Andrew Yang’s track record in electoral politics is ... well, it’s not great. He lost his quixotic bid to become the president of the United States. Then he was thumped into the stratosphere for trying to convince voters he could be the mayor of New York City. His pivot to playing kingmaker with the launch of his “Forward” political party (“the Forward Party stands for doing, not dividing”) has thus far failed spectacularly at actually making any kings.
Nevertheless! Yang is standing his ground — no matter how uninspiring that ground may be.
Speaking with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Sunday evening, Yang valiantly defended his nascent political movement from Acosta’s observation that actually, catchphrases notwithstanding, the Forward Party doesn’t seem to do much of anything. Like, at all.
“You’re gonna have to come up with policy positions at some point,” an exhausted-sounding Acosta said, pressing Yang on whether the Forward Party has an opinion on the recent Supreme Court ruling to repeal the federal right to abortion granted under Roe v. Wade.
“I personally think that women’s reproductive rights are fundamental human rights, but the Forward Party has a, not left or right, but forward stance on even the most divisive and contentious issues,” Yang responded, prompting Acosta to very reasonably point out that this doesn’t actually mean anything at all.
“You wanna run the country, you’re gonna have to make some hard decisions, Andrew,” Acosta snarked, while Yang stammered his fidelity to the abstract notion that there is a “common sense consensus” for every single issue, no matter how divisive it may be.
It was not exactly Yang’s most rousing, or particularly “forward thinking,” appearance. And yet, as befits a true 21st-century political opportunist, Yang snatched what he seems to think was victory from the jaws of obvious, embarrassing defeat, tweeting that akshually!!!! the fact that he’d been exposed as a hollow conglomeration of catchphrases was good for him.
Oh well! Onward and upward, and — if not actually forward — twirling, twirling twirling toward freedom.
