Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here, and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Very excited to have a special guest with us this morning, former presidential candidate, current co chair of the Forward Party and author of the new book The Last Election, I should say co author alongside Stephen marsh There's the book. You can see it there, and it's a novel. This time it is not nonfiction as his previous books were. The one and only friend of the show, Andrew Yang. Great to see sir, Good to see you, man.
To be back.
Hey guys, congratulations on all the success in the new studio and everything.
Thank you, Thank you and the.
Group.
Yeah, what was that cool?
We're going to do keep part of it. Yeah, thanks, all right.
So Andrew just talked to us a little bit about the book and what it was that inspired this kind of you know, dark take that again, it's fiction, but it's kind of a dark take on the future of America.
Here.
Yeah, I got all these experiences running for president, Krystal. I was trying to convey them to folks, and there was something of a message. I mean, I sat down with people and they said, what do you really think is going to happen or what happens if there's a major independent presidential candidate? And I said, here's what I think is going to happen. And then the question was
how do you get that message out? And we thought that telling a story was the most compelling, accessible way to do so, because people like stories more than they like op eds or facts and statistics, which is something I also learned on the presidential trail.
Despite the math, despite the math hat unfortunately you probably right, Andrew, what are you seeing as signs of decay in our democracy and all that that you think that you think are they are bringing to you know forward in your book, like is it just January sixth? Like are there other events and other markers that you can look for and think about that you're trying to incorporate a lot.
Of it's the media, but you guys can see you talk about this all the time on your show. I mean, you're looking at a Biden Trump rematch that two thirds of the country doesn't want. And so if you have laying that wide or vacuum that big, then someone's going to move.
To fill it.
But you don't have a system that naturally accommodates new entrants or parties. Frankly, and as the coachair of the Forward Party, you know, like I lived this, so and so if someone runs, they may end up not having the desired effect. I mean, when people ask me about this Biden Trump matchup and what to do, I say to them, honestly that the best thing you could do is just run the craziest person you could think of, because the way our system is set up, that might
actually do some good. Whereas if you run a really good person, that might not do some good.
Right and so, Andrew, as you're looking at this, you know the way that the sort of partisan media usually portrays the problems in the country. They usually focus on like specific people, like oh, it's the supporters of Trump that are the problem, or oh, it's the supporters of
buying the Democrats that are the problem. But I think one thing that you have done consistently is to show people a lot of care and empathy regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, which is why you had a lot of bipartisan support, and to stay laser focused on some of the more systemic issues. So what do you see as the core of the issues that have led you to feel like we are a nation on the brink?
The core issue, Crystal, is the structural incentives for the actors in the system, and right now, the fiction is that our leaders have to make fifty one percent of us happy.
They don't.
They just need to placate and please the most extreme ten to twelve percent in their party's base, which on the Republican side has really driven them off a cliff. There are distortions on the Democratic side clearly, and you can see that in the lack of a primary for Joe Biden, which I think is setting the country up
for a potential catastrophe. So you have these two parties that aren't actually listening to us anymore, and they cordoned the country up into blue and red zones where the vast majority of the people watching this are listening to this right now, there's no suspense as to which party are going to represent you in Congress. It's going to be the Democrat of the Republican, and so there's this
illusion of competition that they're casting out. And I said this with you and Kyle, you have a twenty percent congressional approval rate and then a ninety four percent reelection rate. So in that system, you can do things like thrust three million American kids back into poverty, and there's no real problem for you politically because you're insulated from any competition. So it's this rot in the system that is separating
our leaders from us. And you can put a good person in the system, which I prefer, you can put a terrible person in the system, which you know I don't like at all, And there are terrible people in the system. But unfortunately the system itself is driving a lot of the dysfunction, and then the media becomes complicit in maintaining the system.
Your rise, I always saw, is very indicative of the Internet and its first imprints for real this time on the election. I've made a comparison here previously about Vivek Ramaswami, someone who you've talked about previously, just wanted to ask for your general take so far as to not only the overall primary process, the Democratic primary, the Republican primary, how you see some of the seeds that you planted and how they're manifesting right now.
You know, I got to say you two and breaking points are part of the cure, part of the antidote.
You talk about my run activating people in a whole new way.
I feel like you guys do it every day, so really like, kudos to you all for actually helping people see things more clearly. I wish that there was a Democratic primary, and one of the ideas I put out there was that there should be a vice presidential primary. If Joe Biden insists on saying, hey, it's going to be me again, like let's figure out who my successor should be, and then there are folks who are running who have captured some of the anti institutional energy.
I think Vivek is certainly very high on that list.
The Republican Party is more welcoming to outsiders than Democrats, in part because of their relationship with the media, and I wish that any one other than Trump seemed like they were achieving enough energy to make sure Trump's not the nominee. I think Trump's a total catastrophe, and I'm trying to do anything I can to keep Trump from
winning again. As we're having this conversation, I would see Trump as unfortunately a mild favorite to win reelection, in large part because I think there are going to be multiple candidates in the general in twenty twenty four.
Well, let's take into that.
You think because of party stratification, as in you said multiple people running like third party bids, or do you think it's because of structural factors like Joe Biden and weaknesses there to say that he's a mild favor for reelection.
Oh, no, I think Trump's a mild favorite to win re election. But so first, I think Joe Biden is not the best candidate on the Democratic side.
I think having a bad process. I think he's being saddled with.
Some tough economic issues that of course people are going to lay at his feet. But I think that the Democrats should have a real process and try and find a better candidate that also helps take age off the table. So that's one thing. Now, Trump and Biden are just about tied in the general. According to most accounts, Trump leads Biden on the economy among independent voters very significantly, by maybe twenty percentage points. And so if you have those two head to head, it's a bit of a
coin flip. But then if you introduce Cornell West and the Green Party, maybe an RFK as an independent, maybe a Joe Manchin, then I feel like the landscape favors Trump.
I think there's a lot to be said about that. Andrew, I wanted to ask you as well. You talked about some of the structural factors. You talked about the system of the elections themselves, the party control, the media, control the way that they choose to operate, and then sent a structure that they have as well. What will you think social media plays into this landscape too well.
I think social media is part of the problem, honestly. I think it dumps fuel on the most sensationalist and it makes everyone's appeal have to be very emotional and tribal because that's how you get energy. And then in some cases small dollar donations, it turns us all into characters in a play and the narratives are not leading us anywhere constructive. It was Ezra Client who said corrupt system compromises good individuals with ease. I'm going to say social media as a corrupt system.
That's a really interesting way of putting it. I mean, I guess Andrew, you know, we have a lot of people who so watch the show O G Yanggang, many people who you activated into politics. So we've been trying to carry forward some of that energy now that it's been you know, several years since all of that happened.
What are some of the reflections that you have about Bible political movements, why you decided to go with the Ford Party, and where people should channel their energy if they want to keep it in a good direction and not into cynicism.
What I would say to folks who want to make good things happen for people, and I put myself in that category, is that the two party system is designed to diffuse and weaken any popular energy, in part by separating us from each other. There are millions of Americans on both sides of the aisle that don't like child poverty, but unfortunately, right now we're being separated and said, hey, like, your enemy are the people over there, and we're being
set up. So unless you make headway on this system, the system that makes our leaders unaccountable to us leaders that make us think that we are each other's enemies even though we're all kind of in the same boat in terms of AI and these other issues.
So the folks that supported.
Me, I get that you might think that, hey, this is a different vibe or approach, but this is to me the real approach, because if I was running around saying, hey, let's do all these things, the system would not let those things occur. So unless we actually amend and modernize the system, we're just going to drive ourselves crazy and each other, you know, eventually, would be on each other's throats.
So let's change the system itself. That's the real path forward.
And I feel like Crystal actually exerted herself in this direction a number of years ago, trying to get different candidates in the Midwest who represented more of like a populist working class. I mean that that that was one approach, But the incentives of the parties are driving them very very strongly in particular directions, and it's away from the direction that Chrystal was working them towards.
Because you know, like at this point they look.
At Ohio and say, hey, OHI I was not competitive for us anymore.
So I guess I don't care. Don't matter, like we don't care anymore with this trade you in for as state.
Yeah, well, Andrew, you said something in the interview you did with me and Kyle that stuck with me, which is, you know, when you ran for president and you put UBI forward as a central part of your campaign, you massively move the needle in terms of support for it, interest in it. You made it so it was a majority support issue. But if you have a system that doesn't reflect the world of majority or even take it
into account whatsoever, it doesn't matter. And so I think that's why you know the direction you're going and focusing on things like Ranke choice voting that could actually open things up so you actually have more democratic choice available to people. I think it's actually a good and positive direction. I'm glad you're engaged in that.
I totally agree.
Well, Crystal, that is really the fundamental insight is that seventy four percent of us want term limits, not seeing that eighty five percent of us want less money in politics, don't want members of Congress to be able to trade.
Who cares?
You know, It's like what we want is essentially irrelevant. I'm gonna guess eighty percent plus of us don't like child poverty, you know what I mean, Like, we'd like to lift those three million kids back out of poverty, but of course that doesn't matter. And you look around and say, where were the protests when all these people were re impoverished.
Not a peep.
So the it's only when you realize that what we want and think is irrelevant in the system do you actually catch on. And then after you catch on, you say, Okay, how can we make it so that what we want actually does matter? I mean, two thirds of Americans want universal based income, so are we going to get it? Not in this system? You know, it's only in a better system that we'd have a chance at addressing the real challenges of this time.
Yeah, totally agree with you, Andrew. Thank you so much for joining us, and guys, go out and check out the book. It's called The Last Election, co authored Andrew and his co author Stephen barsh Really interesting. And I think, you know, sometimes stories are the best way to drive a point home and get people to pay attention to some of these underlying structural issues that you're trying to highlight here. So Andrew always great to see you and thank you so much for your time, my friend.
Good to see you man, Thank you great.
Seeing you guys too. Thanks for having Meely, it's our pleasure.