Moving Forward Together

Photo by Natalie Liu

Previously Published Dec 3. 2021

Shielding his eyes from the sun and keeping his presentation strong, Andrew Yang squints at the audience in front of him. After his stint as a New York Mayor elect and president elect, Yang was facing strong criticism from people who had once supported him. But Yang wasn’t finished yet. He was ready to make a stand, and this stand would be bigger than anything he had taken on before. 

If you go to Andrew Yang’s Twitter, you’ll see something different than the normal political rhetoric. Instead of polarizing statements (“Democrats SUCK!! Republicans 4 lyfe”) meant to incite chaos, Yang positions himself as a moderate liberal. His tweets range from Aerosmith’s new song ‘Dream On’ to “It’s not left vs right, it’s the people vs. a system designed to turn us against each other.” There are mentions of his new book, of his kids, and of something a bit unnatural: a new political party?

In the last week of September, at Mountain View, Yang touted all of his usual plans. UBI (Universal Basic Income) was brought up multiple times, in addition to Yang’s new plans. Yang’s new book, Forward, discusses his plans for the next few years in depth. In order to moderate the partisan stage of American politics, where the parties have become increasingly  polarized, more and more voices have been clamoring for an Independent Party. Lisa Murkowski remains the only Republican senator who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial that is facing reelection. Incidents of voting along party lines such as this are ultimately detrimental and will have multiple effects, including political gridlock, and it wouldn’t be surprising if we actually did descend into total madness and an inevitable civil war. 

Andrew Yang is trying to stop this before it happens. Gallup Poll found that 41% of Americans identified as Independent, in contrast to 31% as Democrats and 25% as Republicans. However, because there is no large third party in American politics like other countries, Independents are forced to lean to either side of the political spectrum in order to vote for a candidate with a likely chance of winning. Yang is hoping to appeal to this 41%, to combine the moderate policies of both Democrats and Republicans and offer a third choice to voters who have previously been forced to vote for candidates they don’t 100% agree with. 

As for his policies in Forward, Yang keeps with the theme of moderation. Along with ranked choice voting and lower Supreme Court term sentences, Yang’s ultimate goal is to create a more peaceful, more unified America. 

Check out more on Yang’s new book at Asian American Forward’s podcast, where an exclusive interview with Andrew Yang reveals more details about Yang’s future plans.