Andrew Yang and the Superficial Appeal of the “I’m Not Left or Right” Guy
Voters are understandably frustrated with our political system. Hucksters and Wall Street funders know how to parlay this frustration into a P.R. ploy for austerity and corporate interests.
“I’m not left or right” guy wants you to know that, above all, he’s not left or right but forward—about progress and Getting Things Done. He’s not a Democrat or Republican, but a man of common sense, of shared solutions and causes. Of coming together. He’s not into all that Petty Partisan Bickering and Back and Forth, he’s not from Washington or of it, he is above it—suspended in air making, decisions based on evidence, logic, and REASON.
What are those decisions? What is the policy? What is the thing he will lobby and advocate for? Unclear. TBD at a later date after more studies, some polling, and a temperature check of what the people want.
After all, “I’m not left or right” guys are not about ideology or dogma, they’re about results. What results exactly? Less important, because results are incidental to the self-image of the “I’m not left or right” guy. After all, “I’m not left or right” guy is a mode of being, an affect, an identity—not a moral covenant to make the world a better place. That shit is for losers.
Everyone knows an “I’m not left or right” guy. The “I’m not left or right” guy is at bars, family reunions, Twitter, work, parent meet-ups. He is above the fray, turned off by partisan politics, and—above all—refuses to be pigeonholed.
Andrew Yang, like so many vacuous corporate- and real estate-backed political brands, is selling himself to the millions of “I’m not left or right” guys with his new “party,” the Forward Party.
Just about everyone, including yours truly, fancies themselves a maverick, independent-minded free thinker who ascribes to no dogma—motivated by logic, reason, science, evidence, dispassionate thought trees, and, above all, common sense. This is what makes Andrew Yang’s latest shtick, and the half dozen “third way” peddlers before him, appealing to a nontrivial percentage of people. Ultimately, it’s a vanity play. And a very clever one at that.
Yang tells us: You’re independent, you can’t be labeled or tied down. You get it. I will help channel this vague sense of maverick-ness into something political?
What exactly, isn’t clear. Because, again, the act of being an “I’m not left or right” guy is what’s important—not actually achieving anything.
But, it’s important to note, it’s not only a vanity play. There is a genuine and widespread frustration also being exploited here. It’s objectively true that America's two-party system is broken and stifles democracy. It’s also objectively true that both parties are captured by wealthy elites that largely agree on many key issues, namely “foreign policy” with, I would argue, significant differences on issues of social welfare, tax policy, bodily autonomy, and a host of important life-and-death matters. The two parties are not “the same” in every way, but on many key issues a large cohort of voters correctly assess that they are. Polls show that Americans are increasingly cynical about “the system,” increasingly dislike the media, and distrust many U.S. institutions. There is no doubt a skepticism about the “elite” and our political systems. Where Yang’s schtick breaks down is that his “party” is being funded by these very same corrupting forces.
After months of teasing the project, the Forward Party was officially launched in earnest in July by merging three parties: the Renew America Movement, which was created in 2021 by former Republican officials, the Forward Party, created by Yang, and the Serve America Movement, led by Republican Rep. David Jolly of Florida.
Renew America Movement itself “partnered” with Center Street PAC, with the explicit purpose of “fighting extremes of both parties.” Center Street PAC, like all of these “centrist” carveouts, has basically zero pubic disclosure of its funders, and Yang has refused to answer basic questions of who’s financially supporting the venture. We have some transparency into who’s funded Forward, but the two groups it “merged” with—Renew America Movement and Serve America Movement—remain murky at best. Given the board members' association with “problem solver” third way-type personalities and language, it’s safe to assume that, like with other “third way” initiatives, this project will largely be backed by Silicon Valley, Hedge Fund, and Wall Street money. We already have some clear indication that this is the case, aside from the revolving door of Republican and corporate Democrats faces fronting them:
So, Yang’s solution to a “corrupt duopoly” is a corrupt triopoly. It’s a branding exercise. The reason Yang is vague to—at this point—the level of self-parody is that he can’t be specific. Because if he was calling for real radical change to “the system,” his neocon, billionaire, Silicon Valley, and real estate money funders would dry up, and he’d be just another failed presidential and mayoral candidate without relevance or a large platform to sell books. And this point cannot be stressed enough: The whole thing is a cup and ball game hoping the average, low information media consumer loses track of the ball that is ideology. Because, make no mistake, there absolutely is an ideology at work. Indeed, the biggest tell that there’s a big, fat, capital “I” ideology at work is when those pitching one to you insist they don’t have one.
In this deliberately vague language, all the distinctions are lost, glossed over, in hopes that the mark doesn’t notice.
Yang’s P.R. tour is funded by elites, and it’s important to know that when elites talk about social problems, they’re operating under an entirely different framework than you or I. When, for example, Davos attendees say they want to “address inequality,” they’re not talking about redistributing wealth: They’re talking about increasing surveillance and policing powers and pumping more money into bread and circuses to mitigate long-term risk of social unrest brought about by inequality. When the U.S. military says it wants to “address climate change,” it’s not talking about stopping fossil fuel extraction or the undermining the oil and gas lobby: It’s talking about more funding of military bases in the South Pacific and solar powered drone bases. And when a bunch of former Bush officials and billionaire backers talk about the “failure of the two party system,” they’re not talking about the bipartisan consensus around war, or the corporate capture of our politics, like normal people would: They’re upset that the two parties can’t come together to privatize social security and deregulate Wall Street sufficiently.
Last month, the Forward Party merged with—and thus took a great deal of money and personnel from—the Serve America Movement, which is majority funded by former vice chairman of Philip Morris Charles W. Wall. If anyone thinks a tobacco executive with a history of lying to the public about the health effects of cigarettes shares your fundamental concerns about the limits and corruption of the two parties, then I have a very large, nice, and shiny bridge to sell you.
Obviously, not everyone’s politics fall neatly into right or left camps. Most voters are a collection of eccentric, often contradictory, beliefs. Some support Medicare for All but hate unions. Some love police but want to lessen our military footprint. Some are pro-choice but oppose gay marriage and vice versa. Many of these people thus feel homeless, as do many socialists, climate militants, trotskyists, communists, and a host of genuine, moral people unsatisfied with our two parties. There are messy, confusing, and overlapping reasons many feel cynical about the political process. And there are good faith, non astroturfed outlets for those who do, from socialist political parties that do actual work in communities, to anarchist collectives, to democratic entryist left organizations, to grassroots groups—all of which can, and often do, involve principled nonvoting or strategic voting. All that is good and should be supported and given donations and life and breath. But, for the love of God, don’t give any grassroots legitimacy or small donations to another Third Way knock-off designed to channel people’s genuine frustrations into an austerity-pushing vanity project of former Bush officials and an empty media personality.