Opinion | America needs a fourth party to truly transcend politics – By Hayes Brown (MSNBC) / July 29, 2022
Andrew Yang and his former GOP allies are still thinking inside the box.
Andrew Yang’s Forward Party is dead. In its place, rises … the Forward Party but with Republicans. In this newly announced mega-group, simply called Forward, Yang is joined as co-chair of the hopeful third party contender by former Republican New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. Former Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., and former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor are also involved in the new project, which seeks to upend America’s two-party system.
But in reading through their manifesto of moderation, I am forced to wonder if their supposed thinking outside the box is really thinking inside a much larger box? If that’s the case, does this amalgam, this neutron star born of a collapsed political spectrum, go far enough in its mission? Or do we need to move past the tired idea they’ve latched on to, that a “third party” is what’s needed to shake up our system? The answer becomes clear once you take Forward’s views to their obvious terminus: What America really needs to grow and thrive is a fourth party.
Yes, it’s true that Forward “has no specific policies yet,” as Reuters reported Wednesday. It is truly a blank slate on the issues facing the U.S., prepared to plant its flag in whatever a majority of Americans believe in the latest polling. This is befitting a party that holds “moderation” and “centrism” as core tenets. Only in comparing itself to the other two parties’ stances can it ever know what it believes, as a Washington Post op-ed describing the party’s vision outlined.
“On guns, for instance, 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,” Yang, Jolly and Whitman wrote in the Post. “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.”
