 Over the weekend Andrew Yang was interviewed by CNN's Jim Acosta and Let me tell you this interview did not go well for Andrew Yang In fact, I'd argued that it was a complete and utter disaster because in this interview Andrew Yang could have made the case for his party But instead he ended up revealing how uninformed out of touch and quite frankly vapid He is when it comes to the most pressing political issues of our time because not only does he not Tell us any of the forward parties political views, but he just tries to ride the fence But he doesn't do it in an effective or persuasive manner, and it just makes him look really Unserious, so Let's talk about this. There's a couple of clips that I want to play for you But this is the first one and let me ask you about your new forward party because you say it's an attempt to appeal to What you say is the the moderate common-sense majority. It's also the same name as your book Is this an attempt to pump up book sales? Well, I'd have to say this would be a pretty silly way to go about it given that we National party that now has tens of thousands of Americans signed up Co-chaired by former governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman and the fact is 62% of Americans But are you just promoting yourself? I guess is what I'm I guess what I'm asking is are you just out there promoting yourself with this? Again, you know that there there are as you can easily imagine there are hundreds of better ways to go about promoting a Book then starting a political party to do so I mean, I'm building this party because 62% of Americans want it we're more polarized than ever And the fact is the two parties have divvied up the country so that 79 to 90 percent of races are uncompetitive most of the people watching this right now aren't even living under a two-party sister System they're living under one part now what Andrew King said, right? There is technically true The problem is that the mere existence of the forward party or any alternative to the Democrats and Republicans for that matter It's not going to fundamentally change the institutions emphasis on institutions that created the conditions That led to this duopoly. It's called duverges law Now he hasn't addressed duverges law and he's barely talked about things that he could do to maybe subvert duverges law But for those of you who don't know this is what duverges law is now I'm just gonna go to the Wikipedia definition because believe it or not I tried to pull up the Oxford definition and it was less correct than Wikipedia because they claim that Maurice duverges Who created duverges law or was named after was a political scientist when that's not actually true He was a sociologist, but that's neither here nor there This is the definition of duverges law in political science duverges law holds that single ballot plurality rule elections Such as first pass the post structured within single-member districts tend to favor a two-party system The discovery of this tendency is attributed to Maurice duverges a French sociologist who observed the effect and recorded it in several papers published in the 1950s and 1960s In the course of further research other political scientists began calling the effect a law or principle as a corollary to the law Duverges also asserted that proportional representation favors multi-partyism as does the plurality system with runoff elections And that right there is what Andrew Yang fails to address To his credit he does say we should have rank choice voting and we'll talk about the platform in a second here But rank choice voting in and of itself may not actually ameliorate the issue because what the rank choice voting will do Is it will make a third-party candidates more viable? Yes, that's true because it eliminates the so-called spoiler effect The problem is that what we really want to do is make it so the system itself is not majoritarian And we have a more proportional system We change the district magnitude meaning that rather than all of us just having one representative Perhaps we have two three maybe four representatives So that way if our first choice doesn't get elected or the party who we vote for usually doesn't get elected Well, there's another person that will get elected. So you have to make the system more proportional Now this is no easy task, but you're not just going to Create a multi-party system by sheer force of will what you have to do is change at the institutions Now in the event Andrew Yang created this party or formed it as an organization to drive Actual electoral reform then I would be on board because I think we need something like this Even though there are other organizations that are fighting for electoral reform If this is another one then great But the problem is that just simply saying we need rank choice voting Isn't a solution. How are you going to do this? How are you going to enact rank choice voting? Are you going to use this organization as a vehicle to create rank choice voting ballot initiatives in states where that's possible? He doesn't come up with any solutions. It's all vague and you can tell he hasn't thought this through and Jim Acosta Saw it hence why he asked pretty bluntly. Uh, are you doing this to promote your book? Ouch That is a cnn host on mainstream media seeing through your grift if Jim Acosta can see through you and realize that you're a grifter You're being a little bit too conspicuous Andrew Yang now He responded by saying there are hundreds of better ways to go about promoting a book Really though is there because I think that you know if you name this party after your book Then when you google forward party, perhaps your book also comes up and you know win-win I mean, perhaps look, let's be extra charitable and assume that he genuinely believes in this either way You clearly haven't talked to political scientists. You clearly haven't talked to experts You clearly haven't talked to representatives or grassroots organizers at the state level who could in theory Help you enact this agenda to get electoral reform I mean the green party has been going at this for decades Talk to them about electoral reform and some of the barriers that third parties deal with but he's not really Addressing that and that is indeed a problem now. He says I'm building this party because 62 percent of americans wanted We're more we're more polarized than ever and the fact is that the two parties have divided up the country So 79 to 90 percent of races are uncompetitive Now this is true. He's correct about that. So again, he accurately diagnosed one of the problems here But if you're going to really tackle the duopoly, you have to have solutions You have to have a plan for institutional reform But he has nothing it gets worse believe it or not President biden I can hear democrats over the white house saying president biden has had republican support on a number of agenda items He is trying to work in a bipartisan fashion Why not try to support that as a democrat? You were just a democrat 10 minutes ago Oh, I support attempts to cross the aisle But we can all see that seven out of 10 of the republicans that bravely voted to impeach trump Are already going to be out of congress by the time January comes along and the moderate population in both parties is unfortunately dwindling quickly So the political incentives end up Disproportionately empowering the 10 percent of extremes on both sides, but you're gonna have to come up with policy Really negative results right but answer a better system. Yeah, but andrew you're gonna have to have policy Positions at some point. How does the forward party feel about roe versus wage should have been overturned? Well, I personally Uh, think that women's reproductive rights are fundamental human rights, but the forward party has Not left or right, but forward stands on even the most divisive and contentious issues. What does that mean? Don't you have to take a position on something you don't have to take a position on something You can't just say well, you know, this is a hot button issue. So i'm not going to take a position on you You know, if you want to run the country you're gonna have to make some hard decisions andrew Again the forward party is about that common-sense consensus majority view, which is very clear on abortion. It's clear about guns What about assault weapons? It's actually clear on just about every issue under the sun should 18 year olds be able to buy air Are 15s should because of the nature of our system should 18 year olds be able to buy air 15s Again the common sense consensus majority is that there should be some Uh rules around background checks and access to firearms But we're not getting any of these things jim because the two-party system does not need to deliver It doesn't sound like you're taking any hard positions. It sounds like your trade power It sounds like you're you're sort of a fill-in-the-blank party You're you know, if if somebody wants a party with no clear policy positions, you're it But unfortunately in the real world In the real world you have to take a position on something And that right there my friends is the exact moment where andrew gang's entire grift was exposed. That was just brutal So he says the moderate population in both parties is unfortunately dwindling quickly really now So the political incentives end up disproportionately empowering the 10 percent of extremes on both sides First of all, what political incentives are you referring to second of all? Do you honestly believe that there are just 10 percent of extremes on both sides? If we're going to claim that the social democrats like alexandria okaizu or taz and quarry bush are extremes within the democratic party Sure, you can say that They're the extremes within the party. They're certainly not ideologically extreme compared to where the american people are at But if you want to say with respect to the democratic party, sure, they're more extreme I'll grant you that but there are like two percent of extremists in the democratic party Whereas the republican party is comprised Disproportionately of extremists what like 97 98 percent if we really want to be charitable here Most of the republican party are extremists. So How are you going to create this false equivalence where you have Extremists on both sides not all extremists so-called extremists are created equal the extremists within the democratic party like aoc ilhan omar They want everyone to have healthcare whereas the extremists in the republican party. They want a trump led dictatorship These extremes are not equivalent. They're not comparable. It's a false equivalence to say that they are the same Now when it comes to his stance on roe v. Wade, he says I personally think women's reproductive rights are fundamental human rights But the forward party has not a left or right but forward stance on even the most divisive issues now my favorite part was when jim acosta said, what does that mean? I mean when your platitudes are so vapid that you have a cnn host asking you what does that even mean? You've got a problem What does that even mean? So you literally claim that abortion is a fundamental human right So if you admit that it's a fundamental human right Then just for the sake of being centrist You're going to have to find some common ground between people who think it's a fundamental human right and people who think that it's murder How do you find that common ground? I mean see this is the problem This is the problem with trying to be a centrist fence sitter In 2022 american politics when it comes to the issue of gay rights Well, there are gay people who think that they should have full equality and there are republicans like ronda sandis Who thinks that they should be completely cleansed from society? They shouldn't be allowed to be themselves in schools. They shouldn't have equal rights. They shouldn't be allowed to marry So how do you find the middle point there the forward point if you will? Do you just like give gay people some rights and then split the difference because either side isn't going to be happy Gay people rightfully want 100 equality. They want full equal rights and the extremists on the right They don't want them to have any right So how are you going to appease both sides? When you have to choose in this instance either one side is going to be happy and the other side Is not going to be happy. That's the way that this issue is going to uh to bear out and look Taking the middle point just to be a centrist fence sitter in and of itself. That's not great I mean imagine if you took this middle point during the civil rights era Where it's like, um, you know, some people think that segregation is uh good and others think it's bad Maybe we just like desegregate a little bit. How do you take this position? I mean, it's politically infeasible. It's it doesn't make any sense It makes no sense whatsoever. Now andrian continues here Again, the forward party is about that common sense consensus majority view Which is very clear on abortion and also it's very clear on every issue under the sun Well, if it's clear on the issue What is its stance, but but he said, oh, we're very clear on climate change and abortion We won't tell you our position, but we're very very clear I I mean how like I don't even know how to process this interview. It's that vapid like Where do you fall on the political compass like on the political compass andry yang is trying to create this z axis And that z axis is forward and one way is for good things and the opposite way is for bad things That's that's like the only way I can try to visualize This incoherent ideology, but it's just it's it's complete nonsense one more clip for you In the real world you have to take a position on something Well, where for the common sense consensus view on guns abortion climate change But we're not getting a common sense What are those positions any of those things jim and americans are just sort of a fuzzy But those are fuzzy nebulous. It sounds like you came up with something in a focus group You know common sense, you know middle of the ground that that sounds wonderful. That sounds great But at the end of the day, don't you have to take a position on something? Well, the the great thing is the american people know where we want the country to go And what we know that we need a more dynamic truly representative system Then we're getting right now, which is why the forward party is growing so quickly Tens of thousands americans have signed up in all 50 states because We know that the two-party system is getting worse not better and we know we need something new Okay, we're for the common sense consensus view on guns abortion and climate change and that common sense consensus view is what Fill in the blanks for us he he doesn't want to do that and jim acosta was correct that this is a fill in the blank party if you don't necessarily Want to you know support democrats or republicans and you're kind of this political outsider, which most americans are Andrew yin is correct about that then perhaps you just Visualize what you hope the party Will say when it comes to particular issues, which is why he's very apprehensive about taking the firm stance It's insane to me and yet he still claims that no no no we're very clear on these issues I mean if you go to their website, there's there's basically no policies There's one page with nothing but platitudes and there's another page where he names Three policies of rank choice voting and nonpartisan primaries and independent redistricting committees Now one more thing that I wanted to say about this with regard to His solution so he claims or doesn't necessarily claim to be fair But implies that in the event we had multiple parties Then that would solve the issues right because the problem is that most people don't necessarily agree with the democratic party or the republican party But I mean just having more parties even if he were able to get Institutional reforms to make that possible. It wouldn't be a panacea. There are other problems with our system, right? There's capitalism. There's a lot of things that you have to take into account When you look at the Entity of the american government, but just having more parties isn't a win in and of itself I mean some countries have a fucked ton of parties currently right now Brazil has I believe 40 active political parties and their effective number of political parties is like eight or nine Now is brazil really any better off than the united states? Just having more political parties isn't going to be The thing that changes our system in some instances it can create more problems because in brazil The parties don't really have a coherent political position people Create parties and leave parties all the time So when you look at a particular political party in brazil aside from the largest ones It's hard to deduce what they actually stand for because there are so many of them So there is a good number like a happy medium And I think that number is probably like five to six germany I believe is a really good model for a political system that I would like to have But andrew yang very clearly hasn't thought these things through he hasn't consulted with political scientists He's certainly consulted with you know People who do these focus groups as jimacosta pointed out, but I mean this is all just this is embarrassing I don't know what to say But andrew yang if you want to actually create a viable alternative to the democratic and republican parties you're doing it wrong and You're going to just further expose yourself as the vapid grifter That people are already realizing you are so I mean if you actually want to be an alternative You have to take positions. You can't ride the fence. You actually have to say This is our stance on abortion But it's really difficult to do this because trying to find that middle point between small d democrats and fascists is going to be very difficult I mean How do you how do you bargain with people who want trump to be a dictator? How do you bargain with people who actually want to subjugate Certain minorities in this country lgbtq plus people people of color to second class citizenship who want women to not have control Over their own bodies. How do you find the common sense center there? Do you base it specifically off of polling because that would be one way to do it? But he hasn't given us anything to work with here It's just platitudes and for that reason the forward party Is fucking a joke and I think that more and more people are realizing that andrew yang himself Is a joke an opportunist and definitely a grifter