The Realignment: What Should We Ask Andrew Yang Tomorrow?

Original post about America's central problem this decade, a job opportunity, episodes of the week, and more...

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Welcome Back to The Realignment

As promised, we’re going to ramp up the amount of original content featured in this newsletter. Thanks to everyone who commented/wrote in offering encouragement. Below you’ll find a quick post by Marshall, a job opportunity from our sponsor, Lincoln Network, links to this week’s episodes, and links to our Bookshop storefront.

What’s America’s Central Political Problem in the 2020s?

Tomorrow, Saagar and I are recording our episode with Andrew Yang that’s set to come out on Tuesday, October 5th. The release will coincide with the launch of Andrew’s new book: Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy. Side note, you can pre-order Forward at our Bookshop storefront to help support the show and independent booksellers.

Andrew’s new book is controversial because in it, he discusses his plans to launch a new third-party, unsurprisingly called the Forward Party. To learn more before our episode and the book launch, listen to his interview with Kara Swisher on the Sway podcast that came out this morning.

Not to oversimplify things, but Andrew’s approach is essentially as follows: recognizing that America’s political system doesn’t incentivize problem solving, either at the campaign or the legislative level, he proposes two fixes. First, we should abolish closed-party primaries. Second, we should enact a ranked-choice voting system. Advocates of this approach argue that it would force politicians to stop playing to the extremes in their bases during the primaries (because everyone, including independents and members of other parties could participate) while also increasing the opportunities for third parties because under a ranked-choice system, a person could vote “Green” or “Progressive” first, but then mark “Democrat” second.

Andrew’s usefully sums up his perspective.

Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 @AndrewYang

There should be at least four separate political parties at this point - Progressives, Moderate Dems, Moderate Republicans and Conservatives.

To be honest, I’m not so sure that I’m convinced that these reforms will fundamentally “solve” the country’s problems in the 2020s. For good or for ill, the U.S. has always had some sort of two-party political duopoly. An initial question I’ll ask Andrew at the start of the episode will be “Why is now fundamentally different?” Why were we able to make it through the absolutely *insane* post-Civil War to progressive era without needing to add additional political parties.

From my perspective, the problem for the 2020s is the fact that we lack the language and political talent to reckon with a changing country and world. Even the concept of “solutions” doesn’t quite sit right with me. There is no “solution” to gun control, abortion, climate change, COVID, etc…There’s a process by which leaders and policymakers go about addressing the problem.

I haven’t quite made up my mind yet as to what I think about all this, just wanted to telegraph my skepticism before going into the interview. I still have time to prep tonight and tomorrow morning, so you’ll hear something more cogent/comprehensive tomorrow.

So here’s my request: What do you, the listener think about Andrew’s third party move/proposal? What do you think is the central problem facing American democracy this decade?

Job Opportunity: Lincoln Network Fellowship on Emerging Technologies

We wanted to pass along this cool job announcement from our sponsor Lincoln Network that’ll be right up the alley of any listeners with a STEM/economics background that’s interested technological competition between the U.S. and China.

Quick reminder, we’re sponsored by the Lincoln NETWORK, not PROJECT.

Lincoln Network is excited to announce a new resident fellowship program at the intersection of national security and emerging technologies. Fellows will spend a year working with our team in Washington, DC to translate academic ideas to actionable policies that advance American innovation. The program will focus on policy questions arising from escalating US-China competition in key technology areas (e.g. artificial intelligence, industrial supply chain, telecommunications, quantum computing).

Over the course of the program, fellows will have the opportunity to learn from subject matter experts in a range of technology and policy domains; engage directly with policymakers including agency and congressional staff; author policy papers and other publications; and build coalitions and networks with think tanks, advocacy groups, journalists, and philanthropic funders.

Programming and research support for the fellowship is being developed in collaboration with the Plaintext Group, an initiative of Schmidt Futures to strengthen U.S. leadership in innovation.

• Fellows will receive a stipend of $90,000 plus Lincoln’s standard benefits package including, Medical, Dental, Vision, Group life Insurance and a 6% 401k match. Additional benefits include, an unlimited PTO policy, offices closed on all Federal holidays, a cell phone stipend and 10 weeks fully paid Maternity/Paternity leave.

• Applicants should be early to mid-career, and have a background in STEM or other relevant field (such as economics).

• Ideal candidates will come to the program with deep subject matter expertise and novel policy ideas they want to work on.

• The fellowship is based in Washington, DC.

• The program will begin on January 10, 2022 and will end on December 30, 2022.

• The inaugural cohort will have three fellows.

More information on the fellowship HERE.

This Week’s Episodes

Episode 163: Eliana Johnson and Chris Stirewalt: The Real Lessons of the 2016 and 2020 Elections

(Audio) (Video)

Eliana and Chris’s Podcast: Ink Stained Wretches

Episode 162: Max Chafkin: What the Rise of the Silicon Valley Right Means for America

(Audio) (Video)

Max’s Book: The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power (Available at our Bookshop)

The Realignment Bookshop

As a reminder, we’ve created a Realignment Bookshop affiliate store showcasing books by guests, what we’re actively reading this year and deeper dives into the featured topic of an episode.

Most importantly, you don’t need to go with our recommendations if you want to support the show. If you go to Bookshop.org through our link and then purchase *anything* we still get your support.

If you purchase a book using our link, the show gets a 10% commission, a local, independent bookseller gets support, and you get an awesome book!

Here are two lists we’ve built out:

1) Books by Realignment Guests

2) Books we’ve read/listened to in 2021

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Let us know what you think about this or any other week’s episodes. Please share The Realignment with anyone who’d enjoy the podcast.