Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party • Hacker News Board

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#611

Post by qPM9l3XJrF » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:00 AM UTC

geeB wrote: post #388

realce wrote: post #353

I raised over 400k for Andrew's POTUS run and devoted a year of my life to running his official Reddit (104k subs at peak), then joined a SuperPAC to further his positions after the run. The campaign team was full of fools who squandered almost every good turn received, most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage, and Andrew eventually stole the pac's name and branding - Humanity Forward - put everyone out…

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.

"When I Ran for President, It Messed With My Head"

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/03/andrew-yan...

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#612

Post by qPM9l3XJrF » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 8:07 AM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #571

bobthepanda wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is strategy. Going for broke by running a presidential candidate is a surefire way to lose , and no one really donates to parties that lose. Which is a problem, because presidential campaigns cost a crapton of money; Bernie 2016 cost $220M and that was the primary. If you look at successful third or fourth parties in FPTP nations, they are generally running lots of local campaigns, which are cheaper, give…

Most localities in the US are dominated by one of the major parties to the point where the primary becomes the election. That doesn't leave any room for a third party to break in either. Too many people never learn about local candidates and end up just pulling a straight ticket lever. This is the end result of decades of gerrymandering.

I wonder if you could form a mathematical model of which districts would be most amenable to a dedicated 3rd party challenger. It seems like you'd want a district which is a "safe seat" (if there is a serious R/D contest in the district, people will want to avoid "throwing away their votes" by voting for a 3rd party). But you'd also want to identify a district where people are dissatisfied with their elected representative anyways. Ideally the elected representative is a significant distance from the median voter.

Maybe a good metric would be the ratio of primary ballots cast to general election ballots cast. If a small number of extremist primary voters are de facto selecting the candidate that will win the general and get the "safe seat", that suggests an opportunity for disruption by being a high profile 3rd party candidate who's just a bit more moderate than candidates the extremists select (more appealing to the median voter).

Another idea is to reach out to a bunch of independent candidates and try to recruit them for your new party to work towards critical mass.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#613

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

jimmygrapes wrote: post #585

mywittyname wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems fine/palatable to me. And honestly, that's good leadership. Social policies should follow popular opinion and be flexible enough to shift ever few years. But economic policies may require unpopular actions to be taken. The population may not want higher interest rates, or a trade deal that kills a local factory. But those things might be for the greater good of everyone.

Counterpoint: California voted against gay marriage once upon a time, and overwhelmingly so. The popular (lack of) support was overridden by judicial activism. The rest of the country followed.

I would not classify 7M votes for banning same sex marriage and 6.4M votes against banning same sex marriage with 80% registered voter participation rate to be overwhelming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_California_Proposition_8

The voting age population was 26M in 2008, so even subtracting non US citizens and non CA residents, there were many millions of people who did not bother to vote, and I would bet that people who wanted to ban same sex marriage were more motivated to vote than people who did not want to ban same sex marriage.

https://www.cdss.ca.gov/research/res/pdf/GENtrends/CApop/CAp...

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#614

Post by _hilro » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:13 AM UTC

geeB wrote: post #577

_hilro wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Staten Island ferry cowboy incident What's suspect about that? He stopped a guy assaulting a photojournalist and you have issues with it??

My issue was not with stopping the assault, but more with the fact that the story as told seemed quite embellished, ran on a number of outlets, and it seemed specifically tailored to garner votes. To be specific, on one side the "bad guy" was a staten island guy wearing a cowboy hat in the midst of a hate crime epidemic soon after the capitol riots. On the other side, with pictures, a mentally ill person of color. Th…

> just "Yang is like his peers"

Given the assailant was black, I doubt most politicians would get involved or publicise it.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#615

Post by _hilro » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 10:21 AM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #539

mywittyname wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems fine/palatable to me. And honestly, that's good leadership. Social policies should follow popular opinion and be flexible enough to shift ever few years. But economic policies may require unpopular actions to be taken. The population may not want higher interest rates, or a trade deal that kills a local factory. But those things might be for the greater good of everyone.

My issue with this approach is that it tends to put off progress until there is _overwhelming_ public support. For instance, the 38th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which liberalised divorce rules, received _82%_ of the public vote. That's particularly extreme, but the 34th and 36th amendment (equal marriage and abortion) received 62% and 67% respectively. All of these could have been introduced years earlier a…

> for instance the FF/FG coalition in Ireland has been unable to do anything about housing, because any actual action is going to annoy _somebody_

Ireland has a ridiculously high percentage of population dependent on government support for housing. This is in the form of assisted rent payments which in effect, sets a high floor for rent. People receiving support are competing in the same market for housing as pretty much all workers.

We don't build government housing anymore because we saw the actual disaster that became of that.

The far left parties have a 'housing for everyone' nonsense manifest which a) Ireland doesnt have the labour force for, b) tax payers subsiding shit wages c) Ireland already has high income tax and sales taxes.

At some point there has to be the realisation that life on the dole shouldn't equate to a middle class lifestyle without the stress or debt when those who should have a middle class lifestyle don't have one because they're being squeezed in every direction possible and still have to take on hundreds of thousands of debt for mediocre accommodation.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#616

Post by mulletboy » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:52 AM UTC

"not left. not right" Seen that before. Here in Europe that means "right" all the way.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#617

Post by Notanothertoo » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 12:01 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #396

Pelic4n wrote: post #391

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…

> The man was running for POTUS. Do you expect the men who lead the world to uphold your own moral standard? Yes?!? It’s insane to me how little some people expect of their elected officials. Yes, the cynical side of me knows it’s never going to 100% live up to expectations once they're in power but good grief. "things can never be good, here is a 16th century essay that proves my point" is just self-fulfilling proph…

It's the nature of power, you have to sell your ethical standards to compete at this level. If you think someone is above it, they've just succeeded in their marketing.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#618

Post by redis_mlc » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 12:31 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #503

rayiner wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is where the party doesn’t control the nominee, like the GOP, and you get the base nominating Trump.

That seems... preferable? Say what you will about Trump, but his ineptitude and lack of party connections meant he was limited in what he could accomplish. Contrast that to the Bush presidency and its two foreign wars.

> Say what you will about Trump, but his ineptitude and lack of party connections meant he was limited in what he could accomplish.

Actually the opposite is true, as his was one of the most productive administrations in the past 75 years, despite ankle-biting by Pelosi that exceeded even his term.

Trump was the only man on Earth who could address the CCP, and started the rebalancing of NATO member funding. We now understand how essential his wall is.

He also attracted remarkable advisors such as Bannon and Pompeo. I suggest you listen to their interviews, available on Youtube.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#619

Post by ctvo » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 1:29 PM UTC

mypalmike wrote: post #589

ctvo wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to get confirmation. I had a sense Yang was incompetent, and now I know. I still like some of his ideas, and I'm thankful he led to more Americans learning about UBI from the presidential race.

Now you know? You now know what one person on the internet said.

Yes.

And I also know how he failed in the presidential and New York City mayor race. And I also know his history with his non-profit. And I also know his performance in ventures before that.

Re: Andrew Yang Founds the Forward Party

#620

Post by synergy20 » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

Per Asian's traditional culture it's on the conservative side(hard working to earn your life, minimal welfare/food-stamp, family value, education first, law and order,etc), so yeah for the most part they're republican in heart.

As minorities many of them(including Andrew Yang) chose to stand with other minorities fought for 'social justice / equity everything'(welcome to the liberal democratic party!), which for the most part, it means the opposite of their culture and core value.

It's hard to imagine hard-working mindset can get along with welfare/equity thoughts for too long.

Thus the 3rd party, as he can't really fit into each side.