I'm a Conservative and I Support the New Forward Party
The Merged New Forward Party Offers an Off-Ramp from Disaster
Towards the end of last month, the Forward Party (headed by Andrew Yang), the Renew America Movement (headed by Miles Taylor) and the Serve America Movement (founded by former Congressman David Jolly (R-Fl.) merged to form a new organization with the name Yang’s Forward Party.
The Forward Party is not the new political party that I had hoped for, but it can serve an important purpose. It represents a bold effort to reach and speak for the country’s exhausted majority.
On the Road to Civil War
In many ways, our current political system has changed little from the days before the Civil War. It’s safe to say that the vast majority of Americans, North and South didn’t want a Civil War. The extremes drove the debate, particularly in the South where the “Fireeaters” pushed the country into War.
Because the issue in the Civil War was slavery, any discussion or comparison between our times and the Civil War invariably gets hijacked and drawn into sidebars that relate to Slavery rather than the political issues of our days.
To head this off, let me be clear, slavery absolutely should have been abolished. It was abolished in the British Empire in the 1840s without a shot being fired. Abolition didn’t occur in the United States until 1865 after several hundred thousand Americans had perished through armed conflict and the disease and civilian death that followed in the wake of the War. This outcome was a major failure in our political system.
And we’re on a similar dangerous road today. Our information age has created space for some great innovations but it also has allowed people on the left and right to monetize rage, guilt, self-righteousness, and cruelty while also allowing malicious people whose views were confined to the fringe to become power players in the major parties.
America’s primary systems and the weakness of the two parties have allowed the mainstream to be swamped by the extreme. Will ordinary Americans choose the path of our forebearers and let extremes push us to disaster or will we do something different?
The Conservatives Aren’t Coming…
I’d like to see an ideologically conservative party come along to address these issues, but sadly none is forthcoming.
So much of the oldline conservative party, people I grew up admiring, has sold out to the MAGA movement. It’s sad to see many who talked about the importance of character, racial reconciliation, and decency in public life have made a mockery of everything they once stood for.
Others are in a state of compromise. They may not buy into lies about our elections and all the nutty conspiracy theories, but they want to be in a coalition with these people. Bill Buckley chased the John Birchers out of the Conservative Movement, Ronald Reagan rejected the support of the KKK, saying, ”The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.” But these conservatives, some anti-trump, some anti-anti-Trump want bigots and crazies in their party and movement. They just don’t want them in charge, but will treat them as coalition partners and support them if they win primaries.
Then there are the stalwart conservatives such as Jonah Goldberg, David French, Jay Nordlinger, Kevin Williamson, Kimberly Ross, Quin Hilyer, Matt Lewis, Russell Moore and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo), as well as a few Center Right leaders like Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) There are some more, but not many who remain fiscally and socially conservative while resisting the nonsense that’s overtaken the Conservative movement.
However, they’re not going to start a new party. Nordlinger has said that you could get all the remaining social conservatives in the country into a Denny’s in Dubuque, and I don’t think we’d fill up the conference room. Some such as Romney and Cheney are so stuck on the two-party system that they can’t think outside of it. And most of the others are not the types to start new parties. (i.e. writing and starting political parties are two different skill sets.)
I’m a solid reform-minded conservative party, but there’s not going to be/
Moving Forward
The Forward Party is not conservative, but it’s not liberal either. Its proposed platform is barebones with calls for non-partisan parties and ranked-choice voting. It’s goal is to bring people together to solve problems. The party’s core principles speak to me:
Diverse Thinking Isn't Just Welcome, It's Required
The Forward Party will welcome new ideas and fearless conversations around the issues of the day. We won’t silence debate or refuse to adapt to the modern world.Bottom-Up, Not Top Down
The Forward Party will empower leaders to find solutions that work in their communities. We won’t dictate a rigid, top down policy platform and expect it to work for all Americans.'Grace and Tolerance
The Forward Party will approach each other with grace and tolerance, finding ways to pick people back up rather than knock them down. We won’t cancel people or cast them out of the party for not falling in line.
These are some good principles to begin with and a way that the exhausted majority can engage with politics and push back against the more extreme elements.
The Seinfeld Party?
Of course, the Forward Party’s lack of a comprehensive program has created skepticism across the political spectrum. Is the political party like Seinfeld in that it’s about nothing?
Brad Polumbo posed a good question:
I think the idea many people have in politics is that if you don’t have a party platform that tells 300 million what they have to think about guns in order to be a member in good standing, you don’t have principles.
Non-ideological doesn’t equal unprincipled. Principles found in places like the Gettysburg Address (“That this nation by the people, for the people, and of the people shall not perish from the Earth.”) are pretty big even if they aren’t ideologic.
The idea is that elected offices should be filled by people of good character rather than by grifters, demagogues, and self-dealing is a great principle. Grace and tolerance are huge principles.
The Forward Party is a “back to basics” political movement. You’re not going to address the big issues until your foundations are secure. You’re not going to get to solving big issues as long as you’re dealing with a system that rewards destructive behavior, discourages solving anything, and makes having reasoned debate impossible.
America has been changed into a Kakistocracy-rule by the worst people and I think that’s one of the big problems the Forward Party addresses. Until you fix, that, a big party platform is
This Could All Go Horribly Wrong
While I’m willing to give the Forward Party a chance, I should also acknowledge the simple reality that this might not work out. It could very well fall flat.
For one thing, the National Convention will be held next year and Forwardists will get to write their own platform and everything could go off the rails. They could be interested in a third party but reject the idea of no litmus tests and come up with their own massive lists of litmus tests and issues that they want to make everyone embrace.
They could come up with stances on hot-button social issues that good members of the Forward Party have to agree on whether they’re in Maine or Alabama. They could split and divide in their attempts to make sure that their ideas dominate.
The party itself even if stood true to the principles laid out initially could sputter out and die, the critics could be proved right.
Jonah Goldberg wrote one of the more thoughtful critiques of the Forward Party and concluded this way:
A party that depends on rallying a reserve army of raging moderate voters eager to give voice to their willingness to compromise with the people they disagree with most is an interesting idea. But it’s also a new idea, and most new ideas don’t work.
He’s right that new ideas don’t usually work, but his statement calls to mind the sage words of the reviewer Anton Ego in the Pixar Classic Ratatouille, “The new needs friends.”
I believe that thoughtful politically homeless conservatives should engage with what the Forward Party has to offer. The Forward Party founders have made a serious effort and are serious people. This isn’t just a bunch of guys who rented a website and decided to call themselves a party This is an organization with staff and serious people behind it.
I think we really could contribute something. We see things from a different perspective and we see potential downsides and pitfalls where some never consider questions like, “How are we going to pay for this?” Whether this sort of feedback is wanted, and whether we can eventually come to an agreement is another matter.
What if this doesn’t work out?
If it doesn’t work out, I don’t see how this country is worse off than it was before. In fact, the seeds may be planted for a party that does work. While Third Party advocates highlight the success of the Republican Party in the 1850s, many of the first Republicans were members of failed anti-Slavery parties.
The Forward Party could be the next big political party or it could lay the groundwork for something that does.
The fact remains that our country’s politics are messed up and if we want to avoid national disaster, we need to try something different. The Forward Party is making a good faith effort to try and address this and that’s why I’m more than happy to give them a chance.