Near the end of July, Andrew Yang — whose previous political projects include an unsuccessful run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, an unsuccessful run for the 2021 Democratic mayoral nomination in New York City, and what initially looked likely to be an unsuccessful new “third party,” the Forward Party — announced a re-launch of that last effort.

While it’s still called the Forward Party, Yang’s vehicle is merging with two other (also previously unsuccessful) “third party” efforts, the “Renew America Movement” (co-founded by Christine Todd Whitman, former Republican governor of New Jersey, who will co-chair “new” Forward) and the “Serve America Movement” (chaired by former Republican congressman David Jolly of Florida).

The merger, Yang tweeted, creates “the biggest 3rd party by resources in the United States.”

He may be right about that: The Libertarian Party, which previously held claim to the title of “third largest political party in America,” seems to be circling the drain after after a four-year internecine fight culminating in a Memorial Day weekend “takeover” by a Republican astroturf operation, the “Mises Caucus” (disclosure: I’ve been a partisan Libertarian since 1996, but have re-registered in my state as “no party affiliation” and cut off my meager financial support for the national organization pending a hopeful libertarian re-“takeover” of the party).

But are the “resources” Yang speaks of enough for the Forward Party to realize its vision?

In a July 27 Washington Post op-ed, Whitman, Jolly, and Yang tick the usual “moderate” boxes. They’re against “polarization.” They believe most Americans “want to move past divisiveness and reject extremism.” They want (and are trying to create) a party that “reflects the moderate, common-sense majority.”

And therein lie two problems.

First, while most Americans seem to agree that “polarization” sucks, most Americans are also, well, polarized. They may think of themselves as “centrists” or “moderates,” but so do their neighbors, who all have very different ideas about where the “center” really is.

Second, to the extent that a “center” exists, it’s already well-covered by a Venn diagram of Republican and Democratic policies and constituencies.

As the late L. Neil Smith once wrote, “great men don’t ‘move to the center’ — great men move the center.” Within the context of electoral politics, the same is true of any party that hopes to actually create systemic change. The Overton Window (the spectrum of the politically “acceptable”), like most windows, has its handle on the edge, not in the center. Change comes from the edge and its ability to change the minds AT the “center.”

The news may not be all bad for the Forward Party’s prospects, though. While its rhetoric is “centrist,” its stated priorities focus on individual freedom and its specific policy proposals — Ranked-Choice Voting, Nonpartisan Primaries, and Independent Redistricting Commissions — are at, not beyond, the edge of the aforementioned Overton Window: Good ideas that most people like but that the “major” parties refuse to touch.

Will they excite voters enough to move the needle? Time will tell. But time may be running out on American democracy.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On July 28, US Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with US Representative Doris Matsui (D-HI) introduced a bill to reclassify Internet Service Providers from Title I “information services” to Title II  “common carrier services.”

Why this bill? Because the term “Net Neutrality” polls well among those who don’t bother to look into the details.

Why now? Because Democrats are playing every card in the deck as they cast about for ways to stem their likely bleeding in this November’s midterm elections.

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission published an “Open Internet Order” magically turning ISPs into “common carriers” and requiring them to treat some, but not all, network traffic “neutrally.”

But since the rule was imposed unilaterally by one FCC, it could be withdrawn by the next. One of the few fortunate outcomes of Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016 was the appointment of a new FCC chair and withdrawal of the rule.

The new law, if passed, would require, rather than merely allow, the FCC to impose “Net Neutrality” on America.

What is “Net Neutrality?” It’s really three different things, none of them good.

First, it’s corporate welfare for companies whose business models involve pushing lots of bits (like streaming high-definition video) through the Internet and into your home, and who’d rather not foot the bill for the infrastructure to carry their product.

Second, it’s the Internet censorship camel’s nose pushing its way into the administrative state’s regulatory tent.

Third, it’s a sexy-sounding solution desperately in search of a problem that does not and never has existed. The Internet has become incrementally better and more accessible for 30 years now without it.

“Net Neutrality” requires ISPs to treat some data “neutrally”: An email from your mom can’t receive higher priority than your neighbor’s weekend Stranger Things binge in all its 4k glory.

Instead of Netflix, or your neighbor, getting the bill for the bandwidth and  infrastructure required to accommodate your neighbor’s insane bandwidth consumption — or, heaven forbid, his screen freezing during the chorus of “Running Up That Hill” — both your ISP bills will go up to pay for fatter pipes. You get to subsidize your neighbor, and Netflix, whether you like it or not.

Notice that I said “some” data must be treated “neutrally.” Not all of it. The FCC’s previous order mandated such “neutrality” only for “legal” content.

Who gets to rule content “legal” or “illegal?” For the most part the FCC, although occasional pro-censorship input from Congress is a given (hint: Content from sanctioned US Enemies of the Week will be “illegal”).

The FCC will  also receive sage advice from the aforementioned corporate welfare queens, who wouldn’t want you getting your movies and music from unapproved sources (i.e. sites that don’t make them money).

The purpose of the TERM “Net Neutrality” is to fool you into voting for people who sound like they’re promising you something cool and even necessary.

The purpose of  “Net Neutrality” POLICY is to leave you with less money and less choice.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On July 27, the Biden administration offered their Russian counterparts a deal: Release WNBA player Brittney Griner and alleged US spy Paul Whelan, in return for the US releasing Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Griner, currently on trial, faces a ten-year sentence if convicted of possessing cannabis. She was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on February 17 after officials allegedly found vape cartridges containing “hash oil” in her possession.

I’d personally like to see Griner released. I suspect most Americans agree with me. But the political outrage over her arrest feels quite manufactured given that hundreds of thousands of Americans get treated like Griner every year by their own governments.

Even though a super-majority of Americans support legalization of marijuana, and even though a number of states have moved in that direction on both medical and recreational use, the Center for American Progress reports that US law enforcement agencies still make more than 600,000 marijuana arrests every year. At any given time, tens of thousands of Americans languish behind bars for the very “crime” Griner stands accused of in Russia.

There’s no doubt that marijuana is winning, and was always going to win, the “war on marijuana.”

The only winners in that “war” have been black market drug dealers, law enforcement budgets, and opportunistic politicians.

Everyone else loses. Not just marijuana users. Non-user taxpayers have to not only foot the bill, but put up with the possibility that they and their family members and friends may, at any moment, suffer police harassment and search on suspicion of harboring the devil weed in their cars, homes, blood, or urine.

The US government cares about Brittney Griner because she’s a celebrity who’s been arrested by America’s Enemy of the Week.

If she’d been one of us nobodies and had been arrested anywhere else in the world — including in the US itself — she’d have been just another number in the war on marijuana’s ugly casualty statistics. We’d have never seen her name outside of local police blotter and court reportage.

That doesn’t mean she should go to prison. She shouldn’t. But neither should anyone else, anywhere, go to prison for possession of a beneficial plant.

Bring Brittney Griner home … and send her US counterparts home, too. Release them from America’s prisons, expunge their convictions, end the war on marijuana, and let them — and the rest of us — get on with our lives without further ado.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY