He would do better running as a Libertarian IMO. There's been support for UBI within the LP for a while, the party simply lacks candidates with a compelling story.
In 2016 though, if the people who voted Green Party would have voted LP the LP would have earned 5% (instead it earn 3.5%) of the popular vote granting it full federal funding through the entire next election cycle.
It's the closest any third party has come to being validated in decades. During the 2020 cycle, both candidates were duds unfortunately and it showed in the voting.
If he's planning on endorsing candidates in other parties, that's probably an option.
OTOH, why take on all that baggage when it doesn't come with any votes? Probably makes more sense to recruit former LP and
Green figures to run under the new banner.
This might be a controversial take but candidates for the Libertarian party should be libertarians. If Yang wanted to run under an existing third party then the Green Party would make more sense.
Just looking through his points on the website, here's what's actively supported by the LP...
- UBI
- Ranked Choice Voting and Open Primaries
- Term Limits
----- These are widely supported within the LP
- Working with government should be painless
----- For LP this means because there should be less federal power, leading to less of a feeling that it's trying to control your life
- Legislating based on outcomes, not ideologies
----- I doubt anyone in the LP would be opposed to this stance as the fact that opposition to ideologies which make little sense from either major party is a driving force of the LP itself.
- Grace and Tolerance
----- A party who wants to let everyone live their lives without government interference with a comical tag line of "I want gay married people to protect their marijuana plants with guns" would seem to be the epitome of giving each other the benefit of the doubt. A cornerstone of freedom is the belief in trusting people to make their own decisions.
- Human Centered Capitalism
----- I'm not entirely sure what this means and it's not elaborated on within the platform.
From the actual Platform page, a couple of others...
- Automatic Tax Filing so simplify the tax process
----- This has been a LONG time Libertarian Party rallying cry.
Yang may be trying to get attention by creating a new party, but he's so closely aligned with the Libertarian Party here it's crazy.
No wonder Yang got nowhere. This list isn't really a list of policies at all, it's a set of vague truisms that hardly anyone would disagree with but which can't be obviously turned into any sort of implementation.
And what sort of libertarian party supports UBI?! How would that ever be implemented without massive levels of top-down coercion and taxation? No analysis I've ever seen says it can be self-funding as was once claimed. If that's really their position then no wonder they don't accrue any influence.
UBI as a means of eliminating and consolidating most other government welfare programs under a single umbrella. It would eliminate a ton of federal agencies and bloat in the process.
Additionally, having it conditionally tied to overall government spending so that excess spending cuts into UBI would ensure that every American at any level has a reason to combat new government spending and inflation.
It seems there is a divide between libertarians who support liberty and libertarians who would like government to be even deeper in the pockets of billionaires.
In 2016 though, if the people who voted Green Party would have voted LP the LP would have earned 5% (instead it earn 3.5%) of the popular vote granting it full federal funding through the entire next election cycle.
It's the closest any third party has come to being validated in decades. During the 2020 cycle, both candidates were duds unfortunately and it showed in the voting.