2022.08.28 杨安泽认为三个党派还远远不够

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Andrew Yang Thinks Three Parties Aren’t Nearly Enough
The former Democratic presidential candidate isn’t worried about being a spoiler.

By Annie Lowrey
Andrew Yang
Adam Glanzman / Bloomberg / Getty; The Atlantic
AUGUST 28, 2022, 7 AM ET
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About the author: Annie Lowrey is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Andrew Yang—an entrepreneur, a policy celebrity, and a proud nerd—recently co-founded Forward, America’s newest political party. During Yang’s gadfly bids for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and last year’s Democratic mayoral nomination in New York City, his advocacy for a universal basic income gained him a cult following. His nascent third party is focused on democratic reform: restructuring American electoral processes so that elected representatives better capture the public will.

Yang insists that he’s concentrating on building up Forward and enlisting candidates, not on running for office himself. Working with a budget approaching $10 million, Forward is seeking ballot access in 15 states this year, with the intention of eventually gaining access in all 50 states. It plans to release a party platform next year and field its first candidates in 2023 and 2024.


Read: Why Andrew Yang matters

Critics say that Yang’s new initiative is disconnected from how the political system functions. Democrats worry that, in practice, a third-party candidacy could return Donald Trump to the White House, much as the Green Party’s Ralph Nader helped tip the 2000 election toward the Republican candidate, George W. Bush.

This week, I spoke with Yang about how his new party might alter the political system. The transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Annie Lowrey: What is the Forward Party?

Andrew Yang: The Forward Party is a unifying popular movement to try and restore American democracy. There are a group of structural problems that we’re trying to address—a few ways to meaningfully extract ourselves from the polarization we’re seeing and experiencing.

Almost 50 percent of both Republicans and Democrats now view the other side as corrupt and a threat to the country, which makes comity and bipartisanship and working together actually not just unpalatable, but something that gets punished politically. The polarization is being amplified by the way our party primaries are set up and the noncompetitive nature of almost 90 percent of the congressional districts in the country.

There is one-party rule in the vast majority of cities around the country, and up to 70 percent of the 500,000 local races around the country are either uncontested or uncompetitive. Most Americans aren’t experiencing what we think of as either a functioning democracy or even a two-party system.

Lowrey: I am sitting in California, where Democrats hold every statewide elected office.

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Yang: There’s just one party in control! If you imagine yourself, let’s say, as a rural Democrat or a Republican in many blue cities, you have no meaningful say.

Read: The states where third-party candidates perform best

Lowrey: You say that Forward wants to represent rural Democrats and city-dwelling Republicans. Which policies are you pushing with this centrist party?

Yang: I want to stress that it is the mechanics [of the electoral system] that could improve matters. The only Republican senator who voted to impeach Donald Trump who is on the ballot this November is Lisa Murkowski. She made it through her primary. That was in large part because Alaska had a different process in place. There was a nonpartisan open primary where anyone could vote for anyone. That changed her incentives, because she didn’t have to go through a party primary. If we can make a process change that rewards legislators for serving 51 percent of their communities, as opposed to 10 to 15 percent, that can dramatically affect policy.

Lowrey: But which policies?

Yang: That is one of the more interesting communications challenges for something like Forward. We’re so accustomed to something falling on a left-right political spectrum. You frame it as a centrist party, which does describe a lot of the people that are drawn to Forward. But we’re trying to set up a system where the majority will of the American people actually gets reflected in policy.

Lowrey: Just to be clear, you are not defining the policy center. You’re not setting out any policies as you’re setting this party up. There isn’t a tax proposal or a health-care proposal that captures the will of the people unrepresented by the two parties. What does Forward stand for?

Yang: We stand for what people want to see in their own lives, in their family’s lives, and in their own community. The principles that we are championing are free people, thriving communities, in a vibrant democracy. And it is true that people in Mississippi will pursue those things in a different way than people in California. And we think that’s great.

Lowrey: What about Medicaid expansion? Is the Forward Party for the expansion of Medicaid to all adults in poverty?

Yang: I personally would be for anything that’s going to help people and families. I would guess that the vast majority of the people that are drawn to Forward would similarly be in favor. But we’re not as a movement going to apply litmus tests in that way.

Lowrey: Are there policy positions that would make a politician unwelcome to run under the Forward banner?

Yang: If they were for things that run afoul of the principles of free people, thriving communities, and vibrant democracy. And we’re emphasizing the last pillar, because we do think American democracy is eroding and disintegrating before our eyes.

Lowrey: Here’s a quote from an op-ed you wrote with David Jolly, a former Republican congressman, and Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, also a Republican. Both are now in Forward’s leadership:

Most Americans don’t agree with calls from the far left to confiscate all guns and repeal the Second Amendment, but they’re also rightfully worried by the far right’s insistence on eliminating gun laws. On climate change, most Americans don’t agree with calls from the far left to completely upend our economy and way of life, but they also reject the far right’s denial that there is even a problem. On abortion, most Americans don’t agree with the far left’s extreme views on late-term abortions, but they also are alarmed by the far right’s quest to make a woman’s choice a criminal offense.

In all three cases, the “centrist” position there is the mainstream Democratic position. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not run the party, and the veto point among Democrats is a West Virginian who founded a coal business. Democrats don’t want to confiscate guns. They’re not talking about permitting abortion in all circumstances.

Yang: I would make a couple of distinctions. First, the Forward Party would be inclusive of people who don’t agree on an issue, which is a very, very big distinction for a lot of Americans. The second thing is that for people who are supportive of these positions, if you say, “Hey, just vote Democratic,” the obvious question is: If they have been voting Democratic, why aren’t these things being enacted?

Lowrey: Why is Forward a party, not a PAC or a think tank?

Yang: Because so many Americans have been eager for a genuine choice on the ballot. We can improve matters! We’re in a country where 50 percent of Americans self-identify as independents and 62 percent say they want a third party. If we were just another nonprofit saying, “Oh, there should be these reforms,” they would not happen. The way we’re going to make it happen is by fighting for the reforms in both blue and red states, but also presenting people a meaningful actual choice in their politics where they live.

Lowrey: The vast majority of independents are already reliable voters for one or the other party. Pew puts the number of true independents, with no political lean, at 7 percent.

Yang: If you take an independent voter and say, “Hey, does this person lean one way or the other?,” odds are that they probably do. But if you ask that same voter, “Would you like a choice that’s distinct from these two choices?,” they say yes.


From the May 2021 issue: What if Andrew Yang wins?

Lowrey: Are independent voters and centrist voters the same thing?

Yang: No, I mean, heck, there are some members of Forward who consider themselves independents who are very, very left-leaning. One of our goals with Forward was to build a very broad ideological coalition of people who could say, “Look, this current system is not giving me a voice!”

We need to get off of this current dysfunctional two-party system. But I don’t think the ideal number of political parties in the United States is three—I think it’s probably something closer to five, six, or seven. The current Democratic Party should be two separate parties, the current Republican Party should be two separate parties, and there perhaps would be a party in the middle and one party on either extreme. That system would better reflect the popular will.

Lowrey: I’m certainly not arguing that Democrats don’t gerrymander, because they do. But one party passed a national partisan gerrymandering ban through the House. The other side is trying to overturn the presidential election.

Yang: There are asymmetries. I think you have to try to figure out how to make the system more resilient and sustainable in an environment where one of your two major parties is evincing antidemocratic tendencies.


One approach is to say, “Let’s try to defeat that party in all districts from now until the end of time,” which I’m going to suggest is probably not a sound approach. Or you could look at the system and say that it is extraordinarily prone to authoritarianism, so let’s get to the root causes of that. I’d totally agree that there isn’t symmetry between the two sides. But the measures you’d need to make the system more genuinely resilient and lowercase-d democratic will run afoul of Democratic interests in different locations.

Lowrey: I know that you know about Duverger’s law, which suggests that without a system of proportional representation, politics tends to become dominated by two parties. How do you plan to overcome that? Ross Perot runs. He gets one in five, one in six, votes. He gets zero votes in the Electoral College.

Yang: We prefer ranked-choice voting. That would enable there to be a winner with majority appeal, and no spoiler effects to be concerned about. Ranked-choice voting has been demonstrated to help women candidates and candidates from underrepresented communities. It is pro-moderation, making it harder for someone who can really animate 25 percent of people to win.

Read: A step toward blowing up the presidential-voting system


Lowrey: In practice, how would a third-party option make ranked-choice voting more likely?

Yang: Say there’s a critical mass of voters—Forward voters, who might be registered Republicans or Democrats or independents—coming together. There are two candidates in a race, a Democrat and a Republican. And Forward says, “We’ll get behind anyone for ranked-choice voting, because it’s better for reducing extremism.” One says yes. The other says no. You have an enormous win, whether there’s a Forward candidate on the ballot or not! Or maybe both candidates say yes. I am incredibly excited about this, because it shows we can make a positive change in the functioning of democracy without having a candidate win or even run in a particular race.

Lowrey: In 2016, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein got 5 percent of the vote in Michigan, which Trump won by less than one percentage point. How do you think about the possibility of Forward tipping a close presidential election one way or another?

Yang: Our focus is on the 506,000 locally elected officials around the country where, again, the vast majority of Americans do not have a meaningful voice. Why do people jump to the presidential? I get it because, hey, I ran for president. But this is not where Forward’s attention is, nor is it where my attention is. Our genuine mission is to create meaningful choices for people in communities around the country.


The ideal situation for the entire country would be to have voting in the presidential election where you can vote for whomever you want, and if your candidate doesn’t win, then your vote flows through to the second person. There is absolutely nothing stopping us from doing that. There are other countries that already do that. But instead, we’re clinging to this creaking, increasingly dysfunctional duopoly. And then when someone says, “Hey, maybe we should modernize and upgrade the system,” then people point a finger at them and yell, “Ralph Nader!”

Lowrey: But yes, Ralph Nader! What if Forward helped reelect Trump?

Yang: Our intention is to make extremism less likely and dominant in races and communities around the country. We’ll be acting in that direction.

Lowrey: You tweeted that the raid on Mar-a-Lago would raise the hackles of millions of Americans who would see it as unjust persecution. Could you unpack that for me? It seems the raid was justified by violations of the Espionage Act.

Yang: I said it would inflame and activate a group of Americans who would see it in a certain light. It doesn’t necessarily mean the raid was the wrong course of action.


Lowrey: What do you think should happen with Trump?

Yang: Trump, unfortunately, is the most visible manifestation of tendencies that are going to outlast his time on the political scene. There are now dozens of people who have seen Trump’s path and are trying to follow in his footsteps in various ways. Our goal has to be to build a modern, representative, resilient, democratic system that can not just resist Trump himself, but also will be able to make it through what comes after.

Annie Lowrey is a staff writer at The Atlantic.



杨认为三个党派还远远不够
这位前民主党总统候选人并不担心会成为一个破坏者。

作者：安妮-洛瑞
安德鲁-杨
Adam Glanzman / Bloomberg / Getty; The Atlantic
2022年8月28日，美国东部时间上午7点
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关于作者。安妮-洛瑞是《大西洋》杂志的一名工作人员。

安德鲁-杨--一位企业家、一位政策名人和一位自豪的书呆子--最近共同创立了美国最新的政党Forward。在杨争取2020年民主党总统提名和去年纽约市民主党市长提名的过程中，他对全民基本收入的倡导为他赢得了一批崇拜者。他新生的第三党专注于民主改革：重组美国的选举程序，使当选代表更好地把握公众意愿。

杨坚持认为，他正专注于建立 "前进 "组织和招募候选人，而不是自己去竞选。在接近1000万美元的预算下，前进党今年将在15个州寻求投票机会，并打算最终在所有50个州获得投票机会。它计划明年发布党纲，并在2023年和2024年推出第一批候选人。


阅读。杨为何重要

批评者说，杨的新倡议与政治系统的运作方式脱节。民主党人担心，在实践中，第三方候选人可能会让唐纳德-特朗普重返白宫，就像绿党的拉尔夫-纳德在2000年的选举中帮助共和党候选人乔治-W-布什一样。

本周，我与杨谈了他的新党如何改变政治制度。为了清晰起见，文字记录已经过浓缩和编辑。

安妮-洛瑞：什么是前进党？

安德鲁-杨。前进党是一个统一的民众运动，试图恢复美国民主。有一组结构性问题是我们试图解决的--有意义地从我们看到和经历的两极分化中解脱出来的一些方法。

几乎50%的共和党人和民主党人现在都认为另一方是腐败的，是对国家的威胁，这使得礼让和两党合作以及一起工作实际上不仅仅是不讨好，而是受到政治上的惩罚。我们的党内初选的设置方式和全国几乎90%的国会选区的非竞争性质正在放大这种两极化。

全国绝大多数城市都是一党执政，全国50万个地方选举中，有高达70%是没有竞争或没有竞争的。大多数美国人都没有经历过我们所认为的有效的民主制度，甚至没有经历过两党制。

洛瑞：我坐在加利福尼亚，在那里，民主党人掌握着每个全州的民选职位。

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杨。只有一方在控制! 如果你想象自己，比方说，作为一个农村的民主党人或许多蓝色城市的共和党人，你没有任何有意义的发言权。

请看。第三方候选人表现最好的那些州

洛瑞：你说前进党想代表农村民主党人和城市居住的共和党人。你在这个中间派政党中推动哪些政策？

杨。我想强调的是，正是[选举制度]的机制可以改善问题。在今年11月的投票中，唯一投票弹劾唐纳德-特朗普的共和党参议员是丽莎-穆尔科斯基。她顺利通过了初选。这在很大程度上是因为阿拉斯加有一个不同的程序。有一个无党派的公开初选，任何人都可以投票给任何人。这改变了她的动机，因为她不必通过政党初选。如果我们能够改变程序，奖励为51%的社区服务的立法者，而不是10%到15%，这可以极大地影响政策。

洛瑞：但哪些政策？

杨。对于像Forward这样的项目来说，这是一个更有趣的沟通挑战。我们已经习惯了在左右政治光谱上的东西。你把它定位为一个中间派政党，这确实描述了很多被吸引到Forward的人。但我们正试图建立一个系统，让美国人民的大多数意愿真正反映在政策中。

洛瑞。我想说的是，你并没有定义政策中心。你在建立这个政党的时候，没有制定任何政策。没有一个税收提案或医疗保健提案能捕捉到未被两党代表的人民的意愿。前进党代表着什么？

杨。我们支持人们希望在自己的生活中、在家庭生活中、在自己的社区中看到的东西。我们所倡导的原则是自由的人，繁荣的社区，充满活力的民主。而且，密西西比州的人们确实会以不同于加利福尼亚州的方式追求这些东西。我们认为这很好。

洛瑞：关于医疗补助计划的扩大？前进党是否支持将医疗补助扩大到所有贫困的成年人？

杨。我个人会支持任何能够帮助人们和家庭的事情。我猜想，绝大多数被吸引到前进党的人也会同样赞成。但我们作为一个运动，不会以这种方式进行试探性测试。

洛瑞。是否有一些政策立场会使一个政治家不被欢迎在 "前进 "的旗帜下竞选？

杨：有。如果他们所做的事情与自由人、繁荣的社区和充满活力的民主原则相抵触。我们强调最后一个支柱，因为我们确实认为美国的民主正在我们眼前受到侵蚀和瓦解。

洛瑞：这是你与前共和党国会议员大卫-乔利和同样是共和党人的新泽西州前州长克里斯蒂娜-托德-惠特曼所写的专栏文章的一段话。两人现在都在Forward的领导层中。

大多数美国人不同意极左派关于没收所有枪支和废除第二修正案的呼吁，但他们也有理由对极右派坚持取消枪支法感到担忧。在气候变化问题上，大多数美国人不同意极左派提出的彻底颠覆我们的经济和生活方式的呼吁，但他们也反对极右派否认存在问题的说法。在堕胎问题上，大多数美国人不同意极左派对晚期堕胎的极端看法，但他们也对极右派将妇女的选择作为刑事犯罪的追求感到震惊。

在所有这三种情况下，那里的 "中间派 "立场是民主党的主流立场。众议员Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez并没有管理党，而民主党人中的否决点是一个创办煤炭企业的西弗吉尼亚人。民主党人并不想没收枪支。他们不是在谈论允许在所有情况下堕胎。

杨。我想做几个区分。首先，前进党会包容那些在某个问题上意见不一致的人，这对很多美国人来说是一个非常非常大的区别。第二件事是，对于支持这些立场的人来说，如果你说："嘿，就投民主党的票吧。"明显的问题是：如果他们一直在投民主党的票，为什么这些事情没有被颁布？

洛瑞：为什么 "前进 "是一个政党，而不是一个PAC或一个智囊团？

杨：因为很多美国人都渴望得到这些东西。因为这么多美国人一直渴望在选票上有一个真正的选择。我们可以改善事情! 我们所处的国家有50%的美国人自我认同为独立人士，62%的人说他们希望有第三党。如果我们只是另一个非营利组织说，"哦，应该有这些改革"，那么它们就不会发生。我们要实现这一目标的方法是，在蓝、红两色州争取改革，同时在人们居住的地方为他们的政治提供有意义的实际选择。

洛瑞：绝大多数无党派人士已经是一个或另一个政党的可靠选民。皮尤认为，没有政治倾向的真正无党派人士的数量为7%。

杨：如果你把一个独立的选民放在一起，然后把他的名字告诉你，你就会发现他是一个很好的人选。如果你对一个独立选民说："嘿，这个人是否倾向于某一方？"他们可能会这样做。但如果你问同一个选民，"你想有一个不同于这两个选择的选择吗？"他们说是的。


来自2021年5月号的报道。如果杨宏伟获胜怎么办？

洛瑞。独立选民和中间派选民是一回事吗？

杨。不，我的意思是，嘿嘿，有一些 "前进 "的成员认为自己是独立人士，但他们非常非常左倾。我们的目标之一是建立一个非常广泛的意识形态联盟，这些人可以说："看，目前的系统没有给我一个声音！"

我们需要摆脱目前这种功能失调的两党制。但我不认为美国理想的政党数量是三个，我认为它可能更接近于五个、六个或七个。目前的民主党应该是两个独立的政党，目前的共和党应该是两个独立的政党，也许在中间会有一个政党，两个极端都有一个政党。这种制度会更好地反映民众的意愿。

洛瑞：我当然不是说民主党人不搞选区划分，因为他们确实在搞。但一党在众议院通过了一项全国性的党派划分禁令。另一方则试图推翻总统选举。

杨。存在着不对称性。我认为，你必须努力想办法，在你的两个主要政党之一表现出反民主倾向的环境中，如何使这个系统更有弹性和可持续性。


一种方法是说，"让我们尝试在所有地区击败该党，从现在开始直到世界末日"，我将建议这可能不是一个健全的方法。或者你可以看一下这个系统，说它特别容易产生专制主义，所以让我们去解决这个问题的根源。我完全同意，双方并不对称。但是，你需要采取的措施，使这个系统更有真正的弹性和低级别的民主，在不同的地方会触犯民主党的利益。

洛瑞：我知道你知道杜弗格定律，它表明，如果没有比例代表制，政治往往会被两党所支配。你打算如何克服这个问题？罗斯-佩罗竞选。他得到五分之一或六分之一的选票。他在选举团中得到的票数为零。

杨。我们倾向于选择排名投票。这样就能产生一个具有多数人吸引力的赢家，而且不需要担心破坏者的影响。排名选择投票已被证明有助于女性候选人和来自代表性不足的社区的候选人。它是支持节制的，使那些真正能激励25%的人的人更难获胜。

阅读。朝着炸毁总统投票系统迈出的一步


洛瑞：在实践中，第三方选项会如何使排序选择投票更有可能？

杨。假设有一个临界质量的选民--前向选民，他们可能是注册的共和党人或民主党人或独立人士--走到一起。有两个候选人，一个是民主党人，一个是共和党人。前进党说，"我们会支持任何一个支持排序选择投票的人，因为这更有利于减少极端主义。" 一个人说好。另一个说不。无论选票上是否有 "前进 "的候选人，你都会取得巨大的胜利。或者，也许两个候选人都说是。我对此感到无比兴奋，因为它表明我们可以在民主的运作中做出积极的改变，而不需要候选人在特定的比赛中获胜，甚至是竞选。

洛瑞：2016年，加里-约翰逊和吉尔-斯坦恩在密歇根州获得了5%的选票，特朗普以不到一个百分点的优势获胜。你如何看待 "前进号 "使一场势均力敌的总统选举出现这种可能性？

杨。我们的重点是全国各地50.6万名地方民选官员，在这些地方，绝大多数美国人没有有意义的声音。为什么人们会跳到总统选举上？我明白，因为，嘿，我曾竞选过总统。但这不是 "前进 "的注意力所在，也不是我的注意力所在。我们真正的使命是为全国各地社区的人们创造有意义的选择。


整个国家的理想情况是在总统选举中进行投票，你可以投给你想投的人，如果你的候选人没有获胜，那么你的票就会流向第二个人。绝对没有什么可以阻止我们这样做。有其他国家已经这样做了。但相反，我们坚持这种摇摇欲坠、功能日益失调的二元垄断。然后，当有人说，"嘿，也许我们应该使这个系统现代化和升级"，然后人们就用手指着他们，大喊，"拉尔夫-纳德！"

洛瑞：但是，是的，拉尔夫-纳德！你知道吗？如果Forward帮助特朗普重新当选呢？

杨。我们的意图是使极端主义在全国各地的比赛和社区中的可能性和主导性降低。我们会朝着这个方向行动。

洛瑞：你在推特上说，对Mar-a-Lago的突袭会引起数百万美国人的不满，他们会认为这是不公正的迫害。你能为我解开这个问题吗？看来这次突袭是以违反《间谍法》为理由的。

杨。我说它会激怒和激活一群美国人，他们会从某种角度看待它。这不一定意味着突击检查是错误的行动方案。


洛瑞：你认为对特朗普应该如何处理？

杨晓明。不幸的是，特朗普是最明显的倾向表现，这种倾向将超过他在政治舞台上的时间。现在有几十个人已经看到了特朗普的道路，并试图以各种方式追随他的脚步。我们的目标必须是建立一个现代的、有代表性的、有弹性的、民主的体系，这个体系不仅可以抵制特朗普本人，而且还将能够度过之后的日子。

安妮-洛瑞是《大西洋》杂志的一名工作人员。