Becoming Independent

As many of you know, I left the Democratic Party in 2021 to start the Forward Party, a positive independent political movement dedicated to reforming our broken politics via changes to the primary system, ranked choice voting and helping aligned candidates – of any party – win. We have a soft spot for Independents – now reflecting 49% of the population - as we believe candidates from outside the traditional system are necessary for real reform. Forward Party today has dozens of elected officials nationwide and tens of thousands of members and is endorsing a small army of candidates this November. My co-chairs are Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey, and Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey of Massachusetts, two leaders who left the Republican Party. We are building what much of the country wants.

This week on the podcast, I interview Paul Rieckhoff, one of the leaders of the independent political movement and the founder of Independent Veterans of America. Military veterans are often independents, as they are more about a spirit of service to the country than partisan politics. “If America is a religion, veterans are its clergy” is a quote I picked up from Paul.

I reflected on my experience leaving the Democratic Party in my recent book, “Hey Yang, Where’s my Thousand Bucks?” Here’s an excerpt:

Chapter 24 - Leaving the Party

When ‘Forward’ came out at the end of 2021, I left the Democratic Party. I put out a little social media video and a brief blog post saying I was now an Independent.

People lost their minds.

It made national headlines. Millions of people googled me. Millions read the blog post – I wished I had been more lengthy and prosaic in my explanation.

I got accused of being a wannabe Fox anchor, a grifter, a loser, a whiner, out to profit by selling books and on and on.

It was very odd.

The bookselling thing was particularly weird. You don’t actually make a ton of money on books most of the time, and Democrats are big book buyers. Trying to become a gazillionaire as an author by leaving the Dems would be insane. How much am I getting paid to write this book? I don’t even know, but let’s just say it’s not paying for anyone’s college tuition. Maybe enough to buy some textbooks? Tell you what, I hereby pledge to donate all proceeds from this book to an anti-poverty org or democracy reform. Now you can tell others about it and know that the money is going someplace good! This pledge isn’t hard to make because, again, there isn’t that much money at stake, unless this book becomes a megahit, at which point I retract this pledge and will instead bathe in the money.

I had been a CNN contributor up through this time. I was getting paid something pretty significant – about $125,000 a year - to be exclusive to them. Evelyn thought it was the best job I’d ever had. “You just talk for a few minutes and they pay you? Keep that job!!” It was a lot easier going on air when they just ask you your opinion on something than as a candidate. They offered me a contract to return at the end of my mayoral run.

Then the news came out that I was no longer a Democrat. My agent called me and said, “Hey, CNN is rescinding its offer to you. Apparently they don’t want to be seen as supporting a third party.”

I responded, “Wouldn’t that make me more valuable to them, not less, in that I’d be an objective voice that isn’t tied up in one party or the other?”

“They don’t think so.”

“Huh. Okay.”

It felt like rejection from a company that I thought really liked me.

So there was a lot of blowback when I left the Democratic Party. I was more mystified by it than anything else. This was just me doing what I thought was the right thing. It was clear to me that our two-party system was just going to get worse and more polarized and wasn’t going to fix itself.

On the TV front, I thought, “Okay, I guess this means I can go on any network. That’s cool.” Fox started asking me to come on all of the time.

I went on a couple times but became uncomfortable when a lot of it was, “Boy, those Democrats sure suck, don’t they!?! Tell us more Yang, you’re a former Democrat, why’d you leave those idiots?” I left the Democratic Party because I had become convinced that their approach wasn’t going to work, but it wasn’t like I thought Fox and the Republicans were the answer.

It was a lesson; in order to feed the narrative machine, it paid to be on one side or the other. That’s where the energy was. That’s where the money was.

I, of course, wasn’t really motivated by that. But it definitely made me understand what other people go through when they’re trying to do something a little bit different outside the machine.

During this time, my phone rang. It was Dave Chappelle. We are friends but he doesn’t often just call out of the blue.

“Hey man, I just called to say it’s inspiring to see someone do something that is actually courageous. I never see that happen. But seeing you do it makes me feel like there’s still some character left in the world. So thank you.”

I guess he’d heard that I’d left the party and was taking shit for it.

“Thanks Dave. That means a lot.” And it did. Take it from a guy who walked away from $50 million to do a comedy show with his name on it.

Dave’s call was a pick-me-up. But my response to the blowback I was getting was kind of contrarian and stubborn – it made me feel like I was on the right track.

And I was confident I’d find others like me who didn’t think the current path was going to work.

One of those people was Paul Rieckhoff.

For my conversation with Paul Rieckhoff, the host of Independent Americans, click here. To check out what Forward Party is doing in your area, click here. To get a copy of “Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Bucks?” click here and use the code “UBIUBI” for 25% off. I get great feedback about the book all of the time, which is nice because it’s a different type of writing for me. For a limited time only you can get 6 months off your mobile bill with Noble Mobile, an absolutely crazy value that will save the average family $1,000. You read that right. Email matt@noblemobile.com and use my name to switch or explore. Offline no-phones party returns to NYC on May 21^st! I’m going from that party to my college reunion. Look up.