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You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Midterm Elections Open Thread: Shut Up, Losers

Midterm Elections Open Thread: Shut Up, Losers

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No Point Labels pipes up, and the NYTimes (BoBo Brooks, of course) is *there* for it…

Thing is… ‘No Labels’ is such an obvious, machine-tooled Corporo-Grift that donors who already have a wide range of widely advertised (mostly Republican) ‘for the right price, I can proclaim whatever values you want publicized’ candidates are unlikely to be tempted by so anodyne a proposal.

But that reminded me: What’s the Forward Party up to, right now?

Annie Lowrey is a smart reporter, and it’s worth reading her (not very long!) interview:

… Lowrey: In 2016, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein got 5 percent of the vote in Michigan, which Trump won by less than one percentage point. How do you think about the possibility of Forward tipping a close presidential election one way or another?

Yang: Our focus is on the 506,000 locally elected officials around the country where, again, the vast majority of Americans do not have a meaningful voice. Why do people jump to the presidential? I get it because, hey, I ran for president. But this is not where Forward’s attention is, nor is it where my attention is. Our genuine mission is to create meaningful choices for people in communities around the country…

Lowrey: But yes, Ralph Nader! What if Forward helped reelect Trump?

Yang: Our intention is to make extremism less likely and dominant in races and communities around the country. We’ll be acting in that direction.

Lowrey: You tweeted that the raid on Mar-a-Lago would raise the hackles of millions of Americans who would see it as unjust persecution. Could you unpack that for me? It seems the raid was justified by violations of the Espionage Act.

Yang: I said it would inflame and activate a group of Americans who would see it in a certain light. It doesn’t necessarily mean the raid was the wrong course of action…

Yang, presumably from personal experience, thinks that all he needs at the moment is an elevator pitch. And in a less fraught political era, maybe it could make him another few million bucks! But at this time, in this country…

‘Vaporware with feet’:

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  4. 4.

    Josie

    Either all these alternative types didn’t listen to Biden’s speech, they didn’t understand it, or they just don’t give a shit. I’m inclined to choose door number three.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    I guess No Labels, unlike Yang, has at least come up with policy positions, but this

    No Labels is planning to appeal to Americans who have pro-business views on immigration and energy, liberal views on guns, and fairly conservative or purely superficial views on abortion

    describes zero voters in this country.

  11. 11.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: What does pro-business views on immigration and energy mean? I would assume it would mean being positive on immigration and on clean energy because that’s pro-business in the long run, but I have a feeling it doesn’t mean that.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    Yang gets asked repeatedly about policy, but never answers any questions. Never. Answers. Any. Questions. So, clearly, the policy is ‘Never Answer Any Questions’.

  15. 15.

    Edmund Dantes

    @zhena gogolia: right to bring in whatever cheap (potentially illegal) labor to run the factories that burn whatever fossil fuels they can strip mine out of the ground.

  16. 16.

    Cameron

    If Andrew Yang or any of the other self-styled rogues really wanted to make a better system, they’d be pushing at the state level for proportional representation and approval voting, and at the federal level for the direct election of presidents.  But….the drama must prevail.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    @Cameron:

    I looked at Yang’s site.  The only policy position they have is voting reform, like RCV.  But that makes them an advocacy group, not a political party.

  19. 19.

    Scout211

    I am really enjoying this new SNL episode that AL just posted. What a hoot!

    What? You are saying SNL is still on summer hiatus? You mean this is not high quality parody? What?!

  20. 20.

    Geminid

    Yang is a spoiler trying to capture Democratic voters. He knows damn well that the “duopoly” trope is a favorite on the Left.

  21. 21.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    It sounds like No Labels just took every issue and tried to spilt it down the middle.

    They need to just change their name to the Solomon Baby Party and be done with it.

  22. 22.

    lowtechcyclist

    @SiubhanDuinne: ​
     

    Jesus. David Brooks has lost his fucking mind.

    Seriously. It’s well past time for the FTFNYT to send him off to a farm upstate. He’s an embarrassment even to their op-ed page, which takes some doing.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @SpaceUnit:

    I got no time for Yang today. I need to shake the crumbs out of the toaster.

    Me either. I’ve got to rearrange the medicine cabinet or something.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    While I don’t disagree, you would think if that was his goal, he would adopt policy positions that reflected what the left wants.

  26. 26.

    Another Scott

    Bobo and I were in the same college graduation class, but I don’t think our paths ever crossed (very different majors). If I were a psyche major I would be tempted to say that his psyche never recovered from getting pantsed by Milton Friedman. But I’m not. Any Nobel Prize winner who had been working in a field as long as Friedman had been who couldn’t handle the arguments from a college senior in “two-sentences”, well…

    Bobo has been making tired “reasonable”-sounding arguments that enable GQP monsters for nearly 40 years. He knows what he’s doing – 3rd parties (as a rule*) help GQPers, and nobody should be fooled by it.

    (*The two counter-examples I know of are Perot (helping to defeat GHWB and elect Clinton in 1992) and George Wallace (in 1968 – where he wanted to throw the election to the House of Representatives). But those were very different times, and different circumstances than now. Otherwise, governor’s races in Virginia, etc., etc., I think the rule holds pretty well.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  27. 27.

    Cameron

    @Baud: True – and I’m not even RCV, I’m approval-voting.  But, regardless, this is a strange and meaningless grift.  Bro has tons of money; what does he want?

  31. 31.

    Suzanne

    What Yang is too dishonest to say is that he’s trying to make a party for people who love liberal policies but don’t like liberals. Essentially: dudebros who feel like politics hasn’t been mansplained enough.

  36. 36.

    Suzanne

    David Brooks is an idiot with absolutely terrible judgment, to the point that I wouldn’t take his recommendation for an ice cream flavor.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @Cameron: Yang is certainly well off. He had even wealthier backers for his mayoral run who could still be with him. They may want power, possibly the power to throw the next election to the Republican Presidential candidate. Yang could be a good means to that end

    Andrew Yang presents as a well meaning man who just wants to make things better for everybody. But I don’t take him at face value.

  39. 39.

    Grumpy Old Railroader

    Yang and Bobo get together after the election and form the No Forward Labels Party. Me, I’m joining the Let’s Party Party for Geezers Only. Two glasses of cheap wine and in bed before dark.

  40. 40.

    ian

    @zhena gogolia:

     pro-business views on immigration

    I think it means they want people in the country to do labor for them.  They don’t want undocumented people to have any kind of meaningful social expenditures on them or wages for them, but to serve as the lowest wage earners in society.  That was the GOP’s ‘pro-immigration’ stance back in the 2000s under Bush.

  42. 42.

    jnfr

    One of the not-Yang Forward guys was on with Rev Al today and I couldn’t mute fast enough. But I caught that they are quite sure there’s a large number of voters who are dissatisfied with both parties, which may be true, and that they can satisfy them, which is not.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    Yeah, even I would see no problem voting for Sanders against Trump.

    Yep. Brooks is an idiot, but I am surprised at the depths of his stupidity here.

    I also note that US media is doing to Sanders what UK media did to Jeremy Corbyn, in branding him as obviously unacceptable and inherently unelectable.

    I thought that Corbyn was an inept political leader and may have missed an opportunity for the UK to elect a non BREXIT unity government that eliminated the Tories, but that would also mean that Corbyn would bow out as a potential prime minister. Bigger picture.

    But it was also clear that Corbyn scared the crap out of the Establishment because he was an honest and honorable radical. And there was no way in hell that anyone was going to let him become prime minister.

    Sanders would be more formidable if he actually thought out his positions. But he has been pushing the mindless reductive lie that “we need to do it like they do in Europe ” for his entire political career.

    It is interesting to see that Yang is nothing but a ridiculous joke. Enough said.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That’s is so last decade news…..

    His brain has been gone so long that it’s like looking for lost pyramids – in the Virgin Islands. Except you stand a better chance of finding a lost pyramid in the Virgin Islands than ever finding something even resembling a mind with David Brooks being within 200 miles.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @Brachiator:

    If I thought Brooks was intellectually capable of it, I would surmise they he is trying to egg Sanders into running again if Biden doesn’t, which Sanders should not do.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Yang’s party supports…

    That’s the crazy thing. Some of his positions are reasonable. But he’s just so damn vacuous about so much other stuff.

    ETA. I’m not quite sold on ranked choice voting. One of the candidates in the San Francisco mayoral election tried to make a deal in trying to get their voters to all choose one guy as their second choice vote.

  52. 52.

    SpaceUnit

    Dems should change their name to the Antifa Party just to watch em cry and shit their pants on Fox.

    ETA:  Plus a party whose members dress all in black with bandannas over their face and carry Molotov cocktails could activate a lot of the untapped youth vote.

  53. 53.

    Mike E

    I’m watching 60 Minutes which just did a segment on our children’s mental health crisis. A very solid presentation and I hope it leads to more awareness.

  54. 54.

    Geminid

    @Baud: This is not neccesarily a real party in the sense of having a common substantive program. I’m assuming the other principals could be figureheads.

    And if in 2024 Yang wins the Forward Party’s Presidential nomination- whatever process is used- there will be nothing to stop him from announcing that in addition to electoral reform, the country also needs Medicare for All and cuts in the Pentagon budget. I can think of “opinion leaders” on the left who would back Yang just because they hate the Democratic Party.

    The party would just be a vehicle; unaccountable billionaires like Peter Thiel could provide the financial muscle. The same people (or their friends) might finance a Tulsi Gabbard run on the Green Party ticket.

    That scenario may sound paranoid, but I don’t think it’s farfetched. Conservative billionaires will be going all out to defeat the Democratic party in 2024. I don’t think the Republican party can do that alone. They will need help from third parties, like they had help from the Greens and the Libertarians in 2016.

    In a month the Forward Party should be filing its first quarterly FEC reports. I’ll be interested to see where the money’s coming from.

  55. 55.

    Mike in NC

    So apparently Trump once again attacked Moscow Mitch and insulted his wife. Asked if he had a response, the Turtle just said “No”.

  56. 56.

    trollhattan

    Yang is a mileinch wide and an inch deep. Andrew Yang is 1 cubic inch of tepid water.

    There are 231 cubic inches of water in 1 gallon.

  57. 57.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: I want to see how ranked choice voting works out in a few states for a few years before I get behind it. I thnk it’s the coming thing though.

  60. 60.

    Geminid

    @Mike in NC: McConnell’s not getting into a fight with trump before the midterms. Republicans need trump’s hard core fans to win back the House and Senate. McConnell will just bite his tongue until November 9.

  61. 61.

    Mike in NC

    Photo from yesterday released showing Fat Bastard standing with a bunch of (white male) PA State Troopers, with that grimace that passes for a smile and a thumbs-up sign with the little orange hands. Because his favorite hobby is police brutality.

  62. 62.

    Jim Appleton

    @trollhattan:  Slight correction, Yang is, at best, one cubic inch and a mile wide.

    Other than his grift, I’ll be surprised to see any real effect, especially on the down-ballot issues he claims as his focus.

  64. 64.

    Betty

    @zhena gogolia: On immigration, I assume it means a special visa program for smart, highly skilled peoole. For energy, investing in fossil fuels while also investing in clean energy.

  66. 66.

    Citizen Alan

    My biggest take away from the video is that I am now counting the days until Jim Acosta gets fired by by his new trump sucking bosses.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @Citizen Alan: I wondered about that, too, wondering if he was daring them to fire him for telling the truth.  Or maybe his days are already numbered at CNN and he’s using his influence while he’s got it.

  68. 68.

    Danielx

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Whaddya talking about? He gets paid major bucks for producing 800 words of drivel a week. Sounds like a sane and reasonable gig to me. Whether he believes any of it is a whole nother thing.

  69. 69.

    persistentillusion

    @lowtechcyclist: No time for Yang: today is the day I wash out my garbage cans.

    ETA: I actually knew someone who used that as an excuse to avoid things she didn’t want to do.

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    Speaking of multiple parties, Israel will hold its fifth election since 2019 on November 1. Polls show the number of Knesset members each party would likely get, but the 11 or 12 parties projected to reach the 3.25% threshold are often lumped into the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs. The pro-Netanyahu bloc has been hovering around 58 or 59 of projected MKs, while the antis come in around 55 or 56.

    The remainder are the 5-6 Arab Joint List candidates who are not expected to join either coalition. In the last election a smaller Arab party, Ra’am,  split off from the Joint List and won 4 MKs. Ra’am was part of the eight party coalition that dissolved itself in June.

    Israeli parties run national slates. The proportional representation system awards Knesset members according a party’s vote totals. A 10% total wins 12 seats in the 120 member Knesset. A coalition needs 61 seats to form a government.

  77. 77.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    It was either Orwell or Marty McFly who said a Forward Party will emerge to take us backwards

  80. 80.

    Honus

    @zhena gogolia: I mean, that’s the whole thing right there. Bernie Sanders is completely harmless and eminently reasonable and rational, especially compared to trump.  But hey, he might advocate for a progressive tax policy, that, of course, would never get through congress.

  81. 81.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: I think Israel’s parliamentary system is about the best existing argument for having 2 strong major parties that battle it out for power.  A party for every faction invites stalemate, protects whoever is in power, and makes progress difficult (or impossible).

    (Italy was the perennial example before them.)

    Politics is slow.  Parties need time to get things done and throwing the bums out every 6-18 months means that nothing gets done.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    Another Scott

    @CliosFanBoy: I voted for Perot then (and Nader in 2000).  (It took me a while to finally be willing to be responsible for my political choices…)  I don’t remember enough to know who I would have voted for if Perot hadn’t been running, but I have never voted for a GOPer for President.

    The counter-factual of how the race might have turned out if he hadn’t run would be interesting, as a momentary diversion.  My recollection is that he beat up on both of them pretty badly, but really didn’t like GHWB.  Probably some intra-Texas rivalry contributed…

    I suspect that Clinton went so hard after balancing the budget to pull the rug out from Perot on that argument.  And that was Ok, though of course it could have been done better with less stress on the bottom 50%, but politics is messy…

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    @Mike in NC:

    So apparently Trump once again attacked Moscow Mitch and insulted his wife. Asked if he had a response, the Turtle just said “No”.

    McConnell knows that the best way to handle Trump, if you are a Republican, is to ignore him. Trump can insult Moscow Mitch 24/7, but otherwise he cannot hurt him.

  87. 87.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Brachiator: ​
      I know what you mean, Dan Ackroyd was only 23 when SNL started but he looked like someone in his mid 30s.

  88. 88.

    Peale

    So basically, our current immigration system without such humanitarian concerns like “family members” or “asylum” or “refugees” with another ratchet up of “get tough on the undocumented” so DACA can provide a few months of relief.

  90. 90.

    Llelldorin

    It seems like Andrew Yang hasn’t even realized the most basic principle of politics: the fact that his personal opinions aren’t automatically representative of the will of a block of voters.

    He’s the wrong grade of stupid to pull that off. It works for Trump, because Trump is effectively the living avatar of the American id. Trump’s every opinion boils down to “what would the first thought of a really ignorant racist be?” Yang’s opinions are all of the smug rich techbro variety, which have a much smaller base of support (basically just other smug rich techbros).

  92. 92.

    catclub

    @Another Scott: ​
      but I have never voted for a GOPer for President.

    I voted for John Anderson or Jimmy Carter in 1980, cannot remember. I was 20. Does that count as GOPer?

  93. 93.

    Peale

    @WaterGirl: Our current immigration system is “pro-business” with draconian enforcement. It has been that way since the 80s.  However, it also takes into consideration family reconciliation and our commitment to human rights treaties on asylum and refugees.  There are many problems with our immigration system, but “Businesses can’t find workers” isn’t one of those problems.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: Israel’s proportional representation system was instituted in 1948. The Labor Party dominated politics for almost three decades, and then for a while it traded office with Menachem Begin’s Likud. Labor declined afterwards but bounced back to win 7 seats in the election this March.

    Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party has won over many of Labor’s center left voters, and at 18 has the second most MKs. Netanyahu’s Likud has ~28. Lapid got the “mandate” to form a government when Netanyahu failed. His success surprised everyone. Lapid allowed right wing Yamina leader Naftali Bennett to take the first rotation as Prime Minister.

    The coalition fell because of defections by Yamina MKs. Bennett is retiring for now, and Yamina likely will not make the 3.25% threshold. Lapid became interim Prime  Minister when the government fell.

    Israel’s Jewish vote is fragmented partly because there are two ultra orthodox, or Haredi, parties that win ~14 MKs between them. The Sephardic rabbis run one and the Ashkenazi rabbis run the other. They have sat with the Likud coalition this past decade.

    Netanyahu himself is the biggest roadblock to unity, at least among the Jewish, or Zionist parties. The Right is very strong now in Israel, but some of Likud’s natural partners will not sit in a Netanyahu government. The leaders do not trust Netanyahu, and some hate his guts. And now Netanyahu is relying on support from the radical, racist National Religious Party. The other party leaders see them as even worse than Netanyahu, and they are.

    If Netanyahu can’t get his four party coalition to 61 votes, the result might another election, the sixth in four years. Or, Defense Minister Benny Gantz might persuade the two Haredi parties to join a coalition with his Blue and White Party and Lapid’s. Gantz would still need to bring the other four current coalition partners on board but Lapid showed it could be done.

    This probably would be a more durable coalition than the last one. Gantz already has added Gideon Saar’s New Hope party to his, and has been joined by retired general Gadi Eisenkot. Both Gantz and Eisenkot are former Israeli Defense Force Chiefs of Staff.

    I follow this stuff on the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post. The liberal newspaper Haaretz is probably better but it’s paywalled.

  98. 98.

    SFAW

    Yang’s “hey, we’ll do whatever the voters want” bullshit reminds me of a former co-worker’s characterization of the UU “church”: “Hey, whatever you want to believe, we’re OK with that.”

    But the UUs are that way because they want to open their arms to anyone, without those persons feeling judged, etc. Big difference from running for office. Or wanting to be a kingmaker, I guess.

  99. 99.

    SFAW

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Alphabetise the spice rack.
    Walk the goldfish.
    Colour-coordinate your sock drawer.

    Floss the cat.
    ETA: And you’re ‘Murican, dammit! “Colour”? “Alphabetise”?

  102. 102.

    Geminid

    @SFAW: Yang’s so-called party will not have the positive power for him to be a king maker. But if he can siphon off enough Democratic votes Yang can be a king breaker.

  103. 103.

    SFAW

    @Geminid: ​
     
    Agreed. The only question(s) (for me, that is): will he be a king-breaker by design, or does he really think he can be a king-maker? Of course, answering “yes” to either/both would just show what a clueless, delusional, grifting asshole he really is.

  106. 106.

    Tony G

    @azlib: Unfortunately it’s not just the New York Times and Bobo Brooks.  This evening I had the misfortune of listening to the “United States of Anxiety” program on NPR.  The host, Kai Wright, was “interviewing” Mona Charen, an “anti-Trump conservative” by feebly lobbing softball questions to her.  At one point Charen was lamenting the “fact” that so many Democrats are “so far to the left” while some Republicans are vulgar like Mr. Trump.  Both sides!  The host refrained from asking for some examples of those frightening “far left” ideas.   NPR seems to have a policy of hiring only people who are spineless and dumb as their on-air “personalities”.

  107. 107.

    Nettoyeur

    @Anne Laurie: Brooks got his $5M house, traded in his 40-50 yr old wife for a trophy popsie to make him feel young again , and has been trying to re look himself into a morally upright but hip new age conservative. Sort of intello Botox.

  109. 109.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: I think it’s more of a systemic problem than the electorate changing.  3.5% for a seat is far too low, IMO.  It invites and enables factionalism – especially these days – so that a stable majority cannot form.  It encourages narrow, zealous, factions that can throw monkey wrenches into the system of governance if they don’t get their way.

    And it means that a near-majority is going to have to invite in a far-right (or far-left) couple of seats to be able to govern, and will always be at the table with the “tire rims and anthrax” lady.  :-/

    So Israeli governments end up heading in more extreme direction nearly every election to get their support.

    Why “especially these days”?  Because it is so easy now to collect mountains of data and slice and dice it to find the buttons to push to get your zealous supporters to turn out.  It’s also probably why Israel’s military actions seem to be more frequent in the run-up to elections.  Hamas and Israel’s right-wing both know the value in “keep me as leader because the times are dangerous and I will fight the other guys”…

    Wikipedia:

    The electoral threshold was previously set at 1% from 1949 to 1992, then 1.5% from 1992 to 2003, and then 2% until March 2014 when the current threshold of 3.25% was passed (effective with elections for the 20th Knesset).[14] As a result of the low threshold, a typical Knesset has 10 or more factions represented. With so many parties, it is nearly impossible for one party or faction to govern alone, let alone win a majority.[citation needed] No party or faction has ever won the 61 seats necessary for a majority; the closest being the 56 seats won by the Alignment in the 1969 elections[15] (the Alignment had briefly held 63 seats going into the 1969 elections after being formed shortly beforehand by the merger of several parties, the only occasion on which any party or faction has ever held a majority).[16] Every Israeli government has been a coalition of two or more parties.[citation needed]

    Israel’s government policies would be very different without the low-threshold system. They need to raise the value again to something sensible (like 33% or so) if they’re going to keep it.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“Who is admittedly very cynical about the topic.”)

  110. 110.

    Geminid

    @Another Scott: I did not say it was a good system. But it’s the one they will have for the forseeable future.

    There is a far right in Israeli politics. That would be the National Religious Party. There really is no far left, unless you were to count the 6 or so MKs in the Arab Joint List. They have never been a factor in coalition politics.

    The liberal Meretz Party isn’t far left. They want movement towards a two state solution to the Palestinian question, but that sentiment is not confined to Israel’s left. Gantz’s new partner, former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, is a strong advocate of “separation” with a Palestinian state as the result. Most of the rest of Gantz’s party as well as Lapid’s believe this also.

    I’m not so sure Israeli military operations against the Palestinians occur because governments are unstable. I think Israel would have fought the battle with  Islamic Jihad in Gaza a few weeks ago even if elections were not coming up. I remember seeing an opinion piece quoted here that said this was a done for electoral purposes, but the writer did not discuss the reasons Israel gave for its actions. That would have given the reader a better base of knowledge from which to make an informed judgement.

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