Dozens of Brown students, faculty and community members started their Monday night with a high five from former presidential candidate Andrew Yang ’96.
Yang returned to campus Monday for “A New Way Forward for American Politics,” an event hosted by the Brown Political Union and moderated by Logan Tullai ’25, the club’s president. During the event, Yang discussed his time at Brown, reflected on two unsuccessful campaigns and shared his thoughts on the current political climate.
A New York businessman, Yang ran for president in 2020 and for mayor of New York City in 2021. Following his unsuccessful campaigns, Yang left the Democratic Party in October 2021 and formed the Forward Party — a third-party alternative that aims to put “the power back in the hands of the American voter,” according to its website.
To open Monday’s event, Yang ran up and down the isles of the Salomon Center De Ciccio Family Auditorium, offering out high fives, taking pictures and signing shirts.
In an interview with The Herald before the talk, Yang said both the Democratic and Republican parties are currently “in uncharted territory,” citing President Trump’s recent executive actions that have resulted in legal fights in court.
The parties’ path forward, he said, is dependent on whether the courts allow Trump’s executive actions to proceed.
“If you look at the dynamic in the House and the Senate, it’s very much up to different Republican lawmakers whether they’re going to get on board or decide to contest Trump’s agenda,” Yang said in the interview.
In explaining his decision to start a third party, Yang said the country is “divided into blue and red zones,” and politicians are largely incentivized by party approval, rather than passing productive legislation. This makes individual votes “inconsequential,” he argued.
While Congress’s approval rating currently stands at 17%, Yang said the roughly 90% incumbent reelection rate reflects the lack of competition in congressional districts.
“There has to be a different political dynamic in this country than just the two-party system, because the two-party system right now is polarizing and won’t lead to meaningful solutions,” Yang told The Herald.
In the interview, Yang spoke about his experience at Brown as a political science and economics concentrator. His four years at Brown, he said, helped shape his political career, and his semester abroad in Hong Kong was particularly impactful.
But Yang “wasn’t that engaged politically” at Brown, he told The Herald. He recalled his experience working as a fry cook at Josiah’s his first year at Brown, and noted that he “played a lot of video games.”
“I loved my time here at Brown,” Yang said. “I grew a lot.”
Despite not having political motivations, Yang decided to enter the political arena after Trump took office for the first time in 2016, he told The Herald.
When Yang was campaigning for president in Iowa, he warned residents that technology will disrupt “repetitive white collar work” and make it harder for people to keep their jobs, he said to event attendees on Monday.
“I decided to run for president because I wanted to educate the country that this was happening, and advance solutions like (a) universal basic income,” Yang said. His widely known universal basic income plan — which he calls the Freedom Dividend — would give each American adult $1,000 per month.
For Caroline Cordts ’28, the event provided an opportunity to see an example of a Brown alum working in the political sphere.
“As someone majoring in political science at Brown, I feel like I don’t see too many people from our school involved in government,” Cordts said. “It’s really nice to see.”
Ava McKie ’28 attended the event excited to hear about Yang’s approach to politics as a businessman, rather than a career politician.
“I think it’s a refreshing approach,” McKie said. “He’s using it to help humanity instead of extracting from it.”
Tullai and BPU Vice President Malcolm Furman ’27 told The Herald they invited Yang to speak because of his “fresh perspective” and “innovative approach” to two-party politics.
“A really big part of what we do is to create a dialogue outside of the traditional political party spectrum,” Tullai said. “We’re excited to bring in voices that are highlighting some alternative views on how to go forward with politics.”
Sophia Wotman is a University news editor covering activism and affinity & identity. She is a junior from Long Island, New York concentrating in Political Science with a focus on women’s rights. She is a jazz trumpet player, and often performs on campus and around Providence.
