Andrew Yang is teaming up with ex-Republicans to launch his new political party: the Forward party, which is looking to attract what its founders call the "moderate, common-sense majority." Yang, the former Democratic presidential candidate who first announced the new party last year, is merging his political organization with those of David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, CNN reports. (As Axios reports, Democrats and independents are also involved in Jolly's political organization.) They're planning a national convention for next summer and are looking to run candidates starting in 2024.
In a Washington Post op-ed Wednesday, the three wrote that "Political extremism is ripping our nation apart, and the two major parties have failed to remedy the crisis. ... That’s why we are coming together—Democrats, Republicans and independents—to build a new, unifying political party for the majority of Americans who want to move past divisiveness and reject extremism." They say Democrats and Republicans alike cater too much to the "fringes" of their collective sides of the aisle, which is why, "for the first time in modern history, roughly half of Americans consider themselves 'independents,' and two-thirds say a new party is needed (and would vote for it)."
The op-ed explains how the party will fall somewhere in the middle on such hot-button issues as gun control (no confiscating of guns or eradication of the Second Amendment, but no complete blocking of gun control either), climate change (no denying the problem, but also no "completely upend[ing] our economy and way of life"), and abortion (no "extreme" allowances for late-term abortions, but no criminalizing of abortion). Yang says Forward is the third-largest political party in the US based on resources, but Sarah Jones at Intelligencer explains why she predicts it's "going nowhere." Criticism was to be found on Twitter, as well, with some recalling Yang's appearance on Tucker Carlson's show last year. (More Forward party stories.)
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