On Thursday, September 28, the University of Southern California Center for the Political Future hosted an open panel Q&A with Forward Party founder Andrew Yang at Taper Hall. The event was open to all students and was hosted in conjunction with BridgeUSA, a national organization dedicated to bringing politicians to high schools and colleges to generate dialogue.
USC Political Union President Eli Scott stated that Yang’s decision to speak to students gave the campus organization a lot of momentum.
“A lot of our members have looked up to Andrew Yang, both members of the right and the left,” Scott said. “Andrew Yang tends to situate somewhere in the middle, not as a centrist, but as someone who bridges a gap. The Forward Party has been something we’ve looked up to for a while in terms of bridging a divide.”
After a brief Q&A with a moderator, the event was opened up to all students to ask questions. Yang began discussing how partisan politics prevent change from being made in American democracy by noting the disparity between government approval and reelection rates.
“What is the approval rating of Congress right now?” Yang asked. “It’s around 20%. What is the reelection rate for those in Congress? 95%.”
Yang began discussing The Forward Party, a political party he founded to give voters another voting option while challenging the two party system in place. He then proposed an alternative voting system to increase voter count in America.
“Right now, voters are getting bullied into voting for the ‘acceptable’ candidate instead of who we actually like,” Yang said. “If you have a ranking system with alternative voting choices beyond the confines of the two party system, I think it will actually increase public trust.”
In addition to his dissatisfaction with the partisan politics at play, Yang also talked about how the current capitalist system in play was unsustainable. He then proposed a system that he called “human-centric capitalism”, where the economy would revolve around the well being of people.
“One of the most dangerous things about right now is that the economy can do well while people are doing worse and worse, which is exactly what’s happening in American life,” Yang said. “Instead, I want to measure how your economy is doing based on how people are doing. And then if I do something that makes you happier, healthier and it gets rewarded.”
To sustain this system, Yang proposed the funding of alternative currencies that would reward people based on several factors. This philosophy’s core tenant revolved around having currencies be equivalent to the work people in order to eliminate income inequality.
“Whenever I look around, I see live music bands that are not being paid jack shit, but they make people happy,” Yang said. “These new currencies would recognize and reward people who do positive things for the community. So you could basically give people special credits based on their art that could be used for something like a meal out.”
Yang closed out the event by talking about how economic and social progress would only be made by revamping the political system and how he wanted his Forward Party to be a vessel for that change, with the Party’s founding values being centered around diverse thinking, collaborative solutions, and grassroots initiatives. He also continued to express support for Universal Basic Income as a tool for poverty alleviation and chastised the current state of American politics for being ineffective.
“Let’s cure the political system and then we can fight out specifics,” Yang said. “The current system is a waste of time for everybody. Only if we merge the two sides of our nation can we make decisions about how we let the political system work for us.”