Yang to launch third party, following failed White House, NYC mayoral bid as Democrat, report
Former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and failed New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang will reportedly launch a third party next month.
The plan is being reported by Politico, based on information from two people familiar with the matter.
Yang and his team remain cagey about planning details at the moment, but the launch will likely coincide with the release of his new book "Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy."
The former businessman provided captivating B-and-C-plot political story lines during his last two races with creative ideas about economics and governance, though he failed to captivate a significant or mainstream audience. Famously, his presidential campaign was centrally predicated on the idea of giving citizens $1,000 checks on a monthly basis — a proposal more closely aligned with big thinkers in Silicon Valley than with lawmakers in either major U.S. political party.
Though the basis of his new party has not yet been revealed, a blurb for the new book by New York Times writer Kara Swisher reads: "Can there be another political party in the U.S.? ... In Forward, Yang does not just give us a laundry list of intractable problems, but shows how we can find solutions if we think in new ways and summon the courage to do so."
Crown, the book's publisher, writes that Yang's book is a harsh look at America's "era of institutional failure," through which he plans to introduce the people to "various 'priests of decline'" in America, including "politicians whose incentives have become divorced from the people they supposedly serve."