Four years after stepping onto the national stage as a presidential candidate and two years after founding the Forward Party, Andrew Yang sat down for a discussion with around 100 USC students Thursday night, answering questions about political polarization, the economy and his political journey.

The event was co-sponsored by the Center for the Political Future and the USC Political Union, a branch of BridgeUSA, a national organization with the mission of promoting healthy political dialogue. Yang previously visited campus in March. 

“A lot of times with almost celebrity-like politicians, it feels like they’re on a different plane or in a different universe than us,” said Eleanor Love, a sophomore majoring in public policy and vice president of the USC Political Union who attended Thursday’s event. “Having this Q&A section … is really going to allow students a chance to be more one-on-one [with Yang].”

Yang flew into Los Angeles earlier this week to attend the American Democracy Summit Wednesday, and initially considered visiting UCLA for a talk, said Hailie Addison, director for national programs at BridgeUSA. After pressure from BridgeUSA, however, he returned to USC instead, Addison said.

Yang, the self-proclaimed “magical Asian man from the future saying we should give everyone money,” opened the event with a brief statement on his career, describing his experience as a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. He left the Democratic Party in 2021 to launch the Forward Party, an alternative to the traditional two-party system which aims to depolarize American politics by introducing ranked-choice voting nationwide, outlawing gerrymandering, and encouraging direct and civil conversations across party lines. Yang admitted that, while he “campaigned [his] heart out” for the presidency, he never thought he would win.

“I came off the trail, and it was … more than I could ever imagine, but I also still felt terrible about American politics,” Yang said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, great, I can get a job on TV now.’ I could give a shit about any of that stuff. Frankly, I walked away from that stuff to try and do something more genuine.”

A longtime advocate about the dangers of artificial intelligence, Yang was eager to discuss a system he calls “human-centered capitalism,” where the economy is driven by good work rather than capital efficiency. 

“I’m a capitalist, but I think capitalism is gonna kill us all at this rate,” Yang said. “AI is gonna get in here and be like, ‘Don’t really need you!’ You need to fix it so that we’re actually core to the measurements of economic success.”

Although Yang made anti-poverty policies such as universal basic income — which, in his own proposal, would be a $1,000 monthly check paid to all American adults to account for jobs lost to AI — a hallmark of his presidential campaign, the policies are notably absent from the Forward Party’s platform. Yang said he believes achieving the Forward Party’s goals of election reform must take place before the party can pursue UBI and other policies. 

In 2016, James Lo, an assistant professor of political science, reported that political polarization in the United States was at its highest point since the 1870s. A 2022 study by the Pew Research Center found that gap had only continued to grow, complicating the path forward for the Forward Party. In response to these issues and questions of how the Forward Party will become a legitimate option for voters, Yang said he decided the party should focus on gaining support through local elections rather than focusing on the presidential election.

“We’re going to local races in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia; and boosting hundreds of local candidates who are reasonable and anti-MAGA,” Yang said. “Let’s say you run 500 reasonable candidates that each get out 50 to 100 [voters]. You increase the reasonable voter turnout by 25,000 to 30,000. That’s actually a very reasonable factor in who wins in 2024.” 

Despite not following Yang’s career extensively, Julian Sanchez, a freshman majoring in political science, said it was “great to hear from him in person and actually be able to hear a politician live.” 

“I know people have busy schedules, but it really shows something when someone comes over here and talks about the conflicts we have in America and solutions that he has,” Sanchez said.

Yang said he recognized that negativity can be pervasive among young voters, who grew up in an increasingly polarized U.S.; but he directed students to look toward the future.

“I get the cynicism. I personally am not allowed to be very cynical, because I am an organization leader,” Yang said. “When I encounter people who are in that mode, I just think to myself, ‘I have to demonstrate to that person that this is actually a worthwhile investment of their time and energy.’”