The Politics of Ranked Choice

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Andrew Yang: If your plan is to defeat Republicans from now until the end of time, in a country where 19 percent of people think you’re on the right track, that is a dumb plan. That, like, that, that, that plan’s gonna fail. A much better plan is to try and actually make the system more representative and multi-polar and make it so that even if you did have a bad leader of one party, They don’t control two or three branches of the government.That’s a good plan.

Zachary Karabell: What Could Go Right? I’m Zachary Karabell, the founder of The Progress Network, joined as always by my co host, Emma Varvaloucas, the executive director of The Progress Network and What Could Go Right is our weekly podcast where we talk to fascinating people about fascinating subjects that are of deep and profound import.

I know I say that with a slight twinge of sarcasm, but the fact is, it’s all true anyway. And we are in the silly season of politics, so we thought we should continue to have some conversations as we have had before about the silly season of politics with people who are either astute, non hysterical commentators, we didn’t.

Conversation with Evan Osnos a few weeks back, or are in the trenches of trying to make our political systems better, different, more suited to our era and not just suited to past eras. So we’re gonna talk to someone who has been much in the limelight and the spotlight as somebody who is indeed trying to do all of that.

 

So Emma. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Today we’re going to talk to Andrew Yang, and that’s the whole introduction. I think people know who he is. I’m joking, but I mean, a lot of people know who he is. You might know him from the 2020 presidential primaries. Maybe you know him as a big advocate of universal basic income. You may or may not know that he started a new political party.

 

In 2021, which is called the forward party. It’s a centrist political party with a stated goal to provide an alternative, of course, to the two major ones, Democrats and the Republicans. So. He is in the thick of work with that, some other projects, including Ranked Choice Voting. So we’re going to talk to him about Democratic Reformation, big and small, today.

 

Zachary Karabell: Let’s do it. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah. Ready for the yang yang?

 

Zachary Karabell: Andrew Yang, it is such a pleasure to have you as our guest for this episode of What Could Go Right? I’ve been a member of The Progress Network for a long while, almost as long as The Progress Network has been around. And you certainly have had a varied and interesting bunch of years between running for mayor of New York in the heart of COVID land, and then forming a third party, and you gave a great TED talk, which I was at in April.

 

I think let’s start with this question. Which is a cute, just for our listeners, more for when we’re recording this at the end of August, right on the heels of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dropping his. third party presidential bid and endorsing Donald Trump. And while there are a few other candidates on various state ballots in third party ways, I guess Jill Stein is still on, on the ballot in a bunch of States.

 

You know, once again, most of our contemporary election is Democrat versus Republican. There isn’t really option C, D, and E. There was with Ross Perot, there was with John Anderson in 1980, there was, You know, George Wallace in 68, there was Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond in 48. We’ve had third parties that are viable in the past.

 

Are we ever going to have other options ever again? 

 

Andrew Yang: Oh, sure thing. first in transparency, I’ve endorsed Kamala Harris, which is probably not shocking, to most people. I got into public life in part because I thought that Trump was not who you want as president. And I still feel that today. It’s actually been very saddening to me how many people seem to have changed their mind on that.

 

It’s not like Trump became a different guy or like a better leader at that time. so, you know, that, that’s, truly unfortunate. RFK dropping out to endorse Trump, I also found very saddening. but I do think that you’re going to continue to see more. People push for alternatives in large part because the number of independents in the United States keeps on going up and up.

 

Today, it’s about 50 percent. When Ross Perot ran in 92, it was 25 percent. So it gives you a sense, we’ve doubled. And it’s even higher among young people. I think two thirds of young people don’t think either party really represents them. So you’re going to see this energy continue to rise and rise.

 

All 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: right. Speaking of that, Andrew, maybe you can give us a bit of a summary of where the Forward party stands right now in the various states. I mean, I know there’s efforts to get the party on, on various ballots, but like what, what’s actually the state of play right now? 

 

Andrew Yang: Well, thanks for asking Emma. Forward party.

 

So, so fun and glorious. So the things I’m excited about in November, aside from hopefully Kamala winning would be. Several states changing their primary system. And Zach, thank you for referencing my TED talk. if people haven’t seen it, please do check it out. And Andrew Yang TED talk talking about how our primaries right now distort our politics and that there are a number of states that are genuinely looking at changing that this November, it’s going to be Nevada, Colorado.

 

Arizona, Idaho, maybe Oregon. So you’re looking at four states plus that might get rid of their primaries for real, which would change the incentive structure for 6, 8, 10 US senators joining Alaska and making this kind of move. So that’s something that the forward party is very excited about in those states and beyond.

 

There are people who are not in those states who are heading to those states to volunteer and say, Hey guys, you get. Get rid of your primaries. So that’s, something we’re excited about for November. We have about 300 candidates that Forward is supporting at every level, particularly in places like Pennsylvania and Nevada, where we think we can boost the sane, principled, non Trump vote in those states by X thousand.

 

And we think that could be a difference maker. Plus, Obviously, some of those candidates could win office. we’re backing a number of congressional candidates as well, who represent reformists and people who want to see things get done in Washington. So forward party has a lot on the table in November.

 

Sorry to be a bit long winded there, Emma, but it’s, it’s good fun, building. The movement organization around the country. 

 

Zachary Karabell: So let’s talk about some of those changes between primary and, and kind of alluding to ranked choice voting as, as a, as an alternative, which you certainly have seen in Maine for a little while and which New America, the New America foundation has been also doing a lot of the intellectual legwork for years before.

 

Is that workable at a more national level or does it really only work for local races? I mean, I guess you could do it for a president, right? You could, the same principle would apply. Maybe explain to people, because I’m not sure everyone fully understands the mechanism. 

 

Andrew Yang: Yeah, this comes up in my TED talk as well, but ranked choice voting is the mechanism that could release us all from the dysfunctional politics and it can be adopted at the statewide level very straightforwardly.

 

All of the states I mentioned earlier are looking at Using Rank Choice voting for congressional races, it’s what Alaska did in their 22 races that had Sarah Palin lose to Mary Palla and Lisa Murkowski managed to edge out a Trumper in the, both in the second round of Rank Choice voting. So if you don’t know what rank Choice voting is, please do check it out and it’s sweeping the country.

 

I’m on the board of an organization called Fair Vote Action, which is pushing rank choice voting initiatives around the country. And if you don’t like our politics and you want to vote differently, Ranked Choice Voting is the way. Imagine if someone you like could run for president without fear of messing things up or being a spoiler because you could vote for that person.

 

And then if that person did not get 51%, then you can just rank your second choice. Let’s call it mainstream Democrat in the race. It could be your second choice. And then you could be agitating for whatever you want and then not be accused of messing it up. End. This is now a reality in communities around the country, and it could be true nationwide.

 

If you had ranked choice voting in a presidential election, then any of us could run for president and no one could accuse you of, of enabling the quote unquote bad guys to win. By the way, there are a number of state parties that are already using ranked choice voting in their primaries. to nominate the presidential candidate.

 

So, this is very much on the table. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Andrew, I know you have a TED Talk about this, and I know that we don’t want to like get bogged out into the details about how exactly ranked choice voting works. But I do want you actually to explain like the mechanism of how it functions. Only because one of the most common criticisms to it is that it’s difficult to explain and it’s difficult for people to understand.

 

I was talking to my friend before we came on here and I was like, Hey, Andrew Yang’s coming on the podcast. And he was like, Oh, I really like Andrew Yang. You know, what, what is he up to? And I was like, Oh, well, like he has this thing about rank choice voting now. And then I tried to explain it and I was like, Oh, this was, I thought I knew how this worked.

 

And I like, don’t really. And that did not give me a lot of hope for like getting that out to millions of people. of voters nationwide. 

 

Andrew Yang: Oh, thanks, Emma. I appreciate it. Come today, Andrew, to explain RCV. Nothing would make me happier. So ranked choice voting is a more modern, effective voting system where we can rank more than one candidate.

 

And if your candidate does not win a majority, then your vote flows through to your second choice. until someone does have a majority. So if there are five candidates in the race and one person has 51 percent in the first round, then obviously that person wins. Everyone would understand that. But if no one has a majority, then they take the voters who voted for the worst performing candidate in the field and reallocate their votes until someone does get a majority.

 

And so this has very dramatic positive effects. Because it means that whoever wins actually had majority appeal. Whereas if you have three or four candidates, it’s possible to win a race like J. D. Vance did with 32 percent of the vote. And that’s not very representative or fair. So ranked choice voting means more candidates can participate.

 

And whoever wins has to have a majority of support. You know, it’s 

 

Zachary Karabell: funny, and in a much more informal way, when presidential conventions actually did nominate a candidate, I thought it was kind of amusing when people were criticizing the way in which Biden resigned and Kamala Harris became the nominee as somehow anti democratic when until the 1940s.

 

Under those definitions, the entire way we selected both Senate and presidential candidates was anti democratic because it was not subject to popular vote, right? So when conventions would get together, it was often the case that the, the leader in the first ballot didn’t have a majority and you’d have a lot of negotiation to reallocate votes.

 

It wasn’t as transparent as, as ranked choice voting, but in a sense it was a way of recognizing that there, there can be a lot of energies, camps, ideas represented even in one party that have to be massaged and figured out. And then that’s a lot of what presidential conventions did before the 1950s and 1960s.

 

I do wonder about this, you know, whether or not the, the, not just the inertia of the established parties. And I’m, I’m interested how you found this in doing it forward, but the intense territoriality of like, we are going to try not just to prevent, but to destroy. Any viable third party or alternatives, because that interferes with our monopoly on the political franchise.

 

Andrew Yang: Well, the clearest example of this is Nevada, where it was proposed to Nevada voters saying, Hey, how would you like to be able to vote for anyone in the primary, regardless of party. And the Democrats came out against it. And the reason they came out against it was because the current system works pretty well for the folks on the inside.

 

They said, you know what? We don’t want you to be able to vote for anyone. We’d rather essentially have this system where we can control who gets nominated and then it’s just our one candidate against the one candidate on the other side. And so the arguments they had to level to, to the voters, Zachary, were really pretty weird and dark.

 

It was like, this would get too confusing for you if you could vote for whoever you wanted was one. You know what I mean? Like there, there were, you know, people were like, wait a minute. I actually kind of liked the idea of voting for whoever, whomever I wanted to the point that this one. 53 47 in Nevada in 22, despite the fact that both major parties came out against it, which just goes to show that there’s a massive appetite for this kind of change, but that the parties, so the parties are going to fight it where they don’t think it’s in their interests.

 

You know what I mean? Like, like if you run this in a place like Idaho, the Democrats were not going to care because they’re like, ah, whatever. It’s a red state where we are, we’re weaklings there anyway, who cares? But then if you run it someplace where they feel very strong, they’re like, Oh, we don’t like it.

 

Like what, what it, what it really is, is that it weakens the control of the parties over who runs or what issues they run on and what the outcome is because it’s just a little bit more open and dynamic. And I’m going to suggest that would be a win for most American voters. So they’re like, Hey, sure. That sounds good to me.

 

but then the parties will say no, no, no, depending upon where it is. And, we think that’s fairly unprincipled and un lowercase d democratic. It’s like, look, the system just opens it up so that more of us can have a say and that your incentives are better when you’re in office. Because when you’re in office right now, your incentives are just to placate and please the most extreme, Partisan voters in your base who show up to the primary because the primary controls everything.

 

It’s like, shouldn’t you have to make 51 percent of us happy? Like the illusion, like, like, can’t we make the illusion reality that they don’t like it because right now they have a very precise wind number. They know how to get there. They know who the resources are going to come from. And so they’ve got a fairly locked down, established process, and they don’t want to open it up.

 

Emma Varvaloucas: So what happens if like, there are five candidates and you rank three, all of your three are thrown out, you know? 

 

Andrew Yang: You don’t have to, I mean, heck, I ran in a ranked choice voting election. I was like, you don’t have to rank anyone aside from me, just rank me number one and call it a day. And all, and all, all that happens then.

 

Is that, if I don’t get a majority, then your vote doesn’t go anywhere. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now, the current system. So no one gets disadvantaged. It’s just that if your candidate doesn’t get the majority, then there’s a chance that your vote ends up flowing through to your second or third choice.

 

So, but it’s totally optional to your point about it getting confusing. There is an optimal number of candidates, which is why. the Alaska system as an example allows for candidates through to the general. So if you had. And this is unrealistic, but let’s say you had 12 candidates running in the all party primaries, then whoever gets the most votes of the top four end up going through and then you rank them.

 

But you actually never have to rank the top 12. In the primaries, it’s just you show up, vote for your one candidate, go home. And then whoever got the most votes gets through, because people realize that our brains short circuit after, four or five candidates. So, like, you’re not going to be having to choose, among some crazy number in, unless, you know, it’s like a very, very unusual circumstance.

 

And even then you would just vote for the one person you like, because it would be in, in the first stage. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Is there any data, like do you have any data on ranked choice voting and voter turnout? Because on the one hand, like I, I hear, I hear for sure the argument of like, if there’s more people that you are excited about, right?

 

Like instead of having to choose between the Democrat and the Republican, maybe both of which you’re kind of like, ah, I just, I’m not feeling it. Ranked choice voting gives you another option. On the other hand, like I can imagine feeling overwhelmed by a big change in the voting system, especially for someone that is not really.

 

Andrew Yang: Thanks for joining us on the podcast. First, it shows that between 75 percent and 85 percent of voters find it completely easy and want to do it again, which I’m going to suggest is is pretty high, particularly when you’re looking at places like New York. It’s not like getting, you know, 76 percent of New Yorkers to say something’s good.

 

It’s like a pretty high bar. The data also shows it helps women candidates. It helps candidates from underrepresented communities because there, there’s more of a coalition building aspect and that tends to flow more naturally to certain types of candidates. who have a chance of success. Whereas if you just have one vote, then people get slotted into various lanes, and then they frankly, you know, don’t have a majority.

 

So the data is very positive in terms of voter experience. it’s one reason why when this gets adopted, it’s super popular because people figure out it’s like, oh, wait a minute. This just means that I can actually vote the way I want. And that even if my. Number one candidate is frankly, you know, like not going to win.

 

Like I could jump and make my voice heard and then put my second choice to, you know, the, the Democrat or the Republican. And at the margin, it has been shown to be good for turnout.

 

Newscaster 1: Right now, there are a couple initiatives coming up on the ballot that people will be voting on. One would change how elections run in Montana. What’s your reaction to that? 

 

News Guest 1: I’m voting no. This is called rank choice voting. I don’t think we should make our elections more complicated. This would create something called a, a jungle primary, which on its face is not a good idea.

 

elections are complicated enough, I think, Each party should pick their candidate and they should face off in the fall and we should make the decision. Alaska implemented this initiative that’s on the ballot and it was a total train wreck. So I would encourage people to vote no on that initiative that would make our elections more complicated and less deterministic.

 

Zachary Karabell: Let’s broaden the aperture for a moment. There are two very broad ways of looking at American politics right now. One is essentially the media slash commentariat narrative that this is the most partisan divided United States that we’ve seen since whenever we last saw the most divided partisan United States, whether that’s the 1850s or maybe the late 1960s.

 

that we’re on the verge of coming apart at the seams. And then there’s another narrative, which is actually that’s only a media commentary of politician narrative who want to whip up passions and divisions because that helps get out the vote and, you know, fear and outrage. But actually there’s a lot more consensus amongst Americans writ large about basic issues of healthcare and income and taxation.

 

And those are somewhat diametrically opposed. Where do you come out on that spectrum? 

 

Andrew Yang: I think both things are true. but first let me say anyone who wants to check out the ranked choice voting data do go to fairvote. org. they’ve got academics papers up the wazoo. so we are more divided and polarized than ever by the data that there are folks who, hate and fear the other side at a higher level than has been the case in our lifetimes.

 

At the same time, it’s also true that 75 percent plus of us would agree. On things like background checks, or even access to a reproductive care for women. I mean, even things that are very, very inflammatory, there is broad consensus on. Certainly when I was running for president, I could sit with a very conservative Republican and say, Hey, do you think drug prices are too high?

 

And they’d say, yes. And then maybe you differ a little bit on how to bring them down. But you have, unfortunately, and I think this is a by product of the two party system. I do because each party now has realized that one, they only need to cater to their base because of the way the primaries are set up.

 

I 15 percent approval rating for Congress today, right now. And a 94 percent reelect rate. And so you look at that and be like, well, how does that work? And it’s because 90 percent of the seats are either blue or red and not going to be competitive in the general. So then all you have to do is try and keep your base happy and raise enough money.

 

And then you’re golden. then you can coast, for, you know, years and years and years. So we have a very bad incentives problem that ends up amplifying points of view that don’t represent what most Americans are thinking and feeling at any moment in time. And if you go to the average American on the street, frankly, they think both parties are more and more out to lunch.

 

You know, I mean, that that’s why the proportion of independence just keeps on going up. So you have bad political incentives and then bad media incentives. So thank you, Emma and Zachary, The Progress Network, for being one of the, you know, kind of voices of rationality and. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: We do our best, we try. 

 

Andrew Yang: Yeah, yeah.

 

Not, not, not being engaged in the ideological tit for tat, but bad media incentives, and then really noxious social media incentives, and these things are affecting, I’m going to say, let’s call it 10 to 15 percent of the population. Where the polarization is very real and the polarization is actually getting to a point where it can bleed into violence and strife and conflict and animosity and relationships being ended and all of that stuff.

 

So that, that is true and real, but it’s also true and real that 60 percent of Americans are watching this entire thing with Sadness and saying, and you know, and I’m someone look, I mean, obviously, obviously I don’t like Donald Trump and like, I, I prefer what the Democrats are offering, much more so because I think they’re actually trying to at least.

 

Operate the institutions, whereas the Republicans are now in like a kind of tear it down mode. But, I get the sentiment from many Americans who just feel like the system is broken and doesn’t represent them 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: well. I mean, you mentioned, you know, the 94%, reelection rate for Congress members and what comes to mind for me with, with that and also some of the things you mentioned that are like large majorities of Americans agree on.

 

you know, there are also things like term limits for Congress, which I know you’re enthusiastic about. another thing that comes to mind is a ban on stock trades in Congress, right? I look at those things and, I am admiring of the work that you and others are doing, but I’m also thinking to myself, like, how would the Congress ever vote those through?

 

Like, why would anyone that would be negatively affected by those laws passing ever vote them through? 

 

Andrew Yang: I have a clever way to, to address number one, which is vote for term limits, but current lawmakers are exempt. That way you get to do the principal thing, but then you’re grandfathered in and you could be the super old guy or gal while, you know, like the population keeps on coming in and then eventually you would age out and then you’d wind up, you know, having your cake and eating it too.

 

By the way, like, I would be perfectly happy with that. Like, you know, I’m not trying, I’m just trying to improve the system. I don’t, I, like, my joke has been that Washington, D. C. has been on a 20 year tape delay. and that’s, reflected in, you know, the gerontocracy and a bunch of things. And it’s one reason why we’re, we’re so disheartened.

 

but if someone were to say, look, we’re, we’re going to become more current, you know, after we all age out and expire, I would take it. Sure. You know, the, the stock trading thing is also, you know, like that, that they’d be leaving money on the table. So it might be harder. but you know, certainly it’s something that has very broad consensus among voters.

 

Zachary Karabell: I mean, it’s, you know, it’s interesting nowadays, our gerontocracy, but people have remarked, I was even surprised about this, that this is the 2024 presidential election is the first time since 1980. So 44 years where there hasn’t been a Biden, a Bush, or a Clinton on the ballot, which is, you know, kind of extraordinary, right?

 

It’s not just gerontocracy, it’s actually a limited number of coalescing coalitions around a limited number of individuals. So it’s almost like, it’s not just the two party, it’s these 94 percent re election rates. I mean, some of that you could, you could explain in terms of there is in multiple areas.

 

We’ve talked about this on the podcast and other contexts where people dislike the general, but they like the specific, right? So they’re like, American education sucks, but my school is good. Congress is terrible, but my congressperson is good. So there, there is a little bit of that, right? That the people seem to have a much more negative general.

 

Then they do specific, same thing often about how are your own economic fortunes doing? You know, the economy sucks, but I’m doing okay. 

 

Andrew Yang: This is one of the points, Zachary, is that I, as you guys can imagine, I’ve met a lot of office holders. It’s easy to cast them as venal and corrupt. and I’m sure some of them are, but some of them are good, fine people who got into this for the right intentions.

 

but now are incapable of delivering to us what most of us want. and if you break down the situations for each individual actor, you can be like, okay, I get it why you can’t actually do the thing. But then, as a whole, you end up with this dysfunctional, like, entity and bureaucracy and dynamic where like you just throw up your hands.

 

And one example of this, I was one of the. Folks on the pass the torch train when we were trying to get Joe Biden to step aside. And there were dozens and dozens of office holders who thought and felt the same way and would not say a peep because, you know, like they, they looked at their incentives and said, wait a minute.

 

Like if I go against Joe here and this isn’t the thing to do, then I’m now persona non grata. And there, by the way, there was, you know, some, backlash against some of these people. And so regardless of what I think, like, I’m just going to play this thing out and I’m You have a lot of folks who are in that boat, who I’m, you know, this is me when I’m generous, like they’re not terrible human beings, some of them, some of them I actually know and like and think are good human beings, but they’re in a system where in order to succeed, They have to do the unprincipled thing quite regularly, I’m going to suggest.

 

So you, what you want to do is you want to create a system where if they do the right thing, they can keep their job. Right now, too many of them feel like if they do the right thing, they’re going to lose their job. And by the way, they’re right. Like you had 10 Republican House members who voted to impeach Donald Trump.

 

Any of them did not make it back through the primaries. And that’s Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Peter Meyer, Anthony Gonzal. So their colleagues looked up and said, okay, I get it. We do the right thing. We’re out. And if you don’t think that happens on both sides, you know, you gotta check it out because like people who go against the grain of the Democratic Party, like they’re never heard from again either.

 

like my guy, Dean Phillips, who ran against Joe Biden, making the incredibly out of left field case that Joe Biden was too old and unpopular to run and win again. And then his reward was not like, Oh, we shouldn’t have that conversation because you’re a sitting member of Congress. And, you know, you’re risking your career.

 

Instead, it was let’s shiv the heck out of you immediately, primary you and make sure you’re never heard from again and destroy your reputation. you know, that, that’s by the way, that’s what they did to Dean. And so do you think the other Democrats didn’t look up and be like, okay, I get it. You’ll go against the grain in this system that they’re gonna, cast you out.

 

And even though Dean’s case was totally proven correct, and now everyone’s happy that Joe’s out of the way and it’s Kamala Harris. Did they then go back and say, Hey, Dean, it turns out you were right. Let’s give you your career back. No, you know, like he’s, he’s out. So, anyway, so, so that, that’s what’s happening, in, in Washington.

 

You know, there are a lot of good people who are trapped. if I’m feeling good, it’s about freeing good people to do the right thing. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Yeah, I mean, that relates to a question I wanted to ask, which is just like, when I’m feeling good, right, which obviously, like, there are times when you’re not feeling good and maybe you feel bitter or maybe you feel like there’s, anyway, I won’t fill in what you might feel, but, where do you, where do you get the energy, like, and particularly energy that doesn’t lean into, lean into this, like, bitter, like, You guys are out for yourselves.

 

You know, the energy to keep going with the things that you’ve taken on that are like very big pieces of structural change, right? Like these, these are not things that are going to be changed or solved in a year or two years or five years or maybe even 20 years. So how do you resist that kind of like, Oh, this is a really long haul game.

 

And not only is it a long haul game, it’s a long haul game against a system that like you, you have seen from the inside can be very toxic and can represent the worst of people. 

 

Andrew Yang: That’s a generous question for me, Emma, so thank you for that. you know what, one of the things that I’m grateful for is that I have tried to do what I thought was right for now, going on 14 years, and I have been able to do so in a way that has been relatively independent of and immune from whether one party or another is paying me or likes me.

 

And I’ve been rewarded for it in ways big and small. I mean, heck, I got invited to To speak on this awesome podcast. You know, , that was sort of a joke, but

 

well, you 

 

Zachary Karabell: did say rewards big and small, so, you know, 

 

Andrew Yang: so, so you, you, the three of us know do-gooders. you know, of different types, like people who’ve started nonprofits, people who’ve run for office, people who are reformers, like I consider myself to be. Some of them work in very obscure, thankless roles, just trying to do something that they think makes their community a better place.

 

And they do it for years and years and they get much less shine than I do. You know, like I compare myself to, to them because I came up first as someone who ran a private company that was acquired by a public company in 2009. so I made a bit of money and then I ran a nonprofit that I started for six and a half years.

 

And so I feel like my tribe is those people. And I get a lot more love than most of them because. You know, I’m doing something highly visible now. Is it difficult and multi cycle and sometimes, you know, like frustrating? Yeah, of course. But I can put a roof over my head and live a good life. And I’m one of the people that can possibly make a difference.

 

So I should really try and maximize that. Because if someone like me doesn’t do it, then who’s going to? 

 

Zachary Karabell: You know, on that question, I, I wrestle with On the one hand, having a view of, of change in history that, yeah, things happen gradually until they happen quickly. history can change on a dime. You know, you think things are established and set in one particular groove and one particular pattern and then something happens and it, it all changes.

 

Sometimes it changes dramatically for the worst, you know, March of 2020 and global shutdowns during COVID certainly was not a change for the better, nor was it expected. And it was, it was, Startlingly breathtakingly sudden. But then I, you know, we, we talk to a lot of people and I read about a lot of people and I have my own inclinations who have big ideas, big change.

 

You know, we had Daniel Allen on the podcast talking about expanding love, size, love. Yeah. Vo the House of Representatives, you know, make it a thousand or 1500 people build a bigger capital. We talked to. other people about radical change, ideas for radical change. And I have to say, I then have my own moments, maybe not of cynicism, but of profound skepticism that any of that could change.

 

Or, you know, a la Emma’s like, why would anyone vote for term limits? Why would Congress allow for rank choice? And I’m not sure, I mean, I guess I’m curious for you, you answered a bit in your last answer about, look, I have an obligation, I’m someone who can make a change, I’m going to try to, but, but how do you toggle from the kind of, There’s all these things that we need to do, but we, we appear to live at least in our institutional and political systems with such profound, deep, and entrenched sclerosis that at times it’s very hard for me to see any purchase for these bold ideas anytime soon.

 

Andrew Yang: Zachary, I’m into this. Let’s dig in for reals. All right. So I’m a practical operator. And if I were to say to you, Hey, look, rank choice voting has now been adopted in dozens of communities around the country, several states, the four states that I was talking about. In November, maybe 70 million is going to be spent on the reform case.

 

If someone asks me sometimes, Hey, what do you think this entire thing is going to cost? I say a few hundred million, a billion, something like that. But if you were to magically give me a billion dollars, which contrary to some press accounts, I do not have, but if you were to give me a billion dollars. I think we could make a very, very, very significant dent in the dysfunction.

 

I, and now, you know, we’re not at that scale, but, you know, I, I think that people of good will, are going to come together and, you know, we, we stitch it together, folks like me and Danielle, but all of that said, do I think, the systems are winning or losing? The systems are losing. do I think the reformers are going to get there in time?

 

Probably not. like we’re, we’re in like a multi decade decline disintegration by all sorts of measurements. The reason why I’ve done what I’ve done is because I thought Donald Trump was going to win and win again, and he could well win in November, this November. And you have to look up in the mirror and say, okay, like what kind of system have we set up?

 

What kind of country are we? Where are we? Donald Trump can become president not once, but twice. And I think that Donald Trump represents an ongoing degradation of our institutional integrity that is going to continue. That even if Kamala Harris wins in November, it’s not like, like everything’s going to be on the up and up.

 

Like we’re, we’re still in like this macro decline phase. And so some of the things to, to what you said, Zachary is like, Hey, you know, it can go like, It, it, it, and then all of a sudden shoot up, it’s like, I see it as my responsibility to help develop the toolkit for when we are able to take big steps forward.

 

And I’m an experienced enough builder and entrepreneur to know that that might not happen this year or next year. It could happen a number of years from now. And one of the questions that you’d have for someone like me is like, Hey, Andrew, are you still going to be trying to make good things happen next years from now?

 

And I would say, yes, I am because I’m a serial entrepreneur. And serial entrepreneurs know that you’re going to have to spend five to 10 years on something to have a shot, you know, and if you’re not willing to spend five to 10 years on it, then stay the fuck home. And that’s, you know, and, and so that, that’s been like the, the approach to things, but do I think the good guys are winning?

 

No. Do I think the good guys are outgunned? Yes. Do I think generally speaking, we’re slumping into a negative state of things? Yes. Like, I think you can have a positive attitude. and take action every day while having a clear eyed assessment of what’s happening. How, how was that? Let me just stop there and say, how was that?

 

That was, that was good. That was affirmative in, in the best way. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: It was an optimist guide to a pessimistic context, I would call it. 

 

Andrew Yang: Guys, frankly, I mean, like, do I want, I mean, if things were going great, I’d be doing something else. Speaking honestly, you know what I mean? It’s like there, there are things to do out there in the world, but you know, things aren’t going so hot.

 

Zachary Karabell: Right. I mean, again, part of the point of. Doing the whole Progress Network to begin with was the belief that if the sensibility around how we talk about these things doesn’t change, meaning if anger and outrage become the dominant cord, it drowns everything else out and is also an impossible place to move forward, right?

 

Fear, anger, and outrage. 

 

Andrew Yang: Yeah, at heart, and this is the struggle for us all, I’m going to say. So I referred earlier to the fact that, that you have, let’s call it anger, outrage, fear, Institutions are full of it. Let’s burn it all down. you know, we, we need like, let’s say some singular messianic figure to save us kind of stuff, and then you have the institutions are working, they’re great, you know, why, why can’t everyone just accept how awesome everything is and, and, you know, in both of those, in my opinion, miss the boat and are unproductive and what Progress Network is trying to do is to say, look, we don’t think things are humming for most people.

 

We think the systems are antiquated and anachronistic. And so let’s, modernize them. Let’s revitalize them. Let’s see what we can do better. We’re not like the burn it down crew because we know that you need the institutions and that bad things will happen in the absence of institutions. But we also don’t blindly trust the folks who are in these positions because we know these people and we know that Like the institutions are not exactly kicking ass, you know, like they’re, so, so there’s this massive middle ground that is unoccupied where I think most of the progress network I’d imagine lands.

 

what think? I don’t know if that, that’s, that’s accurate because you might have heard that and been like, no, that’s not who we are, which case I’d, I would accept, your description. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: No, I think it’s right that we’re, we are trying to occupy that kind of, Sometimes awkward middle ground between, Hey, like there are a lot of things that are maybe going better than we give them credit for, but there are also a lot of things that are going pretty badly.

 

And if we’re going to address the things that are going badly, as Zachary was saying, with the sensibility of fire, doom, and outrage, like chances are that we’re going to. We’re gonna lead that into a worse place than we are in already, or we’re gonna lead into a place that we’re gonna look back on and be like, yeah, that maybe that wasn’t the right direction.

 

Andrew Yang: Well, one reason I love conversations like this is that we don’t need 51 percent of people to get on board with this institutional restoration mission. In my mind, we need five to 10%. You know, you get five to 10 percent of Americans really focused and motivated in this direction. You can change everything.

 

Zachary Karabell: So final question. And maybe a controversial one, maybe not. I did a piece a few weeks ago when Kamala replaced Biden. And one thing that, you know, was striking that I think we forget is that the past few presidential midterm elections have actually reversed a multi decade trend of increasing voter detachment, right?

 

So there’s been more voter engagement, including millennial voting than there had been in the nine, in sort of eighties, nineties, aughts and into the 2010s. And, in many ways, as disturbing as that is to a lot of people who find Trump a disturbing force, his base, or the voters that are the base of that, of some of the Republican Party, are quite passionate and fired up, and with Kamala in the race, you have a kind of passion that’s been met and maybe even exceeded on the, on the Democratic side.

 

I tend to think that that kind of passion and engagement, irrespective, at least initially, of where it goes, is disturbing. is a necessary ingredient to a positive, healthy democracy, that you want people passionately engaged in their politics and not apathetic and disengaged. the problem, of course, is that passion and engagement can lead to some dark populism just as much as it can lead to really creative coalitions.

 

But I’m wondering if you feel the same. I mean, I, I, I no more welcome Trump, but I feel like our democracy should be healthy enough to survive like a narcissistic. Being president twice, maybe it’s not, and then maybe that’s not the case. but I do think engagement is a really necessary thing. 

 

Andrew Yang: You know, I’ve, I’ve got a different outlook on this one.

 

I was very, very inspired by Barack Obama in 2008. I was in my thirties. I had been engaged politically before that. I, I will confess that I felt somewhat disappointed with what happened or didn’t happen over those intervening eight years. And then Trump won, and Trump won, I agree with you that Trump activated a new population.

 

He went to folks in rural areas and said, Hey, you’ve been forgotten about, you’ve been overlooked like, and I’m going to be your vessel. And one of the things that I think there was an interview it said, where there was like someone in a coal mining town who, if Trump said, Oh, we’re going to, you know, get the mines going again.

 

The voter was like, yeah, I know that’s not going to happen. but I’m still totally down for Trump and this message because, hey, at least he’s here. Like he’s talking to us like, let’s, let’s go. And I was brought into public life myself by Trump’s victory in 2016, where I said, like, oh my gosh, like what the heck is going on?

 

And the case I made was that Trump became president because we had automated away three to 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in. Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, the swing states you need to win. And my friends in Silicon Valley, we’re going to automate away a lot of other jobs.

 

I mean, this is a country where about 35 percent of the population graduates from college. So you’ve got a lot of, high school educated workers out there in retail jobs and food service jobs and truck driving jobs, that are going to get decimated. So you had this populist response. And again, Trump to me is not the answer, but there’s a lot of anger.

 

And there were a lot of people who felt like their way of life had been diminished and they didn’t know what the heck to do. Like, cause it’s like, what is my recourse in the system with this 94 percent reelect rate and like, you know, I’ve got my member of Congress, like, and then Trump came along. The average American has no input into what the heck is happening politically except for every four years, the presidential, and even then it’s if you’re in six or seven swing states.

 

So we talk about being a democracy, but the average American feels totally, but yeah, disenfranchised and powerless. So Trump came along and said, Hey guys, I got, I’m going to be your instrument. And then a bunch of people took it. And I said, said, said, okay, this is very, very bad. So then Biden edging them out in 2020, and then he was about to slump into a, you know, an historic defeat.

 

And then he got out of the way and then. Now Kamala’s energizing people on the other side. In my view, a lot of this is that folks are lurching around back and forth, grasping for something that’s going to actually work and, and, and lift the despair, like lift the, like, please, like, you know, can you make it so that my kids can move out of the house?

 

And like, my neighbor’s not addicted to drugs and like college isn’t crazy unaffordable. And. Like healthcare isn’t something that I avoid like the plague is if I end up interacting with the system It’s gonna bankrupt me and I could sense it Like all of these things the average Americans like oh, no, like I just don’t trust that They just keep lurching back and forth and unfortunately all the energy and animation is being used to no real positive end Certainly, I don’t think the Trump enthusiasm was used for a positive end If Kamala wins, like, is she going to be able to meaningfully address some of the things that, have been, again, building up for decades?

 

So I don’t want to put all that on Kamala or the Kamala administration or whatnot. TBD, I mean, you just wind up with a population that turns against whoever’s in charge, over and over again because they’re so on the outside looking in. And it’s a bad situation, it’s gonna probably get worse, and there are limited ways for you to actually change it for real.

 

Like, again, like, do I prefer one party over the other? Obviously I do. Do, do I think that this current setup is going to make it so that everything’s hunky dory? Like I don’t. And so the question is like, what is the next system? And it’s a race toward the most likely outcome right now is that we eventually slump into autocracy could be.

 

As quickly as this year, like our subversion of it, you know, like because our system right now is set up for that. If you have bad leadership in one of the two major parties, it overruns everything. And then you wind up with something that can be very, very dark and quasi authoritarian pretty quickly.

 

Like that’s the most likely outcome right now. And when I talk to Democrats too, they’re like, Oh yeah, Republican’s terrible. It’s like, look, I’m not fans of that crew. Like I’m not fans of the burn it down crew. You right now, you have a system that is going to hand the power at some point. It is. You know, like if your plan is to defeat Republicans from now until the end of time in a country where 19 percent of people think you’re on the right track, that is a dumb plan.

 

Like that plan is going to fail. That plan could fail again, like in a number of weeks. That’s a stupid plan. Like a much better plan is to try and actually make the system more representative and multipolar and make it so that even if you did have a bad leader of one party, they don’t control. Like two or three branches of government.

 

That’s a good plan, you know, passing the Fair Representation Act so you could like have different members from the same district. And then you don’t have this like mono, I mean, what, what some folks, you know, are calling, and I don’t agree with this, but they call it like the unit party where you, what you’d want is you’d want a more vibrant, dynamic, modern system.

 

Like, is that going to be easy? No, but is that a better path to like, Fend off authoritarianism over the longer term? Yeah, because like the current plan is doomed to fail. And, and so, you know, like, so that that’s, that’s my pitch for trying to modernize democracy in a meaningful way. The worst number of parties you can have is one.

 

The second worst is two. And then the, like, as soon as you get to three, then things actually meaningfully improve because it can’t be that each party just blames the other party anytime something’s going wrong. What did you think of my soliloquy? I think the soliloquy is 

 

Zachary Karabell: right on. And I want to thank you for the work that you are doing.

 

I think people should definitely check out your TED Talk. Check out the work of the Forward Party. Check out what they think about rank choice voting and really learn about it a little bit. It’s, it’s only confusing because it’s new. It’s not actually that confusing, but it, you know, it requires, it requires some effort to learn about it.

 

Like, I don’t know. Anything else? I hope there are more of you as time goes on, more of us that are doing what you are doing. Obviously that’s also vital. You know, it can’t just be lone voices crying in the wilderness. It has to be actual movements of multiple people with their own passions aligning in a particular direction.

 

Go Progress Network! Thank you, Andrew. 

 

Andrew Yang: And if anyone wants to keep up with me, if you go to andreayang. com, I do send out an email just about once a week. I am unfortunately on social media. I say that with very deep regret, but please do go to andreayang. com and let’s build what the country needs. Thank you.

 

Thank you. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Thanks so much, Andrew. 

 

Zachary Karabell: Well, for a change, I don’t know that I have a whole lot to add to that conversation. That felt Kind of neat and tied in a bow and was what it was. And it’s exactly the place that we’re trying to be. You know, this is like, how, how do you be the change that you’re trying to create?

 

How do you do the work that you feel needs to be done? I certainly don’t have the temperament or the temperature to do the trenches work that is out there. Utterly vital and utterly necessary. I mean, behind the big ideas, right? It’s just a lot of people on the ground trying to make change happen locally and then maybe, you know, county or statewide and then nationally.

 

Like, there’s a lot of legwork to be done in order to create the seeds of change that you hope will become big change, right? But for now is A lot of small change in a lot of places that we hear about occasionally. Like we, we did talk about Maine and we did talk about Alaska and that particular voting system.

 

But in the interim, it’s just a lot of slow change and you have to have a lot of patience and a lot of faith. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: I think the only thing that didn’t get tied up for me in the conversation is that we didn’t ask him the kind of ungenerous counterpart to some of our more generous questions, which is That’s what he does with the criticism felt very deeply by some, right?

 

Perhaps vitriolically that he’s kind of like, just put it ineloquently, totally fucking things up for the Democrats. That it’s never the right election to put a third party candidate on the ballot. It’s, you might like really screw up races, leech votes from a particular candidate. Like that’s, that’s true.

 

There’s a lot of heady criticism that he gets a lot of and that, I don’t know, I think it’s fair. 

 

Zachary Karabell: Interestingly, and this is not good news for where the Trumpy part of the Republican party is, has not fared well where there has been more choice and Democrats have actually done better. Now, it’s, you know, it’s a limited number of cases in states that are probably more heterodox already.

 

Alaska, but you know, Alaska is a pretty red state if you look at it over the past years. You know, obviously Murkowski has become much more of a centrist almost by virtue of Trump. So there is that, and he’s also not running as, he’s not on the main ballot, right? So there’s no gang as, as Ralph Nader in 2000 kind of thing, where he’s not taking votes away from, well, in this case, it’ll be Kamala.

 

So that, I think the critique is more, what is the effect at local races? And I think like that’s valid, but you know, at some point, and we’re kind of at that point, where it’s not about the presidency, right? You could say, Don’t, don’t do a nadir in 2000. Don’t let your principle and desire for purity lead to a political outcome that is so contrary to where you are.

 

Like, that makes no sense. Hence why you shouldn’t, in these kind of elections, start with a third party on the presidential ballot. But, you know, local races are not in and of themselves. They just don’t have the same level of import. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: And I guess we’re going to see in November how the Alaskans feel about the ranked choice voting that they have been doing, because, The Supreme Court there just allowed the repeal measure to be on the November ballot. So, you know, it will give us a temperature reading. 

 

Zachary Karabell: Right. So voters, voters can vote about whether they want that to be the way they vote. 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: And it’s on, it’s on the ballot, Ranked Choice Voting. I think Andrew did mention this in the beginning.

 

It’s on the ballot in Nevada, California, and like a couple other places, I think. 

 

Zachary Karabell: We will see whether this becomes a trend. Like more, I mean, everybody’s said it for years, more, whether it’s, whether you call it grassroots, whether you call it people with kind of a vision for something else, the more of that you have, presumably the better.

 

The question is if it keeps getting squelched at the national level, because the parties just have no room for it and no interest in allowing it forward. So obviously we’ll see how this goes in the next months. But just like we, we talked about Danielle Allen and her view. Like, I think the more people are thinking creatively about how should we construct our systems to meet our present needs, And not just how they met our past, or didn’t meet our past, the better.

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Agreed. Although, I think some people are, like, less willing to be open to, the big abstract ideas. But we need them. If they aren’t there first, nothing else is going to happen, so. 

 

Zachary Karabell: Thank you all again for listening to this episode of What Could Go Right? Thank you to Emma Varvaloucas, our podcaster producing team at The Podglomerate and all of you who are listening. So let us know your thoughts, send us your tired, you’re weary, you’re hungry. Now don’t do that cause 

 

Emma Varvaloucas: we’re 

 

Zachary Karabell: not the Statue of Liberty, but do send us your ideas, your complaints, your interests, your suggestions, and we will do our best to incorporate any and all.

 

Emma Varvaloucas: Absolutely. So thanks everyone for listening. Name as per usual, and thank you to Zachary. 

 

Zachary Karabell: What Could Go Right is produced by The Podglomerate executive produced by Jeff Umbro, marketing by The Podglomerate. To find out more about What Could Go Right, the Progress Network, or to subscribe to the What Could Go Right newsletter, visit theprogressnetwork.org.
Thanks for listening.