want it to win. You are not trying to make a living by working for a campaign. I would even say, you are not working for the campaign, you are working for yourself! It…

So you'll pay for your house, food, and other living requirements with what then? Every time someone tries to make a case for paying people not enough to survive they just seem to forget that externalities exist...

If you want to make more money, why don't you go work for the Mcdonal's then?

Oh no. I don't like to work for the Mcdonal's! I hate the job! I want to work for the campaign and it must pay me the same! It's a win-win for me!

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#474
post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people, and he never pays off on what he promises. The man was running for POTUS. Do you expect the men who lead the world to uphold your own moral standard? From Machiavelli's The Prince: >Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft . Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have…

That's a selective reading. In fact, I wish more politicians would actually read the Prince, and explicitly incorporate the overall lessons. Machiavelli mostly advices leaders of not surrounding themselves with yes men, not letting their vanity cloud their judgements, lead modest and exemplary lives, be prudent with finances, prefer predictability and stability in all things, known their own limitations, not be greed…

I agree with you and don't have a cynical reading of the Prince at all! Machiavelli simply talks about what works and what doesn't. As he explains, as a leader, helding upon your promises for the sake of it is a liability. Why be angry at successfull politicians when they apply what works?

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#475
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have any personal experience, but sadly it does not sound too surprising from what's been out publicly. The moment he dropped out and immediately got the CNN job really changed my perception of him. Then after some events from his mayoral campaign, such as his Israel comments or the Staten Island ferry cowboy incident, it's pretty clear he is a politician like many others.

I donated to his campaign after seeing him on JRE, and I’ve been getting spam emails from political candidates ever since. I’ve blocked at least 7-8 different “PLEASE DONATE” mailers, but they keep coming. I think Yang sold my info.

This happens when I donate to any candidate. Not saying it's right, but it does seem to be the norm.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#476
There is a lot going on with this guy. He says a lot of the "right" things and it's pretty clear he has a point with our system being really messed up. The problem with founding a new party is that it has to have a base that is based on something organic and I don't think this guy realizes that.

At best, he can only hope for a party base derived from his personality, which is lacking. Other than that, I don't see any demographic group that he can consider his core group of supporters.

At the very least, it will make people think about the current system and how to change it.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#477
post #325

What's missing here, IMO, is a party. Who's with him? Do you have defectors from the 2 parties? Independents or popular figures joining up? Candidates being stood? A political party is not a manifesto, it's an organisation. I actually think there's room for a party to start gaining ground in the US. There are so many elected offices that the surface area is huge. Great for "guerilla tactics." IE, earning easy victori…

There is no room for a third party to start gaining ground in the US. We already have a third and fourth party - the Libertarian and Green parties - that have been trying to gain traction for years. Neither has been able to. The Greens came the closest with Nader in 2000.

The reason for that is structural. The Democratic and Republican parties have structurally built themselves into the election system in a way that shuts out any attempt to gain traction by third and fourth parties.

Just think about the fact that the Federal Election Commission, the organization that oversees our elections, is legally required to be half Democrat and half Republican. That tells you everything you need to know.

If we're going to change it to make room for additional parties, we have to take over one of the existing parties with an explicit election reform agenda that removes them from the structural landscape and then restructures it (with things like ranked choice voting or a senate that works on proportional party representation) to allow for third parties to gain traction.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#479
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have any personal experience, but sadly it does not sound too surprising from what's been out publicly. The moment he dropped out and immediately got the CNN job really changed my perception of him. Then after some events from his mayoral campaign, such as his Israel comments or the Staten Island ferry cowboy incident, it's pretty clear he is a politician like many others.

I donated to his campaign after seeing him on JRE, and I’ve been getting spam emails from political candidates ever since. I’ve blocked at least 7-8 different “PLEASE DONATE” mailers, but they keep coming. I think Yang sold my info.

He is quoted as saying he did not, but when you donate directly to a campaign is get put into a public FEC db, which obviously gets scraped.

https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00006486/

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage This is something really strange. If you work for a campaign, it is very very very very different from working for the Mcdonal's. You work for a campaign because you support its ideology, and you want it to win. You are not trying to make a living by working for a campaign. I would even say, you are not working for the campaign, you are working for yourself! It…

A major part of American politics is that the non-wealthy can participate. This means we need to pay people like campaign workers enough to live so they don't need to be independently wealthy. This doesn't extend to every person. There are volunteers who just seek donations and such.

IMO you should get tax credits for hours volunteered for political campaigns.
Post reply on HN