(cheerful upbeat music) - [Employee 1] I am a mother of five.

- [Employee 2] I really didn't see myself being able to go back to school.

- [Employee 3] It was a lot of self-doubt.

- [Employee 4] Cost of higher education, that was a big hurdle for me.

Once I found Amazon and all their free education programs, I was hooked.

- Amazon's footing the bill for it.

So we gotta take advantage.

- [Employee 5] I'm able to work towards a degree in computer and electrical engineering.

- [Employee 6] Network engineering.

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- [Employee 8] It makes me feel confident I can get to the next level.

I feel like the sky's the limit.

(light music) - [Announcer] And now the Crosscut Ideas Festival.

Featuring a selection of curated sessions from this year's festival.

Thank you for joining us for "A Third Party" with Andrew Yang, moderated by M David Lee III.

Before we begin, a special thank you to our title sponsor and politics track sponsor, Amazon.

We'd also like to thank our founding sponsor, the Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation.

(audience applauding) - Well, hello everyone, and welcome to the Crosscut Ideas Festival.

My name is David Lee, and I am the executive editor of Crosscut.

Today, I'm here to have a conversation with someone who's pretty used to thinking about big things in different ways, Andrew Yang.

Many of you know Andrew as a former Democratic candidate for president and former candidate of mayor for New York City.

He's also an entrepreneur, a well-known proponent of a universal basic income, and he's a co-creator of a new player on the nation's political stage, the Forward party.

Now, if there is one thing every voter across America can agree on, it's that we want our politics to change for the better.

But what to do and how is a topic as contentious as any other.

Today with Andrew, we're gonna zero in on one idea, this new party with big ambitions and some very big challenges, and learn what can we do about everything to change things and make it take?

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Andrew Yang.

(audience applauding) - Thank you.

Thank you.

It's great to be here.

Thanks for having me, David.

- So, Andrew, you know, there's a lot of talk about how divided we are and how much dysfunctional situation there is around politics right now.

We can't seem to agree about war, the economy, education, abortion, and everyone's gearing up for probably another brutal presidential campaign.

- Biden versus Trump, the rematch, 2024.

It's gonna be better this time.

It's actually just gonna be older this time.

(David laughing) - What are your biggest concerns that you see for the health, overall, of the democratic republic right now?

- David, people are right to be concerned.

I imagine everyone here is here in part because you don't think our democracy's humming, you don't think our country's heading on a fantastic track.

I felt the same way back in 2016 when Trump won, I saw it as a giant red flag.

I'd traveled the Midwest and the South and I'd seen the aftermath of the automation of millions of manufacturing jobs in those communities.

And I work with a lot of people in technology, and they said, "Look, what we did to the manufacturing workers, we're gonna do to the call center workers, the retail workers."

Turns out the Hollywood writers, I mean, they didn't call that one.

So they knew that this wave was gonna speed up.

I'm gonna confess to you all, I ran for president of the United States.

You remember when I showed up on your TV screen during the debates, and you said, "Who's the Asian guy next to Joe Biden?"

And you Googled it.

(David laughing) But I didn't actually imagine I was going to be president of the United States, you know?

Because I'm not insane.

And I'm the son of immigrants, and my parents were not like, "You're gonna be president someday."

It was like, you know, like, "Get good grades, clean your room."

So my mission was to try and educate us to the fact that we're going through this profound economic transformation, what some experts are calling the fourth industrial revolution.

Trump was a manifestation of that in 2016.

And then that curve is just gonna speed up with the onset of AI and other things.

So I ran for president trying to mainstream solutions.

And the main solution I championed was a universal basic income, which, (audience applauding) Oh, thank you.

- You got some fans.

- Which did go from a 27% approval in 2018 to a 65% approval in 2020.

I dare say, if that curve had been a little faster, I might actually be your president today and then we'd have a different convo.

But when I came off the trail, I still felt very despondent about the direction of American politics, even though I knew I had objectively overachieved.

(laughs) You know what I mean?

Like, I came back and I still felt bad.

And so I was like, "Well, why do I feel so bad?"

And so I figured out that we are being set up to turn on each other and to have the system fail by design.

That is the big insight.

What is the approval rating for US Congress as we're here together right now?

I'm anchoring you low so you know it's low.

How low?

- 18% to 22%.

So you say 20% you'd be about right.

What is the reelection rate for members of Congress?

94%.

So if you are a sports fan, that's a better win rate than the Jordan era Chicago Bulls.

(David laughing) The incumbents are like Jordan dunking on people.

Imagine if you ran any other type of organization or enterprise and you had four to five customers who were upset and you change nothing.

(laughs) What would happen over time?

So why is that gulf so dramatic?

It turns out that 90% of the congressional districts in this country are drawn to be non-competitive in the general.

You know it's a blue district or a red district.

You all probably live in a blue district.

So there is no tension or suspense as to who's going to represent that district.

If you are a legislator, how can you actually lose your job?

(Andrew laughing) Die or retire.

That's become more of an issue, obviously.

But the way you can lose your job is to get primaried from within your own party.

So imagine being a legislator and being completely beholden to 10% to 12% of folks on the extreme.

There were 10 house members who voted to impeach Donald Trump.

How many of them made it back to office?

Two.

You know, and of the eight that didn't, there are names like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and Peter Meijer.

And so if you are in the system, you get, "Okay, if I want to keep this job, I just have to not off the 10% to 12% on the extreme."

And that's a distortion and I'm saying as a distortion on the right, which it is.

There are other distortions on the left.

So you have this system that pushes people to the sides and then makes it so that if they reach across the aisle, it was a US Senator who said this to me, "An issue is worth more to us now unaddressed than addressed."

Because if we don't address it, I can get you mad, I can raise money, I can get votes on it.

What happens if I lean across the aisle and try and solve it?

My base turns on me.

I'm ideologically impure.

I worked with the enemy.

I get primaried.

my job security goes down.

And one illustration of this is when Marco Rubio championed immigration reform a number of years ago.

Do y'all remember that?

If you don't remember that, don't worry about it.

Because a week later, he walked it back and was like, "Just kidding."

So what happened during that week?

His party went to him and said, "Marco, what the hell are you doing?"

(laughs) You know, "If you raise this, we're gonna take a beating, so let's not solve it."

You can swap in any of a number of problems for immigration reform.

And it could be climate change, it could be any of 'em.

So the the big insight is that whatever you want, this system is not designed to deliver it for you.

Unless what you want is for us to hate each other and turn on each other and fear each other and then have it all disintegrate over time.

So this is what I concluded.

The political incentives are driving us apart.

Media organizations are making it worse by separating us into ideological tribes.

You all know what I'm talking about.

And hats off to David and this organization for being one of the exceptions to that, in my view.

And then you have social media pouring gasoline on the whole thing.

What do y'all think?

Is that a reasonable description?

Yeah.

So that is the situation we are in.

And the question is, how the heck do we get our way out of it?

How the heck do you actually get your way out of this?

Now, I'm a practical person, I'm an operator.

And there is a real life solution, concrete proven, and it comes from the great state of Alaska.

So Alaska in 2020 voted to get rid of their party primaries and replace it with an all party primary with ranked choice voting.

How many of you knew that?

Can you raise your hand on that?

Wow, this is, like, a political crowd.

Holy crap.

That's why you're so unhappy.

(laughs) (audience laughing) So for those of you who weren't as avid about it, this is why Sarah Palin lost to a no name state legislator native named Mary Peltola.

And so imagine if Sarah Palin was back in Congress next to Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene making us all, like, you know, two or three IQ points dumber and sadder.

(Andrew laughing) Like, that would've been the case if they had standard primaries.

Because then she wins the Republican primary, it's R versus D, it's kind of a redder state, she wins.

But because everyone got to vote for everyone and Mary Peltola's, like, actually, like, very acceptable, like, a lot of people just slotted her second.

The same thing happened in the Senate race, and this might even be more profound.

You had a Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, who voted to impeach Trump.

Remember how 80% of the reps got wiped out?

She was the only senator who voted to impeach Trump who was up for reelection.

Think about that Venn diagram.

Trump goes on a revenge tour, goes to Alaska, has his crazy person (laughs) that he's endorsing, Kelly Shabaka.

And in a Republican primary, Kelly Shabaka would've beaten Lisa Murkowski hands down.

Lisa Murkowski's approval rating among Alaskan Republicans was measured at 8%.

She loses that primary.

But there is no Republican primary in Alaska anymore.

So Lisa Murkowski just goes straight to the entire public and is like, "Hey, guys, like, what do you think?"

And so she edges out Shabaka by four or five points.

Getting rid of the party primaries in Alaska cost $6 million.

What do you think all of that as an investment?

Pretty freaking good, right?

You're like, got rid of Sarah Palin, (laughs) like, $6 million?

We're spending $8 billion a cycle hating each other, you know?

So how much are we spending on trying to fix the system and the mechanics?

I'm not a very good politician, I'll confess to you all.

My father was a physicist.

My mother was a statistician.

I'm a geek, you know?

Like, I'm someone who looks at the system and says, "Okay, I get it.

We're all operating in this terrible design, terrible incentives.

The incentives are rewarding folks for, you know, being aggressive and inflammatory.

It's gonna get worse and worse.

If you don't cure the incentives, you're sunk."

So this is the mission of the Forward party.

Now, what people will say is like, "Oh, third party, Nader, spoiler, blah, blah, blah."

It's all nonsense.

Because all they're doing is they're fast forwarding to one race outta 520,000 races, which is the presidential.

In the case that you actually run someone.

You're here in Seattle, this is a non-competitive zone.

Just like 75% of the country.

You have a one party system here in Seattle, it's the Dems.

A lot of you are Dems, but even if you are a Dem here in Seattle, you might not be pumped about what's happening or not happening in Seattle.

And you know what your choices are?

None.

(laughs) You have, like, zero, like, agency in it.

The Democrats have that stuff wrapped up and then they'll be like, "Hey, what are you gonna do?"

And anytime there's a seat that opens up, what is the only question?

Who's next in line?

You know what I mean?

You have this system that's just churning through people while it fails us over and over again.

They pretend there's competition.

There is not, in three quarters of the country.

What they'll do is they'll point to the folks on the other side of the aisle and say, "It's their fault.

It's their fault."

They are nowhere near this scene of what it is that you're concerned about.

I've traveled the country, Iowa, Ohio, all over the place.

You know, there are people in rural America.

They're questioning what the heck is happening to their family's future, their future.

They are not your enemy.

They are not our enemy.

The only enemy is a system that is going to tear us all apart.

- Okay, so Andrew, let's talk about that then.

You are talking about the Forward party, a third party that, you know, is new.

What is it going to take for the Forward party to make some inroads and who is a Forward party voter?

- So the fun part about what we're doing with the Forward party is we're actually doing all the blocking and tackling and jumping the bureaucratic hurdles that stand in the path of the, you know, frankly, majority of Americans right now, who'd want something different.

Right now, about 25% of Americans say they're Democrats, about 25% say they're Republicans, and about 50% say they're Independents.

But the parties control everything.

And those parties are controlled by sort of the extremes within their ranks.

So if you want to build a national party, it turns out what you're doing is you're building 50 state parties and then one national umbrella.

You're building 51 organizations.

So the Forward party, which we started 18 months ago, is already the third biggest party in the country by resources, recognized in six states, executive committees in 12.

Washington should be up and running by September of this year.

Chapters in 47 states.

You know why?

Because everyone's fed up.

Now, the way you overcome the obstacles is on a state by state basis.

So every state has its own rules.

Washington's rules are that if you're a new party, you essentially are competing via, like, a political action committee, very often.

And that in order to become a major party in Washington state, you'd have to run a statewide candidate, do some things.

So we're very, very tactical and practical in every environment.

David, the fact is, again, 70% of these 520,000 races around the country are uncontested or uncompetitive.

So when you arrive near the Forward party, everyone's gonna be like, "Nader, da da da."

It's like, no, we're not talking about Nader, we're talking about your school board.

We're talking about the fact that, like, the county executive position or the nonpartisan mayor's position, like, half that stuff is uncontested, the insiders have it.

And your downside, if you support the Forward party is just that the party in charge, in your case, Democrats, actually has to respond to you and shape up.

They do not have to shape up right now.

It doesn't matter.

You don't matter.

If you had some kind of competition, then they'd be like, "Oh wow, like, maybe we have to actually start, like, delivering on schools or public safety or homelessness or, you know, like substance abuse or whatever the issue is because someone might vote a Forwardist in and a Forwardist isn't coded as racist or anything else," you know what I mean?

Like, the game is, like, if you were to run as a Republican in Seattle, it's a non-starter.

Like, it's over before it starts.

You run as a Forward party member, no one knows what the hell that means.

You know what I mean?

They'll look at 'em and be like, "I have no idea what this person's party affiliation means.

So I guess I have to meet them.

I guess I have to listen to them.

I guess I have to go to their website."

Like, you have billions of dollars inflaming us and pretending we're in this ideological war.

You know why?

Because that's how they're making money.

That's actually the only way they can survive now.

Is that if media organizations deliver the straight news, over 2000 local papers have gone outta business, you know?

And so the only ones that are left standing have figured out that their business model is giving people comfort food and disguising it as news.

- So what's the relationship between the Forward party and the Republicans and Democrats?

Do they feel threatened at this point?

Do you need to do something to achieve some of your goals to start that base?

- Oh yeah, we need to do a lot.

I mean, you know, why am I here today?

I'm here because I'm hoping that some of you will be like, "Wow, this is actually interesting.

I'm interested enough to look into this."

Just go to ForwardParty.com.

You can click on Washington State.

We're having a public event tomorrow where you can dig in further and figure out what we're doing here in the state.

The great thing is we can support people in any race of either party or no party, just trying to do good things.

People ask me what my politics are, it's doing things that help people, period.

And there are a lot of folks who, like, I left the Democratic party, like, you know, like, cast me as like, I don't know, like, a Trump enabler or like a megalomaniac, it's like, look, I'm just trying to do good things for people.

I ran for president trying to abolish poverty.

I got attacked for that.

I was like, "I can't believe this.

I thought you guys would think I was, like, to the left of Bernie."

(laughs) You know what I mean?

Though I kind of enjoyed being the magical Asian man from the future who wanted to give everyone money.

It was good times.

My wife was like, "Where's this, like, vast wealth they keep talking about?"

(laughs) So I'm here because we're trying to movement build.

We could certainly use your help.

And we're doing this in states around the country.

And everyone loves it because they get it.

Like, at the local level, they're like, "Oh, you know, he's right.

Like, I don't have any meaningful say, like, you know, my kids, like, you know, are either wrapped up in social media and, like, national ideological issues or checked out of local politics."

- Are there one or two specific policies that you could look at the Forward party and say, "This is what they're standing on, this is what they're building on?"

- Oh yeah.

And I want to use this as an illustration.

So I said, Alaska, right?

$6 million to turn off the party primaries.

You said, "Wow, they did that?"

Like how much did that get reported?

Not much, even though some national, you know, nationally important races were directly impacted.

The same get rid of the party primaries ballot measure was up in Nevada last November.

Same thing, also under reported.

So both parties came out against it.

And this is to your point, David, it's like what's the Forward party about?

The Forward party is about just reconnecting people to your elected representatives.

They say you're connected now, you're not.

It's a fiction.

What we have to do is actually make it real again.

We have to make it so that it's not getting filtered through a party system that is designed more to serve special interests than constituents.

So in Nevada, they actually put this up and said, "Hey guys, how about you get rid of the party primaries?

Anyone can vote for anyone."

Republicans came out against it.

Democrats came out against it.

I was in Nevada, and Democrats were getting text messages on their phone saying, "Vote no on question three."

Because it would be too confusing for voters.

That was what they said.

What is the real answer?

The Democrats went to their consultants and said, "Hey, guys, where are we on getting rid of the party primaries?"

And the consultants were like, "We hate it.

Because right now we can predict how we're gonna win.

We know the win number.

We know, like, how to get those votes.

You let anyone vote for anyone, all of a sudden we don't know who's gonna win."

And that is the enemy.

So the Democrats and Republicans came out against it, but Nevadans still voted for it.

And the winning advertisement was a military veteran looking at the camera saying, "I went overseas to defend the country.

I came back, I cannot vote in our primaries.

And I don't think that's right."

And the majority of Nevadans were like, "Oh yeah, that guy should be able to vote."

Think about it.

Both parties come out against it and Nevadans approve it.

So when you say what does the Forward party stand for?

The Forward party stands for that.

The Forward party stands for actually making it so that you have control over your own future.

- Now, Andrew, before you focused on politics, you went all in on universal basic income.

Given the state of our economy today and what economic policies do you see as something that you would like to see passed moving forward?

- One of the most heartbreaking things that happened over the last couple of years is that we lifted, well, this part was good.

We lifted millions of American families out of poverty with an enhanced child tax credit that put $400, $500 per child per month into a family's hands.

And then what did we do because of our dysfunction?

We took it away.

We took it away at the beginning of last year.

And when we took it away, I actually thought January 15th, 2022, "Millions of families are gonna wake up and not get the money that they've been getting for months."

And I was wondering, were you going to see protests?

Where are you going to see news stories?

Where are you going to see?

And you're shaking your head.

What happened?

Nothing.

And it turns out that those millions of American families who are on the edge of poverty do not have the bandwidth or flexibility to go and protest, to show up in the streets, to march on the Capitol, to show up in the Congress.

All that happened to them is we just plunged them back into poverty and then they, you know, were scraping furiously to get by.

And that broke my heart because I ran for president on trying to alleviate poverty.

I started a lobbying organization to push for anti-poverty measures and cash relief.

That's still in DC doing that work today, Humanity Forward.

And then they took it away.

And there was no outcry, you know?

And so you have to ask yourself like, what kind of country are we living in where that's the state of affairs?

And we're at a point where most Americans do not matter in terms of what happens at a policy.

By the way, that was a Princeton study.

They actually looked up, like, what do people think and want and then what we get and there was no relationship.

If they took the top 10%, all of a sudden there was a positive relationship.

So people are being presented with a story as to how they can change this powerlessness that they feel.

And the Forward party is a genuine, positive, productive, constructive way to restore that sense of, the reality of that power to the American people.

In the absence of something like this what story will they be fed?

"It's these people's fault, hate them, let's tear it all down."

That story, by the way, is winning in American life.

You know?

And the story that they're getting it on the other side is like, "You are immoral and evil for thinking and feeling these things."

The Forward party story is, "Look, the system is broken for you.

The system is broken for you.

Let's fix it for real."

- One quick question about artificial intelligence.

- Oh, please.

I'd love it.

- It's really exploded.

And is it possible and is it necessary for the future of this country to roll it out responsibly?

- Oh yeah, I mean the incentives right now are going to tend towards disaster, truly.

Because you have mega tech companies like the, you know, like the one across the street that have massive incentives to go fast, fast, fast.

They're competing with each other.

Look, this is one of the only times in our memory that the major firms are raising their hands saying, "Look, you should probably regulate us on this."

(laughs) You know what I mean?

And if we don't heed that, which we probably won't, think about the American regulatory approach to social media.

What has it been?

No one knows still.

You know what I mean?

Incoherent.

Section 230 was written in the '90s before Facebook was even started in 2004.

So we're left with this, like, bizarro, broken, by the way, no repercussions, again.

It's like they just keep on rattling around.

It is a byproduct of having DC on, like, a 25 year tape delay.

So having that kind of tape delay with AI is going to be catastrophic.

And my friend actually, she's a very, very optimistic person.

She said, like, "Andrew, how bad can it be?"

And I was like, "You know, like, unwarranted military conflict, mass identity theft, complete disintegration of the public consciousness and discourse."

(laughs) You know?

And she was like, "Wow, you put it that way, it sounds pretty bad."

And I was like, "Oh yeah, it could get very, very bad."

So that is where we're heading if there isn't a massive institutional response.

- My mom, who I love, we went to a store, a big box store, a little while ago.

I was visiting her with my daughter.

And we were going through the checkout stand.

And I wanted to go through, you know, the automated stand, just get through, there was no line.

And she was like, "No, you gotta go through, you know, a regular line.

These people have jobs, you know, we need to support them."

What is that relationship?

What do I say to my mom as we look into this future with some of this AI?

- You know, I would just say, "Okay, like, you know, like, you should do what you want to do, mom."

And she's right in that being a retail cashier is the second most common job in the US economy.

But we all know that those jobs are going to shrink in number.

There aren't enough of your moms, you know what I mean?

They're more of you and of me, frankly.

I mean, I'll go straight to the automated line.

So what are the five most common job categories in the United States?

Number one, administrative and clerical, including call center workers.

You can see where that's gonna go.

Number two is retail.

Number three is food service and food prep, which is gonna be among the most resilient because those workers are really cheap.

Number four is truck driving and transportation.

And number five, believe it or not, is still manufacturing.

What percentage of American jobs are in those five categories?

About half.

What percentage of Americans do not graduate from a four-year college?

About two-thirds.

So you have a population that's majority high school grads and we're gonna decimate those jobs very, very quickly.

And there's not even a straightforward conversation about it.

We're immiserating the bulk of this population.

I mean, it breaks my heart, you know?

Like, my parents came to this country for a better life for me and my brother, and it worked, you know?

But, like, I'm a parent now.

When I look at my kids, I'm just like, "Holy crap.

Like, what are we gonna leave you guys?"

If you guys want to be proud of the country that we are leaving to our kids and grandkids, we have to start doing something different.

Because thinking that we're gonna get the solution out of this dysfunctional system that profits regardless of what happens to us is not a path to any place positive or meaningful.

- All right, Andrew Yang, we are officially out of time.

Thank you very much for joining us today, and thank you all for being a part.

- Thank you, Seattle.

It's great to see you all.

It's great to be back.

(audience applauding) - [David] Thank you, sir.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate your time.

- Thank you.

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