Why The Forward Party Is A Terrible Idea

To be blunt, I stopped paying attention to Andrew Yang after his failure in the 2021 New York Mayor election. Once a man who I thought could be President within the decade, he has shown himself to simply not have the appeal of anyone outside of a handful of cult like followers. He is a twenty first century Lyndon LaRouche, including bad attempts at pandering to the radical left without actually understanding what they believe.

None of this is to say that I dislike Yang per se — if he were given a television show I would certainly watch it — but, despite what he constantly seems to think, he is simply not somebody who can run campaigns.

However, after losing two different primaries, Yang has decided that if Democratic voters don’t like him, he’s simply going to start his own party. Insert the Forward Party, currently co-chaired by Yang along with former New Jersey Governor and EPA head Christine Todd Whitman. Whitman, for those unaware, was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during 9/11, where she repeatedly downplayed the toxicity of the air after the attack. Later reporting found that she was doing this at the command of the George W. Bush administration, who were forcing her to make reassuring statements before the data needed to determine if the air was toxic was even gathered.

On 7/27/2022, it was announced that Forward would merge with the Serve America Movement and the Renew America Movement — both of which are primarily organizations of George W. Bush and Tea Party Republicans who dislike Donald Trump. The Renew America Movement even gets its name from the manifesto A Call for American Renewal, which was signed by many former Republican politicians in response to the removal of Liz Cheney from her leadership role last year. The effort was even primarily organized by Miles Taylor, who published an anonymous New York Times article in 2018 where he declared himself “Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

Mind you, if Yang can get all of these former Republicans to endorse progressive values, then I would certainly be happy. However, the longer one looks into this party the clearer it becomes that the Forward Party’s left-wing is going to have to sacrifice far more than its right.