This week, we broadcast a recording from a virtual event with Andrew Yang and Charlie Dent on political parties and democracy reform. We discuss open primaries, ranked-choice voting, universal voting, and more.
Dent was the McCourtney Institute for Democracy’s fall 2021 visiting fellow. This is his last official engagement with us during his fellowship and we’ve really enjoyed having him with us this semester. He spent seven terms in Congress representing Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley and served in the Pennsylvania state legislature before that. He’s currently executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a CNN political analyst, and a 501c3 adviser for the Renew America Movement, which supports candidates who are committed to democracy and the rule of law.
Yang ran for president in 2020 and mayor of New York City earlier this year. Most recently, he founded the Forward Party, a movement that brings together people interested in solving America’s problems, debating ideas in good faith, and advocating for policies like open primaries and ranked-choice voting. Before that, he started Humanity Forward to advance policies aimed at ending poverty. His latest book is Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy.
Both Dent and Yang spend a lot of time thinking about how to fix what’s broken in American politics but have different ideas about how to do that and where go from here, which made for a very interesting discussion.
Forward Notes on the Future of Our Democracy
Your guide to ranked-choice voting
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Jenna Spinelle
Hello, and welcome to Democracy Works. I'm Jenna Spinelle. This week, we are bringing you a recording of a virtual event that I hosted with Andrew Yang and Charlie dents about the future of political parties in America and democracy reform more broadly, we talked about things like open primaries and rank choice voting, and you know how to think about a third party as a party or a movement and what that line of demarcation might be to flip from one to the other. Andrew and Charlie are both very enthusiastic, they don't always agree on everything, but I think they had a spirited back and forth and everybody who attended the event live seem to come away, motivated and a little more hopeful about the future of American democracy. So I hope that you come away from this episode with similar feelings. Here now is the recording of the virtual event with Andrew Yang and truly dense.
Jenna Spinelle
To dive in here, I'd like to start by having each of you diagnose the problem or problems you see with America's political parties, and perhaps the party system as you see it. So Andrew, why don't you start us off?
Andrew Yang
Oh, well, thank you, Jenna. And Charlie, and I had a very brief exchange beforehand, we disagree violently about just about everything. No, I'm kidding. I think we see eye to eye on a lot of it. So I ran for president as a Democrat, which is probably when most of you met me when I showed up on your TV screen at some point. And after my run ended, I started trying to figure out why we feel so stuck, why it doesn't feel like democracy is actually moving us forward. And I have determined that it is not working, because it is not designed to work. And, Charlie, I'd love to hear what you think about this. But right now we have very clear political incentives that reward someone for hewing to the party line, and listening to the most partisan voters in their district. If you have a closed party primary, which is the case of them in most districts, your goal is not to get primary from within your party. Because if you get to the general election, you're going to win in 83% of the districts. 83% of the districts are either very blue or very red. So if you get to the genuine. And the goal, then is to just make sure you don't get challenged from within your party. This is one reason why there's such a vast divide right now where the approval rating for the US Congress nationwide, right now is about 28%. And most of you knew it was low, maybe that's a little bit lower than you thought the reelection rate for individual members is 92% 94%, which I joke on the road is the win rate of the 9697. Jordan era Chicago Bulls. If you are an incumbent, you're going to win most of the time, as long as you avoid getting primary. So we have very, very strong political incentives that are trying to keep people from compromising, Charlie, to his credit, and a lot of his like minded colleagues like to compromise. But Charlie can attest to the fact that the folks who stepped forward and for example, voted on the infrastructure package favorably from the Republican Party, now getting attacked, not because people had any principled objection to the policy, but just because of the politics of it, they thought that it would might boost Joe Biden in the other party. So you have these incentives that are pushing people to the sides, you then have media organizations with the same incentives, trying to separate us India into ideological camps. And then social media layered upon the whole thing that just pours gasoline on it makes it so if you say something about the other side being nice, you'll probably get trashed immediately. So in this context, we feel stuck because we're being set up to fail. The two party system is driving us towards civil war 2.0. And if that seems hyperbolic, 42% of Americans on either side of the aisle now regard the other side as evil or their mortal enemies much higher than any time in the past, Charlie has been in public service long enough to know that it wasn't always like this. It was not always as polarized. The two parties used to actually get together and do things occasionally, they didn't regard each other as evil certainly in person. Whereas, oh, the XR has shifted. What do we have to do about it? We have to recognize that this two party system is not going to serve us well, that we're going to be trapped in a game of you lose, I lose while the people lose faith lose trust, and none of the problems get solved, that our clear choice right now is either to degenerate into political strife and conflict and violence, or have a political reawakening and rejuvenation to each a different arrangement, then this two party duopoly that, by the way is totally made up, nothing in the founding documents about it constitution silent on it, George Washington, John Adams, anti partisan, it came about decades later, and has now run its course. And we need a new chapter in American democracy that enables different points of view to actually emerge, which by the way, right now, the duopoly is designed to suppress at every turn. So that's where we are 62% of Americans want an alternative. duopoly wants to keep it from happening and what will happen next, it's going to be up to you, the people who are attending this today, the future of democracy rests upon you, your generation, and Americans around the country to wake up and say this is not going to work.
Jenna Spinelle
Charlie, why do you what do you make of what Andrew said, and and perhaps your own diagnosis of the problem with the parties as they currently stand?
Charlie Dent
Well, this is where I agree with Andrew, that the incentives are misaligned in our system right now. The there he's correct when he says that, you know, most Republican members of Congress, Democratic members of Congress come from very safe seats, that their battles are won or lost in their primaries, and that in order to survive politically, they have to look over their right or left shoulder. And that's how they survive and not get outflanked. And so they end up being either taking harder positions or getting co opted by more and more extreme elements within their parties. And they so they tack hard to their basis. Now, and that's the reality. Now that I was like pulling out I was one of the few folks who came from what would be considered a marginal district, a swing district, a bellwether district, call it what you will. And you know, I always said the math in my district was a little different than the math and all these other districts, you know, I would, I would point out that in order for me or any Republican in the width to win in the district that I held, where there were more Democrats and Republicans, I needed to win 85 to 90% of the Republican vote, I needed to win over half of the independents, and nearly 30% of Democrats. If I it simply engaged in what many members of Congress do currently, which is simply pander to a base, or in this case, just the Republican base, and just focus exclusively on that, I probably get 43 44% of the vote, where I come from, we call that losing. And, and long story short, is that, you know, until these incentives are changed, I don't see the system getting better. And we're also in a period of what I would call negative partisanship. It's not the people in one party or the other like their party that much, they just hate the other party more. And so that's what drives a lot of this, this anger. And as Andrew mentioned, we talked just before coming on air here, just today, in Congress, a friend of mine, John Katko, Republican represents a Democratic leaning district in upstate New York, Syracuse area is being is being attacked within the House Republican Conference for over an hour and a half today, because not because he gets engaged in misconduct, not because he brought discredit upon the house, but because he voted for a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Heaven forbid, a policy disagreement is now rises to the level of sanction. I mean, I would never thought this could happen. I mean, well, this isn't the same conference, I'm sure that Martin Taylor green and the pogo star, were there who have just engaged in, you know, you know, terrible behavior, which, without sanctions, you know, so you know, this is a it's really a bizarre world we live in. So I think one other thing I would add to that our our founders, Andrew pointed out, didn't anticipate political parties. And I would argue that he didn't anticipate primary elections, either. They didn't. And I think that's where our system is particularly broken. It's the way we nominate candidates. And you know, that that really, I think creates problems for this system. And until we figure out how to how to nominate people better, I think we're going to continue to have problems. It's a bigger problem than reapportionment or gerrymandered memory. It's a much I think it's a much bigger problem. You have to figure it out. Because even in gerrymandered districts, you have the same issue of how you get nominated and doesn't help you.
Andrew Yang
I just want to say I'm putting my cards on the table right now. I'm going to spend this next period just trying to enlist you, Charlie. Because I mean, you're the perfect representative of someone who actually won in a swing district. You're the disappearing breed. You're you know what I mean? Like you're the endangered species of the US Congress. I'd like I want to enlist you in trying to solve this problem so that people like you can be in Congress for as long as you want.
Charlie Dent
Well, yeah. I mean, we're the outliers now. I think that's that's it. There was a time in our country where our political party who were less ideological, or less ideologically unified, you know, they're there. In other words, a diversity of opinion within a political party is actually healthy. It's not a bad thing. You know, seeing that way said my friend, John kakko, bing, bing, bing keel hauled for voting for a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Okay, you can make an argument for and against that bill. I respect that. But, but that's okay. That's normal to have that kind of a disagreement within a political
Andrew Yang
No, no, it's purely politics. Me 19 Republican senators voted for that thing. You know what I mean?
Charlie Dent
Lindsey Graham, by the way, and Mitch McConnell and and and that's what I find. So despite this, this hardening that, that when one does one new policy disagreements rise to this level, I mean, we could they could be sanctioning people every week, you know, over over a policy disagreement, but parties used to be more like, larger coalition's that were a bit more diverse, both sides.
Jenna Spinelle
Let me ask you and Andrew, maybe you can wait, wait on this, too. Like, are you hearing conversations about how those incentives change? Or do you have thoughts about like, which chess piece on the board needs to move first to really start moving past all of those those things you've just been describing? Go ahead, Charlie.
Charlie Dent
I'm sorry. Was that for me? Yes. Okay. So the question being, what do we?
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah, so have you heard our, you know, you talk to a lot of different people. Have you heard about, you know, people starting to think about how to change these incentives? And, you know, perhaps, which chess piece on the board do you think needs to move first here?
Charlie Dent
Yeah. Yeah, look, I think a few things you can do, we should probably move towards open primaries. That would be that that won't solve the problem. But I think it's a step in the right direction. You know, I have mixed feelings on rank choice voting, which I know we're going to talk about, I'm not sure. I mean, Andrew can speak to it better than I can, he just went through it up in New York. So I, you know, I've never really had to deal with that situation, you're gonna probably want to talk about, you know, multi member districts that might be interesting. And, but at the end of the day, you know, you look at the our system, you know, the House of Representatives, you know, needs to need to more closely reflect the American population, I would argue that the in the US House of Representatives, the hard elements of the bases are very, very well represented over represented in Congress, where the political center of the country center left to center right, I would argue, is grossly underrepresented. And even though I would probably argue that most of the country probably identifies itself, somewhere between center left to center, right on the political spectrum, how do you stay at the center right country more than Senator left, but but still, you get the point. And these are the people, you know, who I think are feeling very unhappy, and are the ones who swing you know, you know, you have the hardcore Republicans and Democrats are gonna vote for their team, no matter what, but what we just saw in 2021. In this election, well, guess what they a lot of lot of Biden voters just voted for Youngin. And, and, and then should rally up in New York and New Jersey and Long Island, you saw a lot of voters who were voted for Biden voted for Republican candidates, and it's happened all over the country, and they can swim back again, you know, somebody used the term thermostatic to describe how voters are in midterm elections. You know, if one party gets control temperatures too hot, they got to turn it down. And they would always kind of put in a little bit of a check on the governing party. And that's the way it is. But there's a significant part of the population that is, I think, is very uneasy. With
Andrew Yang
Charlie, I could not agree with you more that the first big move we can make is Oh, primaries. And the magic there is that this is not something that you need Congress to do, that it's all controlled at the state level. If you have enough Americans get together and run ballot initiatives, you can shift to open primaries, which will give the influence of the most extreme 10 to 15% partisan voters, which as you say right now are completely overrepresented in terms of influence. Alaska made this change just last year, and you saw relatively immediate results where Senator Lisa Murkowski is the only Republican senator who voted to impeach Trump this year, and is also up for reelection in 2022. This is a politically suicidal move. Her approval rating among Alaskan Republicans is now 6%. That's why no one does it. But because they shifted from party primaries to open primaries last year, she has a fighting chance to get reelected. I'll probably go to Alaska to campaign for her. I actually offered that to her When I saw her a few weeks ago, and she said she take me up on it. So this change you're talking about Charlie is the change, and it's right in front of us. So we can do it. If enough let's get together, we can actually shift open primaries now or not now now, but like 12 months from now.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. And can you just back up for a second? Andrew, for those who might not be familiar with open primaries? Can you tell us what they are and how they differ from a traditional party primary?
Andrew Yang
Well, Charlie hit the nail on the head, which is that our Founding Fathers had no idea that there would be political parties, they certainly wouldn't want to political parties, and they certainly would not want these primary elections that then end up determining the winner, vast majority of time. So right now, in the vast majority of races, the way it works is you have, I'm going to choose, let's say a part of Western PA, that's very, very Republican. So you have a Republican primary, and whoever wins that primary then beats up on this, frankly, sacrificial lamb of a Democrat, who gets who runs in like, everyone knows not gonna win. And so the party primaries where all the action is about 10 to 15% of voters vote in the party primary, you have to be a registered member of that party, nine times out of 10. In my race in New York, you had to registered as a Democrat four months before the race in order to vote in the primary as an example. And so this process is artificially empowering people who are not necessarily representative who tend to be the most rabid partisans. And so what Charlie is saying is, we should switch this process up that instead of having it, so you have publicans here, which is again, probably the winner, and then Democrats over here, and that's pretty much the race, you have an open primary system where anyone can run from any party. So you could have two called Lincoln's a Democrat and independent, a libertarian, a Fordist, etc. And then you proceed to see who gets the most support independent, a party independent of what the voter registration is. So if you're watching this, and you're unregistered, or an independent, or whatever, you can vote for whichever of the candidates you like the most. So Charlie, you talked about how you like open primaries, you're not as sure about rank choice voting, what I'm going to suggest is that if you have a truly open process where you could have, I don't know, eight candidates running, that it's much more practical and feasible to have the general election decided to be a rank choice voting, then through our current reality voting system. Because if you did have, let's say, two Republicans and a Democrat, come through, and the problem in our current system is that the Republicans would cannibalize each other, and then the Democrat wins without actually having majority support. Whereas with rank choice voting, whoever wins has to have majority support, and you don't cannibalize each other, there's no spoiler effect. So uh, effectively open primaries often will end up leading to something like rank choice voting, if you let in more than two candidates into the final, general election. So in California, they have these open primaries, they let two people through and so there's no need to adjust the process. But if you were to let more people than two through, then you'd want to have something like rank choice voting, because you don't want two people from the same party that eat each other's vote.
Charlie Dent
In California, they have something called I always thought they call that with a jumble primary. You know, and we're where you know, Pennsylvania, right? When I think of open primary, I'm thinking, Okay, there's one primary election, still the Republican nominee, but anyone can vote in it. Republican, Democrat or Independent can vote in the Republican primary. That's what I'm kind of thinking of in terms of an open primary same on the Democratic side, Republicans because the Democratic primary but you only have to vote once you can get to choose which party primary you want to voting.
Andrew Yang
So you're right to draw this distinction, Charlie, we might be talking about slightly different measures. So so there's a closed party primary. And then what you're saying is you should open it up so that anyone who's not say an independent can come in and vote in that primary, and then that's what that's what they've decided to be for the purposes of that election, maybe they can't like switch later and do something else. In, you know, the the general, the California system, when you refer to as a jungle primary is actually what I prefer, which is that anyone can run for any party and you just have at it, and then you count up the votes. And then whoever gets the most number of votes from any one of any party ends up going through the general the Tweak I would make to the California system is that I would want more than two candidates to make it through to the general so that you have a chance of a little bit more diversity and more dynamism.
Jenna Spinelle
So you know, here here in Penn Sylvania, we both have closed primaries currently and we are not a ballot initiative state. So you know, how how might you go about selling this in in Pennsylvania? And you know how I guess, Andrew, how feasible is it? Do you think to do this without and a ballot initiative and entirely? How am I to make the case to the state legislature to get them on board with something like this?
Andrew Yang
Well, I'll certainly lead off. And Charlie, having served in the state legislature has a sense of it. So it's very hard. It a ballot initiative is not an easy thing either, though, I do want to point out again, that one state, Alaska did this last year, just a bunch of Alaskans got together and said, the current system is not working, let's change it. So it's clearly achievable. in 24 states around the country that do have ballot initiatives, in a non valid initiative state like Pennsylvania, the state legislators will need to decide to make this change. Now, if you were to ask the average state legislator, hey, do you want to shake it up and let different points of view emerge, and you don't have a closed party primary, they don't like it, because they figured out the current system, you know, the current system, they're like, Okay, I know who I need to please, if I get to this process, I know I went to general, if you're a political consultant, you will also say, hey, let's keep this the same, because I've got it figured out. So it's tough in, in an environment where you need the state legislators to make this kind of move, not impossible. If you had enough people to get together, you could make the case Pennsylvania is an interesting case, because you all are a genuine swing state. So it's not that there's one party in power that just like runs the whole show. So you could try and make a case that look, this is going to be better for Pennsylvanians, for democracy, one of the things I have seen that you can do in an environment where the state legislators may or may not be on board, is you can actually enact rank choice voting as one example or open primaries, in a city in a locality. And one of the things that happens very often is that if some city within a state adopt some of these measures, then it starts making sense to everyone. Because a change sometimes can be a little bit daunting to people, but as soon as someone is using it, so let's say hypothetically, Pittsburgh, were to start using a choice voting and it had like, you know, non partisan primaries, then people in Pennsylvania would be like, Oh, well, Pittsburgh is doing it. So maybe we should do it statewide. So that that'd be what I would suggest is that if you think that you can't get it through the state legislature, you can actually make it happen at the local level.
Jenna Spinelle
Charlie, what do you think?
Charlie Dent
Well, yeah, I guess isn't this listen all this? I'm starting to think that we need legislators they get they get elected under the current system, let's be clear about that. And, and since they've been elected on the system, they're probably less apt to want to want to change it. I you know, as as contentious as our national politics has become, it seems at the local level, and I'm not saying the case in New York City. But I'm saying that the case of many local elections, you know, they're not a lot of more particularly competitive, even state representative races. I don't know how many go uncontested these days. But always a significant number did because a district is so lopsided. And, and so and that's part of the reason why this whole open primary becomes interesting, because people in their districts in those districts know that they're lopsided. And so they want to have a say, so if they can't have a, say, in the general election, they won't have a say in the primary, even if they're not a member of that party, because they want to, they want to be part of the decision of who's gonna be the representative. They don't feel like they're really part of it, or at least they're, they're not making an impact. Now, who talked about issues like, you know, multi member districts, you know, I, you know, I guess I forgotten that many states like New Jersey, do that currently in this for the state legislature, and maybe for some county like their freeholders and they call them freeholders in New Jersey. But you know, in my state, you know, I, I first elected the legislature in 1991. What the one man or why should say one person, one vote, one person, one vote. And that's where we've, we've been, but before I would go back to the 1960s, I guess they made the change. We had a state constitutional convention back in 1968 6768. Around that time, when they went to this system of one man, one vote, they thought it was a good reform, because we used to have, I think they used to represent, like the state representatives, almost like on a county basis. And so you could have, you know, from Republicans and Democrats, but I think y'all represented the county. And, you know, I don't I haven't really thought it through in my own mind, whether or not that could work at the federal level or if it's even permissible at the federal level, but
Andrew Yang
I love your headset, Charlie. So this multi member district idea that you're suggesting has been proposed by a guy named lead Druckman that Jenna and I were just talking about. And believe it or not, someone's actually submitted a bill in Congress called a fair representation act, that would shift from single member districts to multi member districts that end up making it so that some of the minor parties or independent parties might have a representative on the basis of the fact that they got whatever 10 15% of the vote. Now, this is a, this is a very, very big shift from our current system. And a lot of Americans, frankly, would be totally confused by it. And one of the reasons why I'm not leading with that, in terms of the foreign party, and what I'm trying to make happen right now, is it requires an act of Congress that I think is highly unlikely to pass. But you should know that it's actually on the table now. Where there is a bill, there are people talking about it. And it sounds like it would be something similar to what you've seen at the state level. The federal level? I don't know what you think about that. Charlie, what's your reaction to that?
Charlie Dent
I just, I think you're right, that the state, I mean, the Federal the concept that the Congress would probably not enact such a change. But you know, but it is, it is disturbing, when you see some states where they have no members of the other party in Congress, even though there are plenty of members of the other party in that state. You know, I think they I think they pointed out, like you take Oklahoma, has all Republican representatives, but they're Democrats in Oklahoma, and then in Arkansas, and places like that, even though the delegations are completely one sided, at least in that in the house in the, in the House of Representatives. Same thing in in Massachusetts is probably another example of state where, you know, there a lot of Republican governor up there for Pete's sake, but they have a lot of they have, you know, they have a significant number of Republicans, you know, and we don't, and, you know, our founders, they created the system in a way, if they if they wanted to have proportional representation, they probably wouldn't better off with a parliamentary system. But that's what they were more concerned about an abuse of executive authority. And then I wanted to Congress to be a strong check. On on the executive and I would argue, you know, we've moved away from a system of separation of powers, one to a system of separation of parties. And what I mean by that is, the parties that like it's the the member, if you're a member of the President's party, you remember the president's party in Congress, you often feel it's your job to protect President rather than protect your instance, your institution. I think the founders, one of the members of Congress, we protective of their authorities, not to be at war with the president work with but you don't work for the President, you work your job is to work with the President, you're allowed to disagree with the President. And when you do, that's, that's, that's healthy, what executive authority to be so strong. And so so they created this system of separation of powers. But when they did that, and it probably unwittingly, but they made it more difficult, I think, to create multiple parties.
Andrew Yang
Charlie, you've you've hit, you've hit the nail on the head that right now, if you wanted to design a system that was vulnerable to authoritarianism, you would design a system like ours, where if you have one of the two major parties, succumb to bad leadership than all the political incentives for everyone who's in Congress, member of that parties is to say, Okay, let's back up the president. And to to a point you made earlier, even if you have a problem with the leader of your party, you're like, well, the person's a lot better than the other side. If you literally just have a two sided system. If you have a two sided system, then all of the incentives are to say, well, you know, we and so there's a single point of failure then, for the entire country to become authoritarian, which is does one of the two parties succumb to a particular form of leadership. And then where they're more or less, as long as they get that party has control. So if you wanted to make a system that was more genuinely resistant to authoritarianism, you would have to have more than two parties. You know, if you look around the world, the UK has five parties. Sweden has eight parties, Germany has seven parties. None has 18 parties, like you know, and in that system, if you have a party to come to bad leadership, then you don't have this grave threat. And this is something that I know you feel very acutely because you came up in Congress, and the Republican Party had different people different points of view, it wasn't as monolithic as it threatens to be now, where everyone who has said anything that's independent of Trump is just getting finished. You know, you have like, like, Kinzinger is not running again. Gonzalez is not running again. Like that's like two of the 10 people that voted to impeach him and he has a list where he says like, do down eat to go down and everyone can see it happening. It's the same thing now with the 13 voted for infrastructure. We're trying to The whole thing is very, very badly designed. And in your experience, and the experience of your peers, I think is so instructive because you were this when you say before that the United States is probably a center, right country, I tend to agree with you, I feel you are essentially the embodiment of like the barometer of the country. I mean, like, when you were in, in Congress, it's one reason why you won in an area that, you know, as you say, had tons of Democrats. And then now the parties have just kind of like, like, you know, headed in these directions, and then, like, the set of principles that you body and your friends and bodies is disappearing. So it's a very vulnerable system is my point. And you and I share the concerns about what that vulnerability could mean
Charlie Dent
that you think about, like, somebody takes a position that's heterodox, you know, they're not orthodox in their in their viewpoint. You know, they get called traders now. So in other words, like, you take the I was the last pro choice Republican in the House Republican current Congress conference, myself and Rodney Frelinghuysen were the last two. And, and but, you know, if you look at polling, about 30% of Republicans self identify is pro choice. But there's zero.
Andrew Yang
Other, yeah, there's a lot less than 30%. The
Charlie Dent
same is true. You know, they used to have a lot of, you know, what we call pro life Democrats, you know, in fact, many would call them Catholic Democrats or in Pennsylvania, we used to call them Casey Democrats, you know, pro labor, pro life pro gun, that was the term that the, you know, it was a term that was coined. And there was there are a lot of voters like that, but there that that that ship has sailed. And so even on the Democratic side, you know, that there's, you know, try running in a democratic primary as a pro lifer. You know, you know, like this fella, Dan Lipinski was a friend of mine, he was, you know, Polish American from Chicago, that good Democrat, like many were and that, well, he got beaten his primary because of that issue. And, but in other words, neither party seems to really feel well with those who have a heterodox position, even though many people within their party are, you know, are not monolithic in their viewpoints. But the members of the Congress are, we don't have a political outlet, in the American political system like they do in Europe. Now in the UK, they have the Liberal Party in Germany, I call them the Free Democrats. But these are the folks who, who don't, you know, who might be who the United States used to be able to find a home in either party. Now, that kind of, you're kind of lost. We just use the
Andrew Yang
term, you're not going to believe it. But I have taken it upon myself to create a political home for those people. So it's called the forward party. It's not left or right, it's forward. And that actually includes a lot of the people you're describing, who are very much underrepresented politically right now. And there's no place to go. Now, the open question is whether this movement that I kicked off last month, will be able to make meaningful headway in an environment where all the political incentives are toward the extremes. You know, and there are a lot of people who are keeping a very close eye on what we're building at the Ford party, because that there's both this sense. It's like, Oh, that can't be done. And then it's intrigue is like, Wait, can it be done? There, and there are a lot of people who want it to happen. But the people who want it to happen are also mindful of these incentives we're talking about and what I tried, I said to a donor today, I, you know, occasionally I have donors. It's very exciting. So I said to a donor today is that like, you know, what we have to do is we have to recreate the political incentives that exist right now around the extremes to get them votes, media, and money. Like right now, if you're a political figure, you respond to those things. And so if you go into this middle ground of independence, or what you call Casey Democrats, or whatever it is, where do you get these things? Where do you get the votes, the media and the money? And so my job right now is to create the votes, the media and the money for people who decide to represent this underrepresented area.
Charlie Dent
Yes, yeah, I did. I never felt that third parties do well in our country. They just systems not stacked or the but we probably but we do need a movement. We need a movement and I here's the example I would often use Andrew, I would say think of I'm a Republican. And so I say okay in Arizona, Mark Kelly's running for reelection, but if they nominate somebody who I find to be Republicans nominate somebody I find offensive like say Kelly ward, he could be the nominee, well, then this this group of swing voting folks this movement, say, Okay, well, we know what we're gonna vote for Mark Kelly in this one, regardless of your party, in other words, be a be a true swing block that you know that can that can that can influence
Andrew Yang
you'll be, it'll be happy to know, Charlie that at least a Ford Party right now, that's exactly what we do. Because there is no foreign Party candidate in you know, 99.9% of races. And so, and you and I talked about it, like, we're going to support David McKinley against his opponent, because David McKinley is, in our mind, a more reasonable, pragmatic, Republican. And in and like, in this case, he voted for infrastructure. And he's being attacked for it. So one of the joys of being this third party independent movement is we can endorse Democrats who we think are trying to do the right thing, we can endorse Republicans who are trying to do the right thing every once in a blue moon, there might be an independent, who, and then our goal is to make it so that people can run at something other than an R or D, and actually have a chance to contend.
Jenna Spinelle
Right? So we have we have questions piling up here in the q&a, there's there's lots of folks have been waiting a very long time for the McCourtney Institute to do an event where we talk about things like open primaries and rank choice voting. So I want to get to as many as we can. But But first, to, to that point of of incentives, you were you were talking about, I want to ask both of you about the role of neoliberalism in our two party dynamic, you know, there's a a well, out there sort of critique that for from basically Reagan through Obama, both parties were, you know, really wedded to a market based ideology, and that led to income inequality. And that in turn, you know, breeded, some of the the sort of populism or, you know, extremism we saw on the left and the right, we're thinking about, you know, for example, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in 2016. And so I guess I'm interested in, you know, what, what each of you thinks of that, that critique, and, you know, to what extent does our new movements need to sort of just dismiss or or divorce itself from, you know, this sort of rigidity of market based thinking or neoliberal principles.
Andrew Yang
I'm happy to kick this one off. I, I wrote a book on the fact that technology is going to assume more and more value and work and it's going to masturbate inequality. And that's been going on in some form for years and decades started in the 70s and 80s. There, there are two main forces behind it. One is capital, and the other is technology. And now they're intertwined. in ways that would be inconceivable to most economists and most Americans. Not that long ago, one example I use, that's familiar to everyone. There are 2 million Americans who answer for a living right now with call centers, Google AI will be able to do that job yesterday, what then happens? And oh, by the way, how much is Google going to pay in taxes on that AI? I guarantee the 2 million call center workers pay some taxes, you know, Google's AI probably pays nothing. And then you can actually have that situation compounded over and over again, throughout the economy. So in that environment, if you say, hey, the markets gonna figure it out, it's like, well, the markets gonna figure out how to get rid of a lot of people. The markets, not gonna figure out a way to make Mainstreet Pennsylvania thrive, you know, and has this been driving some of the political and cultural episodes of the last number of years? Of course, it has, you know, it's why I decided to run for president because I had traveled in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, I saw the aftermath of the loss of manufacturing jobs, and I knew that was going to happen to retail jobs, and then to administrative jobs, and then on and on through the economy. So things are getting faster, not slower, things are getting more extreme and unequal, not less. And you have to make big moves, if you're going to address that even if you have a chance to address that. So I like that there's been this overrunning of both of the two major parties, in terms of what you describe as a liberal thinking or the market will figure it out. And a lot of Americans on some level sense that's not working. So the question is what comes next? I have some ideas mean that the forward party's platform is around trying to transition to what we call a human centered economy, which is just how people are doing is your measurement of progress. And then you'd see that by the way, our standard of living living has been declining for you No 3040 years. And so if you start making that, because right now stock market record highs, GDP record highs, but a lot of that is gonna get fueled by technology and most Americans are not going to be included in that. So that that's, that, to me is like the the main driver. And it's, it's really on our media organizations for just turning a blind eye to this, you could say that it's because they didn't understand it. I'm going to say it's actually because they don't care, or because they are in bed with the two political parties. And the whole thing is part of this flywheel that has nothing to do with improving our lives anymore.
Charlie Dent
Yeah, and way the media covers politics, too. It's really more of a horse race type of thing. No, they spend a lot of time obsessing on polls, spent a lot of time just expressing on the race as it is, you know, there's not much of a there's not much reflection to coast. You know, or even serious analysis of policy.
Andrew Yang
As part of its rhythm of the new segments rollin you and I both been on CNN, it's tough, because you got like a six minute segment, you know, it's gonna have four or five questions. And so what you do is you like, you know, answer the question, a lot of it's the format, it's a visual medium it's supposed to be simulating and the rest of it, it's tough to convey anything that's more long term or reflective in that format.
Jenna Spinelle
Right. And, you know, speaking of of Vidya, you know, it's also we live in a very, you know, self directed media landscape, people can choose to read or watch or listen to, you know, whatever they want to for the most part, I know, you have a podcast, Andrew, that's sort of one example of it. And, you know, we have a question here in the the q&a that sort of relates to that. A lot of people are just generally burnt out on politics, or even from the pandemic and don't have the time or the energy to keep up with new movements, or things like rank choice voting, or open primaries. And so, you know, how do you get these messages out to people who are not all of the democracy nerds that are watching with us here today?
Andrew Yang
Are you all democracy nerds, that would make me very happy democracy here is you guys are at Whoa. So first, let me say I agree with this questioner. I think right now, there's a lot of fatigue. And one of the things too, this is a result of the polarized environment we're in. I said the other night to people that the animating emotion around elections today is fear. And it's impossible to be afraid all of the time forever. Like, eventually you're like, oh, you know, let me just freaking you know, watch a movie or hang out or do something. And so I appreciate the question. I agree with the sentiment, I'm going to suggest that the way I'm trying to make this stuff happen is by not being doom and gloom about it by just trying to make it seem like upbeat and invigorating. And we can fix this and you know, is like the future. Good Vibrations sort of thing. Also package it in a way that's interesting, and maybe even humorous. Like, I It's one of the reasons why I'm now going to be investing in this whole new media apparatus of podcasts and other independent voices that can reach people, perhaps in a different way. Because the fact is, and I sent this to my team to I was like, Look, I cannot hold people's interest, just talking about open primaries and rank choice voting for two years, you know, it's freaking boring. Like, like that, there have to be other things that you end up wrapping into it. So I understand the challenge 100%, I have a read on what I can do to try and make it more interesting. What I'm going to suggest to the democracy nerds among you in terms of trying to address this problem is to just be accepting of the fact that a lot of people aren't going to be hyper attentive or attuned to this stuff. And just to be selective about how you try and activate someone. The reality is that these things tend to go in waves or cycles. And it's harder to get someone to care about something, let's say 12 months before the next election, which is about where we are right now, by the way, but the energies is going to go up and up and up towards November 22. And then oh, by the way, after the midterms, the energy is going to like shoot into overdrive because everyone's obsessed with 24. So now, I would kind of say Paste yourselves peace, your friends, you know, like they don't need to be, you know, like lining up about, about this stuff. Every night between now and then sort of pick your battles and get in there when you think you have an opportunity.
Jenna Spinelle
But at the same time, though, I mean, it does take a long time to get an initiative on the ballot and collect signatures and you know, all of all of those things. So are are those those campaigns underway right now? Or what? What's the timeline for those types of things that you're working on?
Andrew Yang
Oh, yeah. So if you want to be apprised of the stuff that I'm working on, you go to Ford party comm join the mailing list, we should have the ballot initiative states identified sometime, next two to three months. And then so the timeline for a ballot initiative is that you would need to know about it about a year in advance. And then there's a period when you have to try and gather signatures. So you have to try and ask everyone to help us get to get signatures. And then you have to try and get on the ballot. And then you have various advertising campaigns and canvassing and door knocking trying to let people know, look this ballot initiatives on the ballot, it's great, you know, don't be daunted by it. It's fantastic. It's going to improve things and the rest of it. So the action is going to be hot and heavy, hopefully, all through next year. And you're 100%. Right, Jenna, that a lot of the groundwork needs to be laid now. But if if you're someone who's watching this, you should know that there are individuals and I know a lot of them that are laying the groundwork as we speak. And and so if you want to help, there is going to be ample opportunity for you to help. And if you have an interest in this, you go to fourth party comm I would absolutely love that. And we're gonna make some changes. It's gonna be great.
Jenna Spinelle
One more question here about the forward party, then we'll we'll get you back in here to Charlie. So, Andrew, someone asks here, so you say that the four party is not left or right, but forward? How can you form a party about political strategy and depolarization but does not have key stances on issues that matter to Americans?
Andrew Yang
Oh, thank you for the question. It's actually the fundamental issue that challenges folks who are trying to occupies a central space. And so we we've adopted some things that we've decided were core around modern and effective government and Grace intolerance and universal basic income. There are other issues that, you know, I think people know where I stand on things. But the case we're making is that look, you can disagree with Andrew Yang, on abortion or other things, but we can make common cause around trying to make these structural reforms happen. The the game that the two parties play is by taking stance on the social issue, which by the way, neither side can legislate anyway, right now, very, very often. And so then you take a stance, and then that has the advantage of activating one group, and then the disadvantage of deactivating another. And so you could go down the list and like mate and choose a bunch of things. Again, I think anyone who decides to you know, Google, my old website knows where I personally stand on these things. But there are Americans that disagree on a whole host of issues that agree on the need for change of the duopoly. I'll give you one example, libertarians, Libertarians want an alternative to the duopoly in the worst way. Libertarians disagree with me on various things. But libertarians will also look and say, whatever I disagree with Yang is secondary to the need to try and reform the system. So I very much appreciate the question and is a judgment call? It's a tough one. It's the it's an issue that any third party movement ends up facing.
Jenna Spinelle
Thank you, Charlie, let's let's get you back in here. So we have a question here about incumbents. How how do we get people to vote out incumbents and and how much of an issue or this this sort of set of problems we've been talking about you think incumbents play here?
Charlie Dent
Well, I would make a case that incumbents in many respects have it harder now than they used to. You know, when I first got involved in politics, I ran for the state house in 1990. And I think at that time, the Pennsylvania lazers, legislature had a 98% retention rate, much higher than it is today. And what we've seen is that there has been a lot of turnover, at least in the Congress, there has been a lot of turnover, I should say involuntary turnover, that members have been defeated. The way it usually happens, though. It's not like people just come out there. The people say they're gonna vote out and come in. So that never happens. What they do, they usually vote out incumbents of one party or the other. They usually when they when they vote out incumbents, they're very, they're very targeted. You know, this is the year that we have these. I'll say these parliamentary voting patterns that have emerged in our system, and particularly in the first year, are 16, the first midterm of a new president, especially when they have full control of the Congress, they guess what? They're, they're going to lose a whole bunch of incumbents. And we saw, you know, this is this is shaping up like 99, this year shaping up either like 1994 2010 or 2018. These are the analogous years that I see. And again, it's, it's that voters are actually only out people they're angry with, but it's usually just one party, you know, 2018, it was Republicans who were you know, who got their heads handed to them. In 2010, it was a Democrats, and you usually find it almost no incumbents of the of the winning party lose very few, some, some have a very small number as the other side it gets routed. And and that's so I would just say to the questioner that there has been turnover, but maybe not the kind that you had anticipated. And I mean, since I left Congress, I think last I checked about 40% of the House Republican Conference conferences turned to turned over since since I left in 2018.
Jenna Spinelle
Wow. Yeah,
Charlie Dent
I have to go check some Google that check that number. But yeah, 40%.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. So you know, going back, we have lots of questions here, people have really picked up on this open primary close primary thing, perhaps not surprising, given the state of affairs in Pennsylvania, we were talking about earlier, would it be possible to reform the closed primary system by encouraging people to register for one party rather than as independents, which we said, you know, a much higher percentage of younger voters are choosing to be independent? So is that perhaps a path forward in a state like Pennsylvania? Or is there is there any way that we could, you know, perhaps simulate what an open primary is without actually needing to get the state legislature to make that change?
Andrew Yang
So first, let me say this is happening all over the place right now, there are so many Americans who are look up and say, Hey, I'm gonna register as a Democrat, just to be able to vote, or, you know, or republican just to be able to vote. So that is happening. It doesn't solve the problem, though, because there's always a very significant body of people who are already registered as the other party. And I would also suggest that it's wrong to force Americans to register with a particular party in order to have any ability to participate. But that said, if the questioner is thinking, hey, let me register as party x. So I can vote, you should do that. Because it's practical. And everyone is already doing that. Not everyone. But I'll say like, here in New York, I can't tell you how many people are just like, I register as a Democrat, because there is no other way to participate. And so there, there are people that would very much prefer another approach. But we do it. We all do do it.
Jenna Spinelle
And, you know, Charlie, is there anything that the parties could do here to maybe change the way that they do things? Or are we sort of past the point of, of no return there? Do you think
Charlie Dent
no one's changing the party since I first got involved? I used to think that the role of the political party was to help their candidates get elected. Now, I mean, like, especially at the county committee level, you know, not that they were they were weak back when I first started, and they're still weak. But what's changed though, is least I thought many people in the party understood their role was to try to nominate the best, most electable candidate. That's what they want to do. Now, many people who run these county committees, it's like, someone's like a debating debating society, I would go in and say hey, you know, who's gonna help us get petitions his side and yard signs out and all that kind of stuff. Now, it's, you know, they're they become these, these forums where they want to instill some kind of purity, purity tests. And so how about this? How about this putting some yard signs out? You know, and that's it? No, I mean, we want to have a, they want to, they want to enforce some level of indoctrination or making doctrinaire and, and I and that's what's changed. For me, these are these are, I think, becoming more and more problematic in this regard. A lot of mourn about winning. I mean, like I said, But why would why would a political party go after a John kakko, who represents a Democratic district? You want to be a majority party? Why would you try to savage a guy with a primary? We're gonna get together?
Andrew Yang
Yeah, It's because it's because you've gone ideological and political to the extreme, like you're not policy oriented, you're not principal, you're not even trying to help your side win entirely. Or else you would just shrug and say, Well, we're lucky to have that person representing that district. I've got a question that's a little bit off script here, but I just want to run it by. So in my book, I advocate for congressional term limits of 18 years in each house, in part because there's a bit of a gerontocracy going on in the US, I think people are noticing that the leadership has been there for 2025 30 years, which seems excessive. And I just wanted to ask Charlie, as someone who was in Congress, it sounds like for 14 years, I was advocating for 18 per house, which I thought was a long enough period of time. So you can still build up relationships and a bit of hierarchy and the rest of it, but not so long that people are camping out for, you know, in excess of 20-25 years.
Charlie Dent
It's interesting you say that, you know, I always thought the Virginia term limit make it 12 years. House and Senate, maybe it is 18 years, I often thought for the Supreme Court with all these fights,
Andrew Yang
may instead they need term limits. They need term limits. Yeah. It ought to be like an 18 or 20 year limit at for sure.
Charlie Dent
Yeah. You could stagger them. So you know, yes. But I just thought it would be kind of interesting, but they're less. Yeah, I do think there's some merit to determinists. Absolutely. I always said that about my goodness. You know, when Strom Thurmond, he was serving in the Senate at the age of 100. You know, Grassley
Andrew Yang
is 88. And he's running again, you know, I mean, he's, he's aiming for 94.
Charlie Dent
Strom Thurmond said when he turned 100, at his birthday party, he said, now that I turned 100, I now support term limits. He said, I don't think you over the age of 100 should serve more than three terms, the United States Senate. And that was so so I mean, point is a serious point, though, I think it would actually be helpful that we've had more turnover in the Congress. So I think so that. So the movement for term limits is I think dissipated, dissipated? A bit. But But you're right, Andrew, I mean, that, you know, it's funny how the difference in the Democrats, Republicans in Congress is this. If there's failure on the Republican side, Republicans lose an election, you know, they immediately frag the leaders, or the leader, and they're, they're gone, you know, Democratic side, you know, you lose the house. Not once, but twice, you know, you get if they
Andrew Yang
know, well, so this is what complaint of minds like Democrats blame the voters when they lose, it's like, oh, you know, they don't play, they don't blame their leaders of themselves. 70 74% of Americans are for some version of Perm limits. It's one reason why, but to me, you know, it's one thing that I was curious about, because I'm, I'm for them, I think it would help,
Charlie Dent
I think 18 years. So I think, you know, you look, you can develop a lot of experience in 18 years, I had 28 years between state and federal 14 and 14, roughly. And you can develop a lot of expertise and experience. And I think, 18 years you can't get if you can't accomplish what you want to do in 18 years, maybe I'll look for something else. And, you know, the joke was the US Senate. You know, that was the best skilled nursing care money could buy. Yeah, I mean, but the but I mean, they have a an issue there. You're right. It's much older the house, you know, the House Democratic side, that was one, the one thing Republicans did better. I thought the Democrats in the House, we turn limited our committee chairs. And, wow, we did not appoint our committee chairs based on seniority. And that's an actually that was very helpful. We were able to we were at frankly, we were able to appoint, in many cases, better people to those chairmanships over the years, and Democrats are kind of stuck with the most senior guys who were very old. And we had a lot of people down below in the Democratic House, you know, who would have been better chairs, but they could LeapFrog. Right? What's
Andrew Yang
Wow, I did not know that. You all did that relative to the Democrat. That's, that's fascinating.
Charlie Dent
Got that. Right. And a lot of Democrats whom I talk to in Congress, kind of like that Republicans are able to do that they wish we get that rule to do.
Andrew Yang
Oh, of course, there's like a group of all becoming Democrats that like, you know, dearly wish that that was the case on their side. I even have a clever way to pass these term limits, Charlie, and I want you to try and nudge some of your old colleagues check it out at near term limits in each house, but current lawmakers are exempt. You all get grandfathered in. That way they can pass it it's no skin off anyone's back. And it's only after someone new shows up that the term limits apply to them. So this way, they get to be principled and say we're gonna like do this and it doesn't even affect any of them. That's That's my clever way to get it. It
Charlie Dent
wouldn't take effect for you know, five years out or something or whatever it is. We all have that.
Jenna Spinelle
So you know, the other thing that often comes up in discussions about democracy reform is universal voting. What do you what do you both think about that? So the the notion that people would be automatically registered to vote or even in the Australian model where if you don't vote, you get something that's that's the equivalent of a parking ticket or, you know, something along those lines. What what do you what do you make of that? And how might just increasing the number of voters help to change some of these incentives we've been talking about?
Andrew Yang
This is the kind of investment in our democracy that we should be making. I would be for everything all the way up to compulsory voting, I would, because right now, you have this kind of decrepit kludgy system that everyone's losing faith in. And so if you had a larger number of people voting, I think, then you would immediately see Wait a minute, like, why is it that everything gets decided decided in the party primary, and this doesn't reflect what I think at all? Like, the more the if you had more people participating, you would realize just how bizarre and dysfunctional our current system is. So I'm for anything that's going to lead in that direction?
Charlie Dent
I would probably be I probably disagree. But here I, I believe in informed I believe in informed participation. I want people to participate on their own free will be allowed to vote, you know, like you have a right not to vote. And, you know, I think you should vote. But if you don't believe in the system, if you don't, if you don't think it's worth your time, well, then you're not going to waste my time trying to explain to somebody why they should, right. But, but that's the bad news. The good news is, I think better expects there is greater when I was younger, people just talk about voter apathy all the time, apathy was the big thing. Nobody was happy, and, frankly, was a more contented time. And now, I would argue that we don't talk much about voter at we don't talk as much about voter apathy as we used to, like so many people are energized and engaged now, not always in a healthy way. I mean, they're angry. And you know, I feel like at times, we've lost a sense of shame, and insensitive ability for people to recognize your own hypocrisy. Now I get it, we're in politics, there's always a certain amount of hypocrisy. I accept that. And, you know, it's probably somewhat normal. But nowadays, I mean, the
Andrew Yang
man it Yeah, it's well beyond the pale. I agree. It's like,
Charlie Dent
it's like, it's like the politics of so situational. I mean, talk to somebody, like, my goodness, you know, you're taking the person, you're taking a position 180 degrees opposite you just did a couple years ago, the only difference is that when your guy and your guy does whatever is going on, that's, that's righteous. And just, if the other guy does the same thing a couple years later, he's your opponent. Well, there's the same thing, lots of human rights violation, you know, you know, so, and they don't, and a lot of people don't, don't choose to recognize that I mean, and just kind of dismiss it, as if, as if this is all just this politics, but it's gotten that up, you know, again, I get that there's hypocrisy, you just,
Andrew Yang
clearly I want to double down on what you're saying, because you've seen the changes, it's going to get worse, not better. And the question I would pose to you, and everyone here today is like, where do we think this ends? How does it get resolved, and I'm going to tell you all where it ends, it ends and catastrophe and unthinkable scenes of violence and unrest and strife. And even again, this civil war 2.0 that I referenced earlier, political stress in this country is at civil war levels, according to various scholars who measured this sort of thing. So you've seen it, you lived it, you see where we're sliding? And then the question is, what do we you know, do we just let it sink into the mud? Do we let the mistrust rise to this level? Do we let the hypocrisy that as you're suggesting that just like, in right now, there are no real political repercussions. There is this kind of soft set of norms that people rely on to keep us essentially, in some level of like discipline, or self regulation, or check, and those are all gone. And, you know, in some ways Trump has been the person kind of exposed just how reliant upon those norms we were. And now that they're gone, we're looking for a substitute and they're nowhere to be found. You know, to me, the only thing we can do is try and invest in a better more resilient system that actually carries with it some of these reforms and new incentives that we would like to see. It's a very, very big lift, but we need to do it or else we're going to end up heading down the other road, which we all can see very clearly is speeding up we're like It was like a one of those, you know, movies where, like, you're on the here and it's about to speed up. But unfortunately, like climate change reminds me of that. So anyway, Charlie, I just want to emphasize what you're just saying and saying, like, look, like, we all see it, you've lived it, like, let's do something about it. I just
Charlie Dent
gonna say I thought January 6, I was very shaken on that day, just watching those images. I thought, okay, that's the end. You know, that's no, okay. Now we got in this out of our system is awful. This was got to get better. And I'm starting to think that was just the beginning. You know, it's just more and
Andrew Yang
more, I was like the, the flare up before the series of earthquakes, you know, where there's like a pre shock, that's January 6, was not the earthquake, January 6, was the thing before the earthquake, right?
Charlie Dent
I just thought that was, you know, kind of a seminal moment. And, you know, we, I never is watching those images in that building with, you know, I'd spent so much time in being that guy walking across the rotunda with a confederate flag draped over his shoulder, or hanging over his shoulder on the pole. I just, I just couldn't imagine that these people were able to forcibly enter the Capitol. And no, go around and destroy property and fight with the police and, you know, try to actually disrupt the transfer of power. I thought this is just, it is almost surreal. I mean, I just couldn't believe I almost couldn't believe what I was watching at that day. I mean, that was I was on CNN that day, but it was was the best ratings day in history. Because I was on CNN. No, because no, but it was their best ratings day in history. They told me later, but just being on and just feeling so emotional about the whole thing.
Andrew Yang
Of course, you work there, you live there. Yeah.
Charlie Dent
But to me, it was just like, I just can't believe I'm witnessing this, you know,
Andrew Yang
there's more like it coming down the pike, Charlie?
Jenna Spinelle
Well, and that actually leads to sort of how I wanted to bring this conversation to a close. So we've talked about the forward party, which is, which is a movement it Charlie, you're involved with Renew America, which is a movement, right. So we've clearly got some momentum going in the in these different directions. But you know, at what point is a movement not going to be be enough? At what point do we need something that is more like a bonafide third party? What are some of the signs that you're going to be looking for moving forward, as you know, when we reach that line of demarcation or you know, whatever metaphor you want to use about one, it's time to have more than just a movement, if at all?
Andrew Yang
Oh, let me say that it's urgent. In my mind, we literally have one cycle, we have 12 months, not to put pressure on the people watching this, but we have to a month, one big step forward would be to improve the incentives of legislators so they can vote their conscience and not get castigated by their party not be as beholden to their party really. Like if you're beholden to the voters, that's great. If you're beholden to 51% of the people in your district, that's the point. So if we can get these ballot initiatives across the finish line, and let's call it three, four or five states, then you'd see incentives improved for six 810. Senators, I mean, that's a huge deal, that could be enough to save democracy. I'm for better incentives as quickly as possible. And I'm for any third party emerging, whether it's the Ford party or some other group, in my mind, the duopoly has run its course. And we need to try and transition to either multi-member Dixon, the rest of it through the fair representation Act, or multiparty democracy with more than two parties, three parties, four parties, five parties, whatever. So can we get that done in the next one to three years? We're gonna find out. And if we can't get that done, then I think we're going to see the negative consequences pretty quickly.
Charlie Dent
Well, I, I want to be I always want to be optimistic. And you know, I've always felt Americans are pretty bad. Pragmatic is a country that a bunch of doers, I always felt like we're the this this country is always been the point of the spear. A lot of innovation occurs here, something special about this place. That's why people come here, you know, people, they still break it down. Do you see what's happening the border a people trying to get in here to money on money unlawfully, unfortunately, but that's, so there's something special about this place. And people want to be part of it. And so, but part of what that attraction is there's always been a certain amount of stability, political stability. But there's been a lot of political stability for much of our history. And, and, you know, we always kind of figured it out, you know, and that's one thing I noticed, I noticed this from the Europeans is pre Trump, by the way, pre Trump, I remember, in Germany, they said, you know, we always figured with the Americans. Now, they do a lot of stuff, but at the end of the day, they figure it out. They get it done. Oh, not so sure. We're not so sure. That was before Trump. You know, they were starting to worry. We have these battles, these high stakes games with you know, the Debt ceiling and government shutdowns and all this stuff. And it just, it looked the stabilizing. And no, but that was not the American thing. America, you know, is kind of a business oriented country and, you know, instability is bad for business, you know, is bad for business, you know, you want you want certainty, stability, certain amount of discipline, certain amount of order, kind of have, you know, it's not like in other countries where, you know, they have they had, you know, political disruption, you know, it's change, it's not, it's not orderly and peaceful. I hear. That's one reason why people want to come here. But, but we wake up call that we got on January 6, that, you know, maybe that that that normal, orderly processes, fragile and might not be the shore thing we always thought it was. And so I don't know, I don't have an answer. But I do think that most people in this country, no one at that monitor succeed. They don't want to blow it up. They're not nihilists. Most of them are not, well, we have a bunch of people are we, the we don't want to, they don't want the system.
Andrew Yang
And it's time to give those people a voice and a home. That's really the whole mission. I agree with you, Charlie. That's where most Americans are. It's just where the heck did they go today?
Jenna Spinelle
Right. And, you know, we did have lots of lots of great questions that we didn't have time to get to. I think people are even eager to dig into this stuff even more in the the nitty gritty than we were able to get to today. If people do want to perhaps contact each of you or your respective organizations, is there a good way to do that? Or to keep this conversation going moving forward?
Andrew Yang
Yeah, so I am, this is my mission in life. I do it every day. So please do just reach out to the Ford party the person to do so is Blair BL a ir at forward party calm. So it looks like Jenna's typing that up. You can also reach out to me on social media, the forward party, Andrew Yang, but let's do it. Let's build a movement. Let's get it done. I love democracy nerds, you all see it clearly, we have to be the people that take this message to the rest of the country, because they all can feel it. They're like, hey, it's not working, what do we do, there's nothing that we can do. And then we have to go to them like, oh, there is something we can do and others get to do, we can actually change the mechanics, change the incentives and give ourselves a real chance. And then people's eyes will light up. And we will show the way show the way forward. Thank you. This is such a joy. And Charlie, I'd love to be in touch. You know, I think you and I are like minded about a lot of this stuff. I don't know how good a job I did of onboarding you during this hour, Charlie, but this was my goal to for you to become stealth Fordist. And then you can you know, bring the message on TV or wherever thoughts? Well, I get you? Well,
Charlie Dent
well, yeah, look, you have a lot of great ideas, a lot of you know, I think your your, your your innovative, and that you want to, you want to disrupt the system in a positive way you want to get, you want to find an outlet for a lot of people who feel orphaned right now, or homeless, as you said, and I think that's important. You know, I got involved with a group too, that feels the same way they want to, like, but I'm not in the position where I want a new party I do because I just don't think new parties work. But I do feel like that the party shouldn't take their members for granted. All and just assume a blind loyalty was added. You know, you're, you know, it's my team. If you're not with my team, you know, you're You're a traitor. And at some point, you have to say, Well, if you betray certain values, why should I be loyal to you? You know, if you know, you know, I can still deviate that.
Andrew Yang
Yeah, in my opinion, Charlie, the Republican Party should be moderate Republicans against Republican slash Trumpers. And the Democratic Party should be progressives and Democrats, there should probably be a party somewhere in the middle. And then if you had that, it would be much more sane, because you know, dozens of your former colleagues would be going along with the Trump line. They just have to because it's one party. It should not be one party, in my opinion.
Charlie Dent
By the way, Jenna will give you my gmail address here.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. Well, I will connect you guys for sure. And we'll keep keep this conversation going. Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you, Andrew.
Andrew Yang
Thank you democracy.
Charlie Dent
All right. And stay wonderful to be a visiting fellow with the McCourtney Institute. And we are
Jenna Spinelle
all right, Penn State. Thanks, everybody. Have a great night.
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