Michael Shermer speaks with Andrew Yang about the Forward Party, the future of politics in a party duopoly, political partisanship, and how to bring about the change we need. This conversation is based on Yang’s new book Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy.
Shermer and Yang discuss: why we have a political duopoly, instead of, say, 7 parties like in Germany • ranked-choice voting and open primaries • gerrymandering and voting restriction laws and policies • the Rational Public • fairness doctrine • local journalism, newspapers, and TV stations • term limits • nonpartisan primaries • data as a property right • Department of Technology • Universal Basic Income (UBI) • reparations • abortion • the polarization of radio, television, and social media • ideology and political polarization • Trump in 2016, 2020 … and 2024? • what it’s like to run for President • what his fellow politicians are really like in person • what he learned on the campaign trail • how his many failures in life prepared him for political campaigning • why market solutions to social media polarization won’t work • why you should join the Forward Party even if you don’t agree with all their points.
Andrew Yang was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and a 2021 candidate for mayor of New York City. Named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship, he is the founder of Humanity Forward and Venture for America. Yang’s New York Times bestselling book The War on Normal People helped introduce the idea of universal basic income into the political mainstream. Yang is a graduate of Brown University, where he graduated with degrees in economics and political science, and Columbia Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review. He lives with his family in New York.
Yang’s new book is Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy, in which he reveals that the machinery of American democracy is failing. We need bold new ideas to rewire it for 21st century problems. Inspired by his experience running for office and as an entrepreneur, and by ideas drawn from leading thinkers, Yang offers a series of solutions, including data rights, ranked-choice voting, and fact-based governance empowered by modern technology, writing that “there is no cavalry” — it’s up to us. This is a powerful and urgent warning that we must step back from the brink and plot a new way forward for our democracy.
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This episode is sponsored by Wondrium:
This episode was released on May 31, 2022.
