Marsha and Saga here welcome back to the Realignment.

One of the fun things about this last week has been all of the independent political movements that have reached out to me

to say let's make common cause because we're all chasing the same thing.

All chasing reform of the system that will enable our point of view or different points of view to actually rise up and flourish and not get pummeled into oblivion.

And these independent groups that have reached out to me probably don't agree with me on everything but they agree that we need to have open primaries and write choice voting so that they have a real chance.

I'm a deeply practical person and so I think that everyone who's sick of the system should be getting behind these reforms and I want the forward party to be the leader in making these reforms happen in real life.

And to me that should be the core issue. Nothing else should matter as much.

Today's guest barely actually doesn't need any introduction whatsoever.

So whatever we're speaking of and through gang about his new book forward it came out today you can purchase it at our bookshop of course but you've probably already heard about what he's saying is controversial.

He's launching a new third party the forward party he's proposing a pretty radical reform to the democratic process in the country open party primaries and then also ranked choice voting.

So how do those three things fit together because that's what I think is missing from a lot of the coverage of what's happening here and we give us good context to the conversation.

I think people don't seem to realize what Andrew is trying to do is use the third party as a vehicle to number one elevate the conversation of ranked choice voting and of open primaries.

But to he's trying to focus on what he calls like okay what's something that can actually pragmatically fix and look I mean both of us are deeply skeptical of third parties.

I'm still not 100% sure that he's taking the right approach but I don't think that you can come away from this discussion and not in the very least conclude that he is diagnosed something which is an issue.

And you know his campaign in early in 2019 I mean obviously I owe a lot of my success frankly to coverage of Andrew Yang and I still believe he tapped into something which he's going after this time around it feels more authentic to his brand martial.

Yeah this is definitely an episode to those of you who are watching on YouTube and those of you who are listening on the podcast we want people to write in about because I'm sure everyone's going to have a bunch of different reactions I personally think third parties are cringe and cope at the same time.

But the key thing and once again why Andrew's discussion is worth it is that he's focused on incentives he thinks when you go to Congress the reason you don't get anything done is because of a the lack of open party primary aka most people in the country who don't see themselves as a part of the two party system few disenfranchised therefore their votes don't matter their perspectives don't matter.

So whether or not I like a third party or not it's really important to have a conversation about that especially given the fact that places like New York City and states like Alaska have actually advanced the reforms he's talking about so think about this conversation on two levels level one is third party year nay but level two is even if you don't like a third party should there shouldn't there be an open primary system and range voice voting.

100% really well said as always a special thank you to the Lincoln network for sponsoring this podcast let's get to it and quick thing because this is going on YouTube because we were tight for time that is Lincoln net work not Lincoln project this is something you YouTube viewers do not often see we're being very frank here and a quick no as we asked for responses we put a sub stack on Thursday so you could follow the link to the sub stack there where you could also purchase a copy of Andrew's book we want to hear what you think about everything covered this episode especially if you're new listener.

If you're new listener you if you were let's get.

Andrew Yang welcome to the realignment.

Sawyer is great to be here thanks for having me good to see you man I'm really glad you could do you could do this you know it's interesting martial night we got the book the advanced copy there obviously was a lot of consternation around the announcement but having you know known you covered you now for a long time I think what I want to start out was this what experience from the democratic party in the primary for the president and the 2020 race and in the New York mayoral race.

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