Yvette Nicole Brown, whom I know best from Community, is one of my favorite celebrities to follow on Twitter. She’s outspoken, she’s of course liberal, and she’s skilled at responding to trolls. Most recently she’s been taking on Howard Schultz’s obnoxious announcement that he’s considering running for President as a third party candidate. If you’re not familiar with this story, Schultz is the former CEO of Starbucks, he’s a billionaire, and he’s an a-hole in so many different ways. He’s admitted that he’s against the tax plan for the ultra-wealthy proposed by some Democrats and he’s against Medicare and subsidized college. Plus he only voted in less than 1/3 of elections since 2005 and he’s donated less than 1% of his fortune to charity. Yvette was on The Late Show, where she very clearly laid out the ways that Schultz’s potential candidacy is selfish and bad for America.
If anybody is running third candidate with what we’ve gone through in the last two years they either don’t care about America or they’re having this ego fever dream. It is not the time. If you want to run for President you either need to be a Republican or a Democrat fight it out in the primaries and earn the nomination. Anybody sneaking in on third party, they’re cheating.
Who do you like? [For President]
I love Kamala Harris. She is smart, she is principled, she is tough. She is amazing. I feel like what she said, “we are better than this,” is the perfect example of what we are supposed to be as a nation. We’re supposed to be a melting pot, everyone welcome. We’ve lost that. Her statement of we are better than this is a call for all of us “be better.”Do you have a favorite dating app?
I like Bumble, because the women get to decide. It never goes well. I always want to be kind to people. I don’t want to be the one who damages some guy. [I’m too nice to them]. I had an online date recently and the guy said to me ‘I only put 30 minutes in my meter.’ The bill comes, it’s $5.41. The guy says to me ‘I’m going to let you get that because I didn’t eat.’
Yvette will next star on Weird City, a YouTube premium show, created by Jordan Peele. She said it’s an anthology show like Twilight Zone without a middle class “like us next year” and it’s about how the different classes interact with each other. Ooh I have YouTube red I want to watch that now! It’s out February 13th and you can see the trailer here. It looks so good!
I totally agree with her about Schultz but I covered that in the intro and he’s not worth the consideration beyond that. It’s depressing that so many beautiful, smart famous women over 40 are having problems finding dates. We’ve heard similar stories recently from Debra Messing and Connie Britton.
Here’s her interview:
One* more thing about @HowardSchultz. The whiny, crybaby “Why are people being so mean because I’m a billionaire? 😭 I’m self-maaade!”mess does not fly in a country where so have suffered due to rich, entitled white dudes being out of touch, cruel & lately criminal…
— yvette nicole brown (@YNB) January 31, 2019
P.S. Amazon is laying off workers.
Discuss-
Ugggh. This debate again. Probably necessary but very frustrating, There are many of us in the middle that — policy by policy — don’t ascribe very well to either party’s platform. Your pet issues aren’t mine, ( I’m pro choice, pro LGBTQ rights, pro business, support small government, strong military and foreign policy, support your right to have a gun but you don’t need a semi automatic, know the difference between climate and weather and believe in science , we need immigration reform but need to enforce the damn laws too and no we don’t need a wall.). No way I fit into either party, right?
I admit thinking HRC would win, but I wasn’t a fan of hers or certainly not trumps and I voted 3rd party and I deeply regret it, Pretty much convention wisdom and most media polling said that HRC would win. If trump runs in 2020 (I’m hoping he won’t make it til then, cmon Mueller) …I’ll vote Dem no matter who they put up but….
Both parties belong to their extremists right now and both parties are losing their moderates….you know, the ones who could compromise with their colleagues and who get things done.
I’m sick of being castigated for saying the extremes of both parties are hurting their parties.
Getting rid of trump is our first priority sequentially, but once that happens…..I am seriously not politely putting up with having to defend being a centrist. Your mileage may vary.
So…do you have this copied and pasted for when your Google ping has someone writing about Schultz.
No, not yet, but thanks for the suggestion.👀
Ok seriously Yes I have said this in multiple venues whenever Shultz comes up, And will continue to do so, I don’t disagree with a lot of what he says, but for many many reasons he is not a viable solution (the running as an independent is full stop in 2020, much less he has much baggage anyway).
Wait, for real? Why are you going to multiple places and repeating yourself? Are you not getting any feedback or are you not listening to the feedback you get?
Um, you fit almost exactly into the Democrat bin. Do you know what your state lawmakers stand for? Because you just described my state’s Senatorial and Congressional Democrats to a T.
Politics get more extreme when the people in the center decline to participate – the people who vote are what’s represented. If only those who are the most passionate and extreme get out and vote and make the most noise, that is what we see represented in platform’s.
Sorry but the small government, strong military and pro business side of me is pretty much on the right…..and as far as immigration, I’m Really smack in the middle. Every single political assessment I have taken puts me square in the middle.
And don’t I get the right to self identify anyway?
Hey BuddyJack, please check your facts. How do Republicans support a strong military? They consistently vote to cut veteran’s benefits and they vote to send send our troops off to unwinnable wars. They vote to slash health care ande underfund the VA. But hey they slap “Support our Troops” stickers on the back of their SUVs right?
As to small government, the GOP pushed for and presided over the largest expansion of government in the modern era…. DHS. Google it.
Pro business? Don’t you mean pro big business? Perhaps you should check out how the tarriffs are effecting small businesses, or how the tax cuts went disproportionately to the upper classes and multinational corportations. But sure, “small government”.
The reality is, we live in a 2 party system. You can “self identify” all you want, but it doesn’t change what the reality is right now. WNt to change it? Then get behind campaign finance reform.
And be careful with “pro business”. Because that’s part of what’s corrupted our entire system to begin with. And was the entire cause of the 2008 recession.
‘I’m sick of being castigated for saying the extremes of both parties are hurting their parties.’
You’re being castigated because it’s not true. Both-siderism is a major major problem and it’s not helpful because it’s bs. But the media does love that narrative. And so very many people who consider themselves centrists buy into it.
THANK YOU, CR. I couldn’t have said it better.
This is me, sitting here with my eyes rolling so far back into my head I can see Russia from my house.
As much as I enjoy the pseudo-intellectual posturing of people who call themselves “centrist” in a time when economic inequality, racial and minority injustice, and increasing attacks on women’s autonomy are becoming preeminent issues in industrialized nations, it’s gotten to the point of farcical. If your “moderate” position allows for you to refuse a stand on any of them, it’s not a matter of you being balanced, it’s a matter of privilege. The fact that anybody could call the Democratic party “extremist” with no sense of irony or self-awareness is remarkable in its own right, but to do so when the opposition services the base support of NeoNazis is something else, man.
Spare us your 2016 “remorse.” The rest of us who are paying the price for your third party vote haven’t the time for it, especially when you clearly learned nothing from it.
Veronica – you speak the TRUTH. Third party voters are complicit in our current situation. Susan Sarandon I’m looking at you!
And this is why dialogue stops. If you basically say “eff you” to those with a politely expressed different opinion and you resort to Personal insults, , you are part of the pollution. Not the Solution,
Pretending I don’t care enough on each of those is fine, but it’s wrong. I can care strongly about each of those stances which could well be what places me as a centrist.
You can’t be small government if you care about those things. That’s the issue. The government is supposed to protect minorities from the majority and everyone from unchecked capitalism. The private sector will not be what helps these issues. You can certainly criticize how the government goes about it but reducing the size of government will not be what solves things.
You told the rest of us who are part of marginalized communities to “eff off” when you voted third party knowing the stakes in 2016. I’m tired of stroking the ego of purity voters by telling them it was all right. Because it wasn’t. You lost the right to a moral high ground when you helped put Trump in office. There isn’t a dialogue because you aren’t contributing anything worthwhile, educated, or even remotely pragmatic.
Man, did MLK ever have it called when he said the “moderate” voter was the worst enemy of the American public.
@Veronica, exactly. Ralph Nader did it during Bush/Gore. Jill Stein did it during Trump/Clinton, not this naracssictic white dude is doing it. Ralph Nader was widely admired for all of the attention he brought to consumer protection. He used to enter the races prior to Bush/Gore and brought attention to progressive causes. A week or so before, he’d pull out and throw his support to the democrats and would encourage his followers to support them because it brought the best change of getting his proposals enacted, and it worked. Consumer protections grew in the 1970, 1980s, and 1990s because of his work.
All of the people who ran in the primaries, FROM BOTH PARTIES, who had no chance to win, used to do it to move their party to issues that they believed in. When the front runner won, the losers would return to the House, Senate, or to state politocs to work on those issues and the ones their party cared about.
When Nader became a spoiler was the year he decided that he needed to stay in the race. His views were too extreme for Republicans, and many Democrats liked his policies, so the defected. The idea of building a three party system is attractive to a lot of people, but it simply isn’t reality. To not work within the system we all have to live under is selfish. Change it with us. Don’t blow it up!!! The spoilers who supported Stein were saying that blowing up the system with Trump was preferable to having Clinton. Now they “regret” it. Susan Sarandon sounds like a privileged moron to me. I am a democrat who considered myself fiscally conservative until Inrealized that our government is protecting rich white people over the rest of us. The housing laws in the nicer areas of this country were written to keep out minorities. In the livberal
Bay Area, people buy houses and the old deeds many times outline that the home is prohibited from being sold to minorities. There is controversy about a cross that still sits on a hill that was placed there by a former mayor of our town who was corrupt and pushed out in the early 1970s. His final FU to the town was placing the cross. I’m feeling nauseated now.
The reality boils down to the fact that anybody who has done adequate research on the origins of racial, misogynistic, and ethnic systems of oppression cannot in good conscience support the idea of “economic frugality” when economy has been the modus operandi by which the American capitalist system has kept most of these groups oppressed. MLK knew it. The early women’s rights fighters knew it. Systemic inequality is linked to poverty and a lack of access to healthcare and basic social resources. Simple as that. If you want to attack those issues, if you want to raise women and minorities up from the economic sludge this country has buried them in, you have stop pretending government isn’t essential to the provision of those things to the lower economic classes. Not in a country the size of America. You want small government, go to a small country. Not one with geography and populations comparable to or greater than that of some continents.
I don’t speak this way out of cruelty or self-righteousness. I speak this way because I used to think that way. I thought that you could be a “fiscal conservative” and “social liberal” in the same breath, and after more than a decade working in healthcare and union efforts, I’ve come to realize they’re not mutually exclusive. Fiscal conservatism needs to stop and end at allowing corporations to run the country. It should not, under any circumstances, apply to rejecting any efforts to expand social resources the socioeconomically underprivileged.
totally agree
Agreed. Now is not the time for third party believers. Pick a side and don’t throw your vote away because you know and I know that is what you’re Essentially doing. I cannot stand those who either didn’t vote or voted stein because my god what the F is wrong with you!?!? YOU helped elect Trump.
I’m OBSESSED with this Howard Schultz’s campaign and the total mess that it is. He has zero policies to speak about
And he claims that he hates Trump and wants him out? Bullsh*t. He’s helping him and the Republicans get elected because he doesn’t want his billions taxed.
Howard Schultz is the worst and this whole “presidential run” is just an ego bath gone wrong. NO ONE wants him. He’s going to get absolutely hammered in his home state, where pretty much no one has forgiven him for the way he sold the Sonics. But sure dude, we’re going to pretend that people are asking you to run.
And the fact that Steve Schmitt is heading up the rollout is even better.
I truly wish our government was set up in a way that gave third party candidates a better chance. That’s something we need to work on, but not while Trump is still a threat. Right now, we need to be single-minded in getting whoever the Democrat candidate is elected, end of.
It’s hard for 3rd parties, but there’s more opportunity at the local level, and that takes ground game, and neither the Libertarians nor the Greens have a ground game. And haven’t for the decades they’ve been around. So any 3rd parties need stop looking at the Presidential races and start focusing on city councils, school boards, etc.
If third party candidates want a better chance, they need to work their base from local government up. A third party presidential candidate is utterly meaningless in the United States without having a lawmaking body to support its position. The president is one piece of a complicated government puzzle, and no third party platform will get anything done without support down the entire line.
Great minds Veronica! I just posted something similar downthread.
I agree – I’d like to see more Independent or 3rd party people in office if they have good ideas, but THIS IS NOT THAT TIME. And not for POTUS, or even Senate/House.
I used to consider myself more moderate/centrist, and would a few times did even vote for the occasional Republican, but the GOP of the past few decades has pushed me way to the left. And the past few years have pushed me into not just vote Democrat only, but volunteering and donating as well.
The most important thing is ending the Trump administration, and that requires people putting aside their “she’s not likable” or “all politicians are terrible” complaints.
I’m Canadian and we have a more healthy party system where there a multiple parties that can gain seats. The NDP acts like a moderate choice that actually had a shot of competing with the conservatives and liberals (though not really lately). The system ain’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than most countries.
My thoughts on the the third parties in America are that they are only there to stiffen votes away. It didn’t used to always be like that but that’s what their function was in 2016.
Anyone voting third party at the Presidential level is complicit in ensuring another Trump term.
Third parties have no right to waltz into the race at that level when they have ZERO lower level infrastructure. The way to build parties is to start small…. local level offices, then you build your bench team who can run for state offices, then federal offices. There is ZERO chance that any third party candidate will win, nor will they be welcomed by a Congress run by two major parties.
It is the height of hubris for Schultz or anyone else to consider running for President as a third party candidate.
Schultz has no chance, so his being a part of the presidential conversation at all must be his need for attention. I think most of the Republican platform is immoral. I also think that the Democratic Party is leaning too liberal at this point, and may cause some more moderate Democrats and Independents to not vote at all or vote third party. Which would be TRAGIC and dangerous to have another four years of Trump. Just being realistic here. Get Trump out first, then move further to the left.
I don’t know why anyone thinks they deserve a perfectly aligned to their views political candidate.
In what world, special snowflake???
Pick your top priorities, look around, and unless you are insane and want both a wall and LBTQ equality, there will be a politician for you. Not every single issue that you may have an opinion on is equally important.
Or run for office yourself and be the perfection you so desperately feel entitled to.
Who are you responding to?
Her interview was great! That Bumble story – omg. They get free drinks because the bartender recognized HER … and then dude cheaps out on her $5.41 snack.
If that’s the talent pool out there – time to get a dog!!!
No comment on Schultz because he’s going nowhere fast.
For the last few elections third party candidates have gotten a pathetically small percentage of votes in the US, and the polling shows the majority of third party voters would have not voted at all if not for the presence of third party candidate.
The problem isn’t that a tiny handful of people who switch from Democrat to a third party candidate, it’s the millions of Democrats who pick and choose when to vote and the millions more who choose to never vote at all.
Clinton would have won so very easily in 16 if even half the voters who came out for Obama but not for her had shown up. Blame the Democrats who sat the election out, not the people who actually got off their ass and participated.
Oh be assured, my friend, the burning conflagration of my unending fury is large enough to encompass everyone involved in the shitshow of 2016.
Jinny, if the third party folks actually participated in local elections and policy with their third party rather than jumping in feet first into national races, maybe they’d have a better shot. For Trump’s win, the third party folks proudly proclaimed that they didn’t care that Donald Trump might win. It was “good for America” many said as those of us who saw this train rolling into the wall yelled, “Please don’t let the train hit the wall.” The women who showed up for Hilary were minorities, particularly Black women. They saw it coming. Lots of white women preserved their status by staying home or voting Trump. Sarandon, Rosario Dawson and their ilk should have followed Bernie Sander’s lead and thrown their support behind Hillary Clinton, as flawed as she was against Trump. She was clearly the superior candidate, but the people who should have switch votes instead stayed home, and now we get to watch Mitch McConnell use Trump as a distraction while he installs the justices he and the Heritage Foundation want all over the country. So, no, your argument doesn’t work.
I love her, Howard Schultz needs to stay home and take up knitting or something, and dating SUCKS. (Honestly, if my marriage fell apart for some reason, I can’t imagine ever trying to date again.) Thanks for reminding me I need to go follow Yvette on Twitter!
Third party candidates in a presidential election are a waste. Sorry but they are. And it’s not like you’re sticking it to the man by voting for them. Everyone knows they won’t win. It’s like someone said above, they siphon votes from the actual contenders. I don’t really understand the people that vote for them either. It’s not like you’re going to get a medal or anything. And as you can see from what we have now, it will only fill you with regret. So, yes, you can believe whatever you want. No one expects you to be 100% for either party. But at election time, you have to put your country first. Vote for the person who has a chance and who checks off most of your boxes. You can always tell people you voted third party so you can get your street cred but do the right thing.