Is it Forward or backward for Yang?

Third parties in our political system are feel good efforts for relatively few activists or for a single rich one. They achieve little and may do political harm while they last, which usually is not long. They are often barely more than vanity excursions to a house of presidential mirrors, although not as funny.

Just now, a rich man’s ego trip has begun. Andrew Yang has announced the formation of a third party, “Forward.” That is a slogan; not a political party name and is indicative of the shallow quality of the effort. “Backward” is appropriate.

Many of us are fed up with our current two-party behavior and strife, but Forward is not the solution and Yang, a very bright, accomplished businessman with no relevant experience, is not our secular savior by any measure. He was a self-anointed candidate for president in 2020, and a good one. He did lose by popular acclaim. He is now joined by a legitimate Republican, Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey. A Forward ticket of Yang and Whitman for vice president seems inevitable.

New parties come and go. Our neighbor, Minnesota, did have a party, the Farmer Labor Party, which had some significant success between its founding in 1918 and 1944, but it was the second party. The Democratic Party was the third party and rarely won anything.

The liberal votes in the state had come from the Irish Catholics in St. Paul and union members in Ramsey and Hennepin counties. They were the Democrats. The Farmer Laborites were a combination of German and Scandinavians primarily in rural areas and small towns. Republicans and Farmer Laborites won statewide elections, not Democrats.

Only after Hubert Humphrey managed in 1944 to combine liberals into the Democratic-Farmer Labor party did liberals win/ The third party soon became the first party.

In 1948, I joined the Progressive party, the Forward of my day. I organized other students on campus. It felt virtuous and good. My enthusiasm lasted until our first large rally. Communist Party members I knew were clearly in charge. Henry Wallace was the party’s nominee, after being Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president in the first term and then dropped from the ticket. He had been born near Orient, Iowa, graduated from Iowa State College, and for a while edited the family weekly Wallaces’ Farmer, widely read and well known here.

If he had not been found to have played footsie with Joe Stalin, I think Wallace could have doubled his vote here, bringing him up to 2.34 percent. As a third-party candidate, in his home state, Henry Wallace drew 12,125 votes out of over a million cast.

Where will Yang get his 2.34 percent of the Iowa vote? He doesn’t have Wallace’s experience or name recognition. He would be running against Joe Biden or another well-known Democrat. With a Republican running mate, they would have to stick to the middle.

Are the parties a mess today? Yes. Is Forward a solution? No. Forward is backward to the Progressive party of Henry Wallace, the American Independent party of George Wallace and the Minnesota Democratic Party until 1948.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.