Straight Dope Message Board

[Heffalump and Roo]

Happy Father's Day!

Yang's wife, Evelyn sent a beautiful letter to the Yang Gang about how she felt about Andrew and how much his family means to him. There was an article very early in the year, asking all the men Presidential candidates how they handled their family obligations. For some of the journalists, Yang's answer stood out. Evelyn asked the Yang Gang to send their support to him on this Father's Day, so people sent their good wishes to him.

After the Bill Maher show and the TYT show, there are more people supporting Yang and also more journalists attacking him.

Bill Maher gave a shout out to Yang [at about minute 8] saying that Yang is out of the box.

Chris Cillizza picked Yang as his dark horse.

2. The "Purple" debate, handicapped: My dark horse? Andrew Yang. Yang has a nerdy appeal and will benefit from the fact that lots and lots of Democrats know nothing (or very little) about him or his positions.

Cenk Uygur forecasted that Yang will make it to the top 6. [at 16:55] The Hill reporters and Cenk argued about who helped Yang more in the beginning.

Cenk on twitter

Fun prediction: @AndrewYang will move past a lot of the traditional candidates and move into the top six. I think he’s going to even pass @BetoORourke.

Ben Shapiro also gave Yang a shout out (about the debates).

*Plus Andrew Yang, the only person on the stage who has ideas different from the rest.

ETA: Pod Save America also interviewed Yang.

Paul Krugman took a slam at Yang and Yang responded.

Yang was on CNN with Brian Stelter where they discussed the missing MSNBC graphic. Stelter made it seem like an oversight, but it went on for months with people on Twitter notifying them every time it happened. They also talked about the alternative media routes that Yang has taken since mainstream media was not interested in him until the debates were announced.

Yang's campaign gave the most detailed responses on cybersecurity of all the Democratic candidates from a reporter on cybersecurity.

Of all 23 Dems surveyed, @AndrewYang's campaign gave the most detailed responses. The Yang Gang requires 2FA and training for new employees, has 4 part-time cyber staffers, retains an outside firm, uses a password manager and has tools to track disinfo

From the WSJ article:

The campaign of Democrat Andrew Yang was one of the more forthcoming. A spokesman said it hired a cybersecurity advisory firm and has four employees working part time on cybersecurity. The campaign relies on multifactor authentication to log into accounts, deploys a password manager for software systems and requires new staff and volunteers undergo cybersecurity training before gaining access to campaign systems, among other measures.

Personally, I really appreciated that. The thought of Rudy Giuliani heading the cybersecurity for the nation was not reassuring.

Of course, most of the attention is on the debate. Yang will be on the second night, June 27. With a week and a half to the debates, Yang is moving up on a few polls to 2% or 3%. Hopefully, that momentum will continue.

A poll by Business Insider called Yang telegenic and said that Yang and Klobuchar are the most anticipated by people in the poll to see on the debate stage.

The reasons for this aren't certain, but the candidates that have the most supporters ready to tune in are the telegenic entrepreneur Andrew Yang and the Minnesota senator and former federal prosecutor Amy Klobuchar. Though sample size is lower than ideal, the overwhelming majority of Democratic respondents who said they'd be satisfied with Yang or Klobuchar as nominee said they'd tune in.

Sounds like it will be a good time. 451

[Heffalump and Roo]

Yang spent most of his time in the last week in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He went to Jim Clyburn's fish fry and leaped off the stage. 'There's an Asian man running for president who wants to give everyone $1,000': Andrew Yang introduces himself to crowd at South Carolina fish fry with running leap off stage

After the Bill Maher show, the tone of Yang's social media that Yang doesn't have control over has changed a bit, IMO. There are more people joining every day, but also a few more trolls than there were. And there are well-meaning people who now want to change the sub to their liking since they've now joined. It's inevitable, but the change is noticeable because it's so quick. The positive tone is still very much predominant though, which is nice. Yang does his best to try to keep it positive, so that helps.

Hello #YangGang - thank you so much for your support!! Please do keep our online discussions positive and wholesome - we will win more people over plus it’s the #HumanityFirst way to respect others’ points of view. Thank you and let’s make history in 2020!

Some people do change their tone after seeing something like this.

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

Paul Krugman took a slam at Yang and Yang responded.

Amy Webb, futurist, author and professor at NYU, agreed with Yang.

I was happy to see Nick Hanauer, entrepreneur and venture capitalist, writing similar ideas to Yang on education. Hanauer changed his ideas on what he thought the answer was to the problem of wealth inequality, then he wrote about what changed his mind. Basically what changed his mind are some of the same stats that Yang used to form his theories on how to fix the educational system.

Hanauer is a huge proponent of a $15/hr minimum wage, but even in that article, that idea wouldn't help his hypothetical family get the $29K they would have gotten if wages kept up with GDP. A UBI would do more for that. From what I've seen, it looks like Hanauer backs Buttigieg. I haven't seen him write anything about Yang. I don't know if he knows anything about Yang.

Hanauer talks about the theory that if the educational systems were fixed, then wealth inequality would be reduced. He recently realized that wealth inequality needs to be fixed first before the solution of education can take hold on a broader scale. Yang emphasizes the fixes for wealth inequality but also emphasizes other forms of education such as jobs training as well.

My Latest: “Like many rich Americans, I used to think better schools could heal the country’s ills,” writes @NickHanauer, “but I was wrong.”

Better Schools Won’t Fix America
Like many rich Americans, I used to think educational investment could heal the country’s ills—but I was wrong. Fighting inequality must come first.

Long ago, I was captivated by a seductively intuitive idea, one many of my wealthy friends still subscribe to: that both poverty and rising inequality are largely consequences of America’s failing education system. Fix that, I believed, and we could cure much of what ails America.

This belief system, which I have come to think of as “educationism,”. . .
But after decades of organizing and giving, I have come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I was wrong. And I hate being wrong.

What I’ve realized, decades late, is that educationism is tragically misguided. American workers are struggling in large part because they are underpaid—and they are underpaid because 40 years of trickle-down policies have rigged the economy in favor of wealthy people like me. Americans are more highly educated than ever before, but despite that, and despite nearly record-low unemployment, most American workers—at all levels of educational attainment—have seen little if any wage growth since 2000.

To be clear: We should do everything we can to improve our public schools. But our education system can’t compensate for the ways our economic system is failing Americans.. . .
In short, great public schools are the product of a thriving middle class, not the other way around. Pay people enough to afford dignified middle-class lives, and high-quality public schools will follow. But allow economic inequality to grow, and educational inequality will inevitably grow with it.

By distracting us from these truths, educationism is part of the problem.

Hanauer then notes that if wages kept pace with productivity, an average worker would be making $29K more per year.

Today, after wealthy elites gobble up our outsize share of national income, the median American family is left with $76,000 a year. Had hourly compensation grown with productivity since 1973—as it did over the preceding quarter century, according to the Economic Policy Institute—that family would now be earning more than $105,000 a year. Just imagine, education reforms aside, how much larger and stronger and better educated our middle class would be if the median American family enjoyed a $29,000-a-year raise.

Yang can imagine a raise for about that much for every family. He calls it the Freedom Dividend. A family of two adults would get $24K or almost a $29K raise. The fixes that Hanauer mentions such as strengthening unions and a $15/hr minimum wage wouldn't actually help the average family get that much of a raise.

Hanauer then notes why some people still want to believe in educationism.

Educationism appeals to the wealthy and powerful because it tells us what we want to hear: that we can help restore shared prosperity without sharing our wealth or power.

It's a common refrain.

On an unrelated but slightly parallel note, Yang wrote this email this week.

"Random Man Runs for President" was the headline of the recent Washington Post Magazine cover story about me and the campaign. The theme of the story is that I am a fairly normal guy who is now running for President and changing the conversation.

I like the article a lot. The journalist did a wonderful job.

The fact is, though, that I’m NOT normal. And that’s sort of the point.

The average American lives in Ohio or Maine (the average states) and has a net worth of $36k, $6k if you exclude home and vehicle equity. He or she attended one year of college or post-secondary school and would struggle with an unexpected $500 bill.

THAT’s normal.
. . .
For a politician or presidential candidate, I seem fairly normal. But I have no illusions that I’m a regular guy or the average American. The average American couldn’t drop everything and decide to run for President. If they did, they would likely attract no attention. And the bills would catch up very quickly.

That’s what happened to Richard. [Ojeda]

I’ve had a very fortunate life and am thrilled to do my part to push this country in the right direction. This campaign is about one thing – improving the life of the average American.

When someone like me is considered normal, it’s a bad sign for our democracy. Too many Americans feel like their voices are unimportant.

It's nice to see he hasn't forgotten this.

Yang is scheduled to be on The Stephen Colbert show on Monday 6/24/19. Spiderman (Tom Holland) is also scheduled for that night. Yang is a Spiderman fan.

Then it's the DNC debates on Thursday 6/27/19. (This picture and the caption made me laugh.) 452

[asahi]

Yang is definitely going to be interesting to watch over the next few weeks. It'll be interesting to see if he can transition from being the internet candidate to a more household name.

Right now, in my own unofficial power rankings, I've got him ranked about 6 or 7 out of the field of 24 (25?). 453

[puzzlegal]

I gave $3 to Yang as a vote for him to be on the debate stage. So I get regular email from his campaign, along with the Warren, Booker, and Buttigieg campaigns. (I also asked Harris and O'Rourke to stop emailing me.)

The difference in tone was striking. As all the candidates were focussed on making the debate, Booker (who had qualified) wrote me scary emails about how the rules would be tighter in the future (presumably for the second) and I had to give more money now. Yang (who hadn't quite qualified, but was looking good) wrote an upbeat missive about how the Yang Gang was going to do it. And a few days later, I got an equally upbeat letter about how he was one of (fewer than 20) who had qualified under both standards. 454

[Heffalump and Roo]

It's been quite a week for the Yang Gang. It started with Yang's visit to the Stephen Colbert show. The Yang Gang made a good showing in the audience. Colbert was forced to mention it. Colbert's derision was less evident than when he was roasting Yang in his monologues. Yang seemed to be having a good time.

A slightly racist and cringey decision in walk out music on the part of the Colbert show. The interview went pretty well. It was entertaining. It's got over 500K views on youtube.

On the show, Yang announced that he would be giving a Freedom Dividend for a year to a random person who retweeted his tweet and followed him on twitter. There are 128K retweets as I write this (129K as I finished writing it), and he has more than 150K followers more than he had before the show. He got 50K of those followers after the debate.

Jack Dorsey (ex-CEO of twitter) and Casey Neistat (popular youtuber) both retweeted Yang's tweet. That gave it a lot of exposure.

Then it was on to the debates. Going into the debates, the big issue in the media was that Yang wasn't wearing a tie. People in the media seemed to be affronted by it. The Yang Gang didn't seem to notice. Yang doesn't ever wear a tie.

During the debate, Yang had 2 questions, spoke for under 3 minutes and didn't challenge anyone. The Yang Gang was befuddled. A couple really loud people were super negative about it. (It turns out that at least one of them was a troll who wiped his account today.) The mood of the sub was down. Yang looked dispirited. As Yang gave interviews in the Spin room, he was asked if he was intimidated by the people on the stage. Yang answered that he travels with these people, so no, he wasn't.

Meanwhile, the Yang Gang was trying to remain positive. Then there was word that Yang gave a supporter rally where he claimed that his mic was shut off during parts of the debate. As a bit of backstory, MSNBC had been leaving Yang off their Presidential graphics so many times I lost count. There was one graphic that was supposed to be debate participants where Yang's picture was missing but someone who didn't make the debate had taken the space.

The Yang Gang got a hashtag #LetYangSpeak going on twitter that was trending to at least #2 by the next morning.

Yang went from:

I stood at the center of the political universe last night and did not come away encouraged by our future. Will do my best to change that. 👍🇺🇸

to

Haha #LetYangSpeak indeed. You all are the best. The #YangGang is amazing. 👍😀

in an hour. After that, his humor and light-heartedness was back.

A couple publications picked up the story. #LetYangSpeak trends on Twitter after Yang accuses NBC of cutting his mic in debate NBC denied cutting off anyone's mic during the debate. NBC denies Yang's accusation that his mic was turned off in debate

In a way that no one was anticipating, Yang made it to the front page of r/politics on Reddit twice in one day for not getting more time to speak in the debates. The bigger one got over 4K comments and over 14K upvotes. Redditors were mostly very sympathetic. Both a Bernie fan and a Pete fan showed up in the Yang sub to donate some money to the campaign in support of Yang getting such limited time in the debate. Yang only got two questions while others polling much lower got up to 5 questions.

As a result of some of this boost in donations, Yang made it to the 130K unique donor mark today to make it to the Sept. debate.

Despite the snark in the media, (Politico)

The Jim Webb Award (Least Talkative): Andrew Yang

The former tech executive has built a very small- but-dedicated following — mostly online. Not only did he easily clear the donor threshold for the first two debates, his campaign says it is on the cusp of clinching the 130,000 donors it needs, along with future polling, to make it to the third debate in September.

But Yang barely made an impression on Thursday night. He spoke for only around 3 minutes — the shortest speaking time of any of the 20 candidates on both nights of the debate.

according to a 538/Morning Consult poll that polled the before and after impressions of the debate, there was only a slight downtick after the debate from 1.3% to 1.2%.

On the other hand, most of the youtube videos I've seen of Yang's UBI piece from the debate has the most views of the other clips of other candidates.

On balance, this could turn out positive. Onward and upward. 455

[Procrustus]

Yang made it to the front page of r/politics on Reddit twice in one day...

That’s very exciting. If only there was some overlap between Reddit and voters 456

[asahi]

Unfortunately for Yang, he is still mostly an internet candidate at this point. People are Googling his name, but it's not necessarily translating into real visibility at this point.

That being said, I am in agreement that Yang should have gotten more airtime. I was surprised that Williamson, who was actually tracking lower than Yang, got to speak a lot more frequently. But I'm not sure if that was because Yang's mic was off. It didn't seem like he was necessarily fighting to speak; he just seemed a little confused by the whole format, which is really more on the candidate. Yang probably assumed that he'd field more questions, but he just kept waiting and waiting for his turn and it never came.

I suspect that Yang is right: other networks might be more accommodating than MSNBC and Telemundo. These moderators were clearly leaning hard to the political left and were really a lot more interested in asking social justice questions and talking about other pet left wing issues than entertaining discussions about UBI and VAT taxes.

It might feel unnatural but Yang is going to have to be a little more assertive next time and he needs to learn the art of delivering 'zingers'. Political debates are theater. He needs to learn how to act. 457

[CarnalK]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

A slightly racist and cringey decision in walk out music on the part of the Colbert show.

Come on, they just stuck his name in "Everybody Wang Chung tonight". Talk shows have been doing stuff like that for a while. 458

[asahi]

Originally Posted by CarnalK

Come on, they just stuck his name in "Everybody Wang Chung tonight". Talk shows have been doing stuff like that for a while.

So it's okay if they play the theme song to the Jeffersons when Cory Booker and Kamala Harris come on the show then, right? I mean, it's just music. 459

[CarnalK]

Originally Posted by asahi

So it's okay if they play the theme song to the Jeffersons when Cory Booker and Kamala Harris come on the show then, right? I mean, it's just music.

How is that even remotely similar? Wang Chung is a British new wave band. It's not accosiated with anything Asian, except the name which apparently means "yellow bell"in Chinese. Yang just rhymes with Wang. Chill out. 460

[chargerrich]

Originally Posted by CarnalK

How is that even remotely similar? Wang Chung is a British new wave band. It's not accosiated with anything Asian, except the name which apparently means "yellow bell"in Chinese. Yang just rhymes with Wang. Chill out.

While I personally think we are living in a "way too easy to offend era", I can definitely see the similiarities in the two and as well as the hypocrisy of one being OK and the other not.

The fact that the band who performed the song is British, has zero relevance and is not germain to the discussion... in my opinion. 461

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by Procrustus

That’s very exciting. If only there was some overlap between Reddit and voters

That's a common theme in the Yang sub. Here's one exchange.

A: Now the question becomes do Reddit and Twitter users vote....?
B: They do for Yang
C: Can confirm, my first time voting at 27 years old will be for yang.
D: also never voted and never even cared about politics, I'm 25 and voting for the 1st time.
E: My first vote will be for Yang
F: He will be my first vote.
Edit: I've had the opportunity to vote in many elections. I really believe he will do better at the ballots than the polls think.
G: First vote

Of course, that's just anecdotal, and it's just a handful of people in a small sub. But if a majority of the people on those platforms turned out, it could make a difference in the election. Most of the people on Reddit are millennials. There are 82 million millennials in the US. For context, there are about 5 million people subscribed to r/politics and about 14 million people subscribed to the administrative subreddit.

I also noticed that some of those people have donor flairs next to their usernames. Yang has raised $1.7M last quarter and close to $2.5M this quarter. I'm thinking that if some people were willing to lay out their hard earned cash to the campaign, they'd make the extra effort to vote.

The bigger question is how to reach people who are not on social media. When Yang was just starting to grow on twitter, he would post that whenever he was getting popular, he would remind himself that something like 72% (don't remember the exact number) of the population don't use twitter.

Then again, that's a problem with almost any media. They say that the debates drew between 15-19 million viewers. That's a lot of people, but it's not close to reaching the majority of people.

Originally Posted by chargerrich

While I personally think we are living in a "way too easy to offend era", I can definitely see the similiarities in the two and as well as the hypocrisy of one being OK and the other not.

I should add that Yang is not a fan of identity politics. He didn't comment on that one way or the other. That was just my personal take on the choice of song. 462

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by asahi

It might feel unnatural but Yang is going to have to be a little more assertive next time and he needs to learn the art of delivering 'zingers'. Political debates are theater. He needs to learn how to act.

I've been thinking about this and reading other people's comments about the debates.

Delivering 'zingers' is what trolls do. It seems odd to me that people are surprised that there's a master troll in the White House when people are selecting for that in the debates.

From some of the things I've read, I think other people are questioning that as well. 463

[CarnalK]

Originally Posted by chargerrich

While I personally think we are living in a "way too easy to offend era", I can definitely see the similiarities in the two and as well as the hypocrisy of one being OK and the other not.

The fact that the band who performed the song is British, has zero relevance and is not germain to the discussion... in my opinion.

So one song is the theme to a break out comedy that defined "blackness" for much of America in the 70s. The other is a random pop song that uses a chinese word in its chorus. But you see similarities. Also, you think we're in a "way too easy to offend era". I hate to break it to you, but you are an example of the era. 464

[Heffalump and Roo]

Some people on the #LetYangSpeak hashtag suggested that Yang create a podcast to get his message out to more people. Yang put up a tweet, asking people if they'd like to hear a podcast.

A supporter tonight suggested I start doing a podcast called “Let Yang Speak” and do an annotated commentary on the debate and other topics. Like this if you like the idea. 😀👍

The tweet got 56K likes in a day or so. Yang asked for suggestions on guests. I haven't heard more since then.

The twitter campaign to give away a Freedom Dividend for a year to a person following Yang's twitter account went pretty well. There were roughly 158K retweets and his twitter following increased by over 200K accounts. The winner was supposed to have been picked on the 4th of July and vetted. The winner is still to be announced. Maybe he will announce the winner on "The View" on Monday.

Yang is scheduled to appear on The View on Monday July 8 at 11 am. That show has a tendency to tear people down, so I'm hoping for the best.

Over the holiday weekend, the Yang Gang has been knocking on doors, putting up flyers and phone banking. They made 6.9K calls in one day this weekend. Someone offered to donate $5 for every person who volunteered to phone bank this weekend.

Yang did the #bottlecapchallenge. It got 1.37M views on twitter. Not sure why so many people were interested in that, but there it is. The media was more interested in the typo in the word challenge.

Yang says Biden spoke to him during one of the breaks in the debate requesting to talk to him later about the 4th Industrial Revolution. Yang was pleased.

At an event in NYC, Andrew told the audience that during a break, Biden came up to him and said, "Andrew, you and I need to sit down and talk about the 4th industrial revolution". Biden also told Yang that his biggest concern is that that we are going to get rid of the middle class. Yang was happy that Biden gets it.

Here's the video. The beginning of the video has a number of people speaking Chinese. I've heard Yang speaking Chinese to those groups sometimes.

Too bad Yang didn't break out in Chinese when asked the question on China in the debate. /s

There's a picture of Biden watching Yang's speech in South Carolina several days before the debates.

Someone from the UBI study in Canada made a video to give his first hand impressions. His anecdotal impressions were that the money helped people in ways that he wasn't expecting, giving hope and relieving stress. He couldn't square his first hand experiences with how he expected things to go.

I've been watching the views on the NBC News NY videos of the candidates since the debate. I've been trying to make sense of the view counts, but I'm not seeing a pattern. This is not the main NBC news channel youtube. This is a small offshoot youtube channel, so it's not clear how people would have found the channel.

Everything Andrew Yang said at the debate
283K views
Everything Kamala Harris said at the debate
197K views
Everything Marianne Williamson said at the debate
150K views
Everything Booker said
2K views
Everything Castro said
13K views
Everything Tulsi said
169K views

Yang's view count continues to rise every day, which might be a good sign. But that small snippet isn't a very good representation of his platform, so it's hard to say if it's helpful. It might be if people use that clip to search out more.

After the appearance on The View on Monday 7/8/19 at 11 am, Yang is scheduled to do a rally in Portland, OR on Saturday 7/13/19. 465

[asahi]

According to my power rankings, Andrew Yang was in 6th place before the debates and he's still in 6th place now, despite having had very little opportunity to speak. He's struggling to get past 1% in the polls, but he clearly has a committed following, so he'll be around for at least a few more months, most likely.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...61&postcount=5

I think MSNBC was not necessarily a great network for Yang. He might get more attention on CNN and as the debates move away from just left wing outlets. 466

[Heffalump and Roo]

I was pleasantly shocked by how The View treated Yang. For the most part, they were nice and agreed with him.

Megan McCain started off by telling him that she has a "dear friend" who is Yang Gang. Just about every day, I see someone posting in the Yang sub about how they supported Trump and are now supporting Yang. Megan's friend puts a "real life" spin on this, although I personally think that many of those people are real too.

As Yang explained UBI, Joy Behar questioned why it was needed. He explained how it would create a trickle up economy as well as redefining what we now consider as work such as for stay at home mothers. Joy liked the idea of compensating stay at home mothers. Yang noted that it would also help the waitress who was getting harassed by her boss and the single mom who might be in an abusive relationship to get some resources to help them out of their situation.

Then when he was explaining the universality of UBI.

Joy: Why should rich white people get a thousand dollars a month?
Yang: The great thing is that it would remind them that they're still an American.
Megan: I don't need. . . no one at this table needs, an extra thousand dollars a month. I wouldn't feel right when there are still veterans on the street.
Whoopi: You could give it away.
Megan: ::shaking her head::
Whoopi: That's what he means when he says that it would remind people that they're still American. It's not just what you do for yourself. It's also about what you do for other folks.
Megan: ::glaring::

Yang gives the example of Alaska and how their UBI is popular because the universality depoliticizes it, destigmatizes it and eliminates the us vs. them nature of other benefits programs.

It was great for Whoopi to give the assist. Whoopi ended the session saying that Yang had interesting ideas and that she would be keeping an eye out for him. Sunny agreed.

There are a lot of good arguments for universality that I've read. Here are some that I like. Creating the arbitrary cut-off line about who receives it will create a lot of debate and divisiveness that might lead to the standard going lower and lower. Eliminating millionaires and billionaires takes so little off the cost that redistributing their share only gives less than $100 to everyone else. Since the Freedom Dividend is opt-in, hopefully people who don't need it will not bother to opt-in.

A social worker, posting on twitter, polled her clients, asking if they would rather have welfare benefits or UBI. 28 out of 30 voted for UBI.

Later, Yang tweeted about what the hosts on The View had been telling him during the break about how the economy wasn't as some people were painting it.

One thing that @WhoopiGoldberg @sunny @JoyVBehar stressed to me during the break - the economic numbers don’t match up to how people are doing. We need to use measurements like health, life expectancy, mental health, childhood success and environment quality as measures instead.

Sunny confirmed with

This

Yang raised $2.8M for quarter 2 2019. 99.6% of the donations were less than $200. There are over 130K unique donors which meets the qualifying number for the next set of debates in September and October. (He has already qualified for the July debate.) He still needs 2% in three more qualifying polls before Aug. 28 to qualify for those debates. He just hit 2% on a qualifying poll - NBC/WSJ.

Originally Posted by asahi

According to my power rankings, Andrew Yang was in 6th place before the debates and he's still in 6th place now, despite having had very little opportunity to speak.

You were prophetic, at least for the NBC/WSJ poll. Yang's in 6th place in that poll. (Just saw that you changed the ranking to 8th. That's probably closer to the overall polling.)

He hit 3% on an Emerson poll, but that doesn't count toward the debates. The DNC pulled that poll from the debate qualifying polls. The remaining polls are mostly corporate media polls.

MSNBC did an interview with Yang on Ari Melber. At this point, Yang is one of 7 candidates on track to make the September debate.

The latest polling shows that only seven 2020 candidates are on track to make the debate stage in September. That includes people you might expect like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but is also includes tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang. The presidential candidate sits down for his very first interview on The Beat to break down his signature “Freedom Dividend” plan, eliminating the penny and why he loves holograms so much.

Someone posted a link to the subreddit stats on the Yang sub. I found it fascinating. The growth in the last couple weeks has been quite high after steady growth from March to June.

Yang announced the Freedom Dividend winner from the twitter contest. She looked overjoyed.

A comedian who did a parody of Yang (that Yang participated in) for The Daily Show, Ronny Chieng, talks seriously and positively about Yang's idea and his run for President. Chieng noted that he is not a citizen of the US.

Yang tweeted about Amazon's $700M retraining efforts.

Amazon committing $700 million to retraining workers is a sign of just how big the automation problem is

Yang is mentioned in that article

And the fear that robots are taking jobs, and that automation will lead to mass unemployment, has grabbed the popular imagination. Magazine covers warn of a robot apocalypse. Andrew Yang, a former tech entrepreneur, is running for president partly on a platform of offering a universal income to offset jobs lost to automation. The McKinsey Global Institute predicts that up to one-third of the American work force will have to switch to new occupations by 2030.

Tomorrow, 7/13/19, Yang is holding a rally in Portland. On 7/19/19, there will be an AARP forum with Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson in Sioux City, Iowa. 467

[Heffalump and Roo]

The Yang rally in Portland went great. The energy was great. I enjoyed watching it.

Yang was on Recode Decode (podcast) with Kara Swisher. There was a Facebook video live that was fun to watch.

Yang did an AARP forum with 3 other Presidential candidates (they were all on separately but on the same day). IMO, he nailed it at that one. He differentiated the benefits of the Freedom Dividend over $15/hr min wage.

Yesterday, there was an AMA with Yang on the subReddit. There had been a contest last month between Facebook and Reddit to see who could get to $10K donations to the campaign faster. As a reward, Reddit got the AMA hosted there.

The AMA was crossposted on r/politics and r/AMA and made the front page of Reddit. Because of that, over 2K people (close to 3K) joined the sub in a day. The sub went from 29K to 32K in a day and a half. At the time of the AMA, there were 10K visiting the sub. Some of the questions that Yang didn't answer were answered by the Yang Gang.

Here's a graph of the other candidates' subs' growth taken before the AMA.

The campaign needs 4 qualifying polls to hit 2% or higher to qualify for the September debates. There was one earlier in the month. A new Fox News poll also counts. There's still a tiny bit of dispute over whether the NBCNews/Survey Monkey poll counts. If it does, they're at 3 out of 4 polls. If not, 2 more polls to go. Yang says (from the green room of The Daily Show) that the 3rd counts, so hopefully it does.

The Yang Gangers are phonebanking and canvassing to try to reach more people. The phonebankers say that the people they talk with are all 50 years or older. They're trying to find ways to reach that demographic. There's a Boomers for Andrews Yang youtube, but the viewcount is still very small.

Tonight, 7/25/19, Yang appears on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Then on July 31, it's the second debate on CNN. 468

[Heffalump and Roo]

Andrew Yang and Michael Bennet goofing around on twitter. Hilariousl

Andrew, how did you know I got a C in precalculus in high school — on the retake.

I would like to signal to the press that I will be attacking Michael Bennet at next week’s debate. Sorry @MichaelBennet but you know what you did.

If I only get 3 minutes of talking time in the next debate I'm still using all of them to attack @MichaelBennet

::gif of two penguins, one slapping down the other.

Just confirmed with debate officials that @AndrewYang’s microphone will be muted during my rebuttal.

::gif of a penguin with the caption - come at me bro

CNN got the joke.

Between the tweets, both Bennet and Yang tweeted out some of their policies.

One of the things I like about the Yang campaign is that he sometimes shows glimpses of what it's like behind the scenes. At one of his interviews, he said, do you know what we do during the breaks at the debate? We go get our make-up done. The whole thing is manufactured for TV.

The interview with Trevor Noah went well. The audience was great.

Next up, the debate on Wednesday 7/31/19. 469

[Heffalump and Roo]

Andrew Yang's second debate went much better than the first.* He got some good press from it, a bunch of social media increases and more donations since the debate.

The Yang Gang was pleased because the idea for Yang to talk about how the debate was like a reality tv show came from the sub. Someone in the sub wrote out a whole statement to read out in the debate. Then someone gave the statement to Yang in the AMA that Yang held for the sub. Yang said he'd take a look at it, which he evidently did.

My favorite picture from the debate: Andrew Yang in an elevator with Inslee, Gabbard, Gillibrand, and Booker! [they look like they're sharing an inside joke] My second favorite: Yang and Biden.

Secular Talk (Kyle Kulinski, progressive youtuber) thought that Yang did much better. David Pakman, another progressive youtuber, felt that Yang won the debate, along with Biden.

Whoopi Goldberg gave Yang a shout-out the day before the debate, the day of the debate and the day after the debate on The View.

Van Jones was literally shouting Yang Gang after the debate.

Some voters in Flint, MI liked Yang's message.

‘Everybody Uses Us.’ What It Was Like to Watch the Democratic Debate in Flint, Michigan

Smith came to the debate thinking he wanted to hear from Harris or Booker, but found himself listening closely to Yang. “He was really talking about real issues, not just attacking and playing the politics game. He had his math together,” said Smith. “He’s not the usual candidate.” Other voters at the watch party agreed: in an informal poll conducted after the debate, Yang won overwhelmingly.

From The Root in Flint, MI.

While Bell and others are looking inward to keep Flint afloat, most of the people in the room really liked Andrew Yang and believed he spoke to their issues better than the other candidates.

“His context sounds like President Obama. He’s talking about jobs,” Bell said. “He’s talking about opportunities. He was on The Breakfast Club talking about how, by 2025, the jobs for many African Americans will be gone if we don’t do something about our economy. I love what he has to say about the economy and financial literacy.”

Like Bell and most people at the forum, I think Yang won last night’s debate because of his clarity, lack of overcomplicated language and his messaging, which showed he cared about the people of Detroit and the rest of the state. He came across as very blue-collar—he is not—and resonated with the working class. Few other people on the stage pulled that off.

While this isn't official (a Yang volunteer put it together, it looks like), the chart shows that Yang led the candidates in adding the most twitter followers after the debate. Yang has added roughly about 74K new twitter followers, 25K coming the day of the debate, and roughly about 10K new subs to the Yang subreddit since the debate.

Since the debate, Yang has raised over $1M, with 87% of the money coming from new donors. The campaign is planning on using that money for ad buys in the early states.

Yang still needs one more qualifying poll with 2% or higher to qualify for the September debate. Last month, Yang had a 2% in a qualifying poll from NBC/WSJ and then one from NBC/Survey Monkey. After asking DNC for direction on whether it qualified for weeks, Yang announced his qualifying with both polls. Within 24 hours, DNC pronounced that only one of the the polls counted.

Yang has been on H3H3 (youtube channel), talked with Ali Velshi and Anderson Cooper. Another Anderson Cooper talk is in the works.

*It turns out that Yang was very ill the day of the first debate. He said he had an IV that day because of his illness. He didn't mention that to anyone, especially the press. I'm guessing that it would have looked like an excuse. He talks about it here in a recent supporter gathering, contrasting the first debate with the second debate. 470

[puzzlegal]

Yang just qualified for the 3rd debate:

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/08/74941...primary-debate

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang is the ninth Democrat to qualify for September's next presidential primary debates.

Yang crossed the threshold on Thursday after a Monmouth poll in Iowa put him at 2% support. He had previously hit the donor requirements of 130,000 unique donors from 20 different states. His campaign previously said he qualified outright based on an earlier poll, but the Democratic National Committee said it wouldn't count that poll.

471

[CarnalK]

Oh well. Thought all the joke candidates would be cut for the next round. 472

[asahi]

Originally Posted by CarnalK

Oh well. Thought all the joke candidates would be cut for the next round.

If you're beating 2/3 of the field, which includes people who've won statewide offices, you're not a joke candidate -- or if you are a joke, you're not a funny one to those who aren't qualifying for the next debate. 473

[CarnalK]

Originally Posted by asahi

If you're beating 2/3 of the field, which includes people who've won statewide offices, you're not a joke candidate -- or if you are a joke, you're not a funny one to those who aren't qualifying for the next debate.

When there's 20+ candidates, that is a unreliable metric for "joke candidate". I'm going to stick with "he's got super stupid ideas and lies about them" for my categorizationing. Yes, I'm well aware who that would also cover. 474

[Ryan_Liam]

Originally Posted by CarnalK

Oh well. Thought all the joke candidates would be cut for the next round.

Don't worry, I'm sure John Delaney will be cut, hang in there bud. 475

[DSeid]

Originally Posted by CarnalK

When there's 20+ candidates, that is a unreliable metric for "joke candidate". I'm going to stick with "he's got super stupid ideas and lies about them" for my categorizationing. Yes, I'm well aware who that would also cover.

Let's assume that the debate stage ends with maybe Castro and either Gabbard or Steyer just also making the cut. A total of ten, one night.

This I think will give Yang a bit more of a look-see by some. Yeah, I completely agree that his ideas are stupid and that he lies about them. But that never stopped some from supporting someone. He'd likely move up a few percent, not into contender range obviously, but who would he be poaching from?

Definitely no overlap with Biden. Those who fall off of Biden will go to one of the other three in the pack below him. They are not looking for one of the, as Nate Silver has put it, "more eccentric candidates ."

Sure maybe some of the other dropping out eccentric ones, like Gabbard and Williamson, but I think any potential rise of Yang pulls most of all from Sanders, pulling Sanders closer to his hard cement floor.

Which might help Warren as then some others who saw Sanders as a real contender look elsewhere too, and she MIGHT benefit more from that than Biden would (and pretty sure more than Harris would).

So on net any rise for him is likely fairly neutral to Biden, helps Warren, hurts Harris, and further seals Sanders' state as at most hoping to spoil it for someone else.


Initially I had thought that Yang might get UBI part of the discussion in the debates. I don't think so any more. I don't think many others will engage about it or pick it up.

The fact that Alaska's version, from the oil based Alaska Permanent Fund, is now resulting in basic services and promised scholarship monies being clawed back to support it, does not play well right now either. 476

[CarnalK]

I would agree Sanders is the likely loser of any Yang gains but I doubt any bump will be outside of the margin of error. 477

[Bijou Drains]

Elon Musk endorsed Yang

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...i-support-yang 478

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by puzzlegal

Yang just qualified for the 3rd debate:

Adding another quote from another publication:

Yang surpasses Beto in Iowa poll, qualifies for fall debates

Yang crossed the second of two required debate thresholds on Thursday, when he polled at 2 percent in a Monmouth University poll in Iowa. He had previously received at least 2 percent in three other polls approved by the Democratic National Committee and has hit the required 130,000 unique donor mark.

At the other end of the spectrum, onetime Democratic phenom Beto O'Rourke was outperformed in the poll by Yang, clocking in at under 1 percent.

Yang is the ninth candidate to qualify for a pair of debates: one in mid-September and one sometime in October. He joins Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on stage.

Qualifying for the September debates also qualifies Yang for the October debate since they both have the same qualification.

The H3 main youtube has been viewed 1M times in 2 days and hit number 4 in trending. Ethan broke the video down into several pieces that also got an additional aggregate of about 700K views. It was competing with Bernie Sanders' interview with Joe Rogan which was topping the chart at #1 and had 6.7M views in the same 2 days. Considering that the second debate had roughly 8.7M viewers, that's a pretty nice viewership, all concentrated on one person each. I enjoyed both interviews.

Yang spoke at a supporter meeting the day before he qualified for the 3rd debate, talking about some events in the campaign. First, I'm pleased to see that the composition of the crowd is much more diverse than in the early days of the campaign. In the very early days, the demographic was young males. At this meeting, many more groups are represented.

The campaign has currently raised $2.6M for the quarter so far. Since a big chunk of that money came after the debate, Yang is hoping for a big boost after the third debate. He's aiming for $5M for this quarter.

Yang said that they're planning a rally in Houston around the time of the third debate. They're also involved in events hosted by Jack Dorsey (of twitter and Squarespace), Sam Altman (of Y Combinator) and Alexis Ohanian (of Reddit) in the next few months.

He says that the campaign has a stack of resumes from people who are now working on the other campaigns because the Yang campaign is on the rise. They just hired someone to help coordinate Yang's field operations who used to work for the Sanders campaign in another cycle and is now working on a campaign that is "flaming out".

Yang also mentions that the Yang 2020 website had been visited over a million times since the debate with most of the people visiting the policies page. There are now over 100 policies on the policies page. They're now divided into categories.

Yang was in Iowa at the Iowa State Fair. Last year, at this same event was the start of his campaign. As he says, what a difference a year makes. Last year, he couldn't get anyone to stop to listen. This year, he couldn't move around without people with cameras impeding his progress. Multiple people ran alongside Yang to ask him loaded questions. I've already seen some of them in articles. Zach, Yang's campaign manager, tried his best to shield Yang away from some of the more obnoxious stuff.

Elon Musk and Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) on twitter:

Yang: I don’t expect people to agree with me on everything- that would be odd. My main hope is that people trust that I’m trying to solve problems and I’m open to different approaches - particularly if the data drives in a particular direction. Changing one’s mind is not a bad thing
Dan Carlin: How weird that this should be a somewhat novel thing to say.
Elon Musk: I support Yang
Harry Stoltz: Thoughts on UBI?
Elon Musk: Obviously needed
Elon Musk: He would our first openly goth president. I think this is very important.
Yang: Thank you Elon - this means a great deal. Congrats on building the future.

This tweet was posted in the Elon Musk sub. as well. Maybe because of this (?), there are now 3K people viewing the sub. Two months ago, the average was a few hundred. After the debate, it turned into about a thousand. (The goth comment was about this article and Yang's high school picture.)

Ethan Klein, of H3H3, confirmed as Yang Gang. He's been defending Yang in multiple tweets since the interview.

An analysis of the individual donors contributing over $200 to a campaign shows that Andrew Yang had the most donors in the 18-34 age category, followed by Bernie Sanders. Yang's donors were spread fairly evenly across the age spectrum. Elizabeth Warren's donors, by contrast were almost half 65+ years old. Yang, Tulsi and Castro all had more people of color represented in their individual donor base (more than $200) than the other candidates.

The majority of the candidates received a larger share of their itemized donations from white donors than the national percentage of the U.S. population that is white, according to the most recent census (72%). Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, and Julian Castro—all people of color—each received less than 72% of their donation totals from white people. The candidate with the highest share of white support was Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), with 97.8% of his fundraising total coming from white donors, followed by four fellow centrist or moderate candidates (Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney).

I don't follow other campaign subs so I don't know if this happens in other subs, but followers of other campaigns often drop by to donate or lend support to the Yang sub, especially from the Bernie, Mayor Pete, Trump, Tulsi and Marianne campaigns. The other campaigns beyond those don't have much of a Reddit presence. The other thing that happens often is that people post about changing from Republican to Democrat in the primary to vote for Yang. On a side note, I've come to appreciate some of the twitter and youtube commenters who have been unexpectedly gracious and open-minded when given information about Yang.

A Yang Ganger went to Anchorage Alaska to talk to one of the people who started the Alaska Permanent Fund. He says that the problems surrounding the fund today have to do with government corruption. He also interviewed a few people in Alaska about what they thought about the Freedom Dividend.

Yang was in the gun safety forum in Des Moines, IA. He broke down in tears when he heard a woman talking about her 4 year old getting shot while the twin watched. Yang has two boys, 6 and 3. Yang's proposal is to allow the owners of guns to upgrade their guns to personalized guns, subsidized by the government. That way, only the owner of the gun can shoot the gun.

On preview: I was scooped on the Elon Musk tweet, but I'll leave it in. 479

[Heffalump and Roo]

Andrew Yang's campaign has hit some round number milestone markers.

Donors just hit 200K.
Donations just passed $3.5M for the quarter. (now very close to $4M)
Subs on reddit just past 50K. (now 53.9K)
Twitter followers passed 700K. (now 717K)

A map of Yang's donors shows they're pretty evenly spread through the country.

An ex-staffer of the Yang campaign, Jonathan Herzog, is running to challenge Rep. Nadler in 2020 on Yang's platform of the Freedom Dividend. It's nice that he's using the same concepts, but he needs some of his own words. This video is word for word like a Yang speech with a different person. Still, it's good that more people on running on the Freedom Dividend platform.

David Kim in CA is also running on a UBI platform. There are a couple others as well.

This fun video of Yang has been getting a few mentions. On the campaign trail, Yang jumped into a jazzercise class. Zach, Yang's campaign manager, got one angle. A reporter shadowing them that day got another angle.

That reporter wrote this article on Politico. The Surprising Surge of Andrew Yang

In response to the article, Noah Smith (writer) tweets

Andrew Yang is for real, it seems!
. . .
I realize what I like about Andrew Yang. It's not his policies. It's not even that he's fresh and different.

It's that he seems unflappable. In this age of fear, he's completely unafraid.
. . .
LBJ once said of FDR that in the 1930s, Roosevelt was the only person he knew who was never afraid.

Yang's breakfast of champions is a Belvita breakfast cookie. I'm thinking of trying it. Then again, I've seen him eating Doritos, pizza, turkey legs and other assorted junk food. I don't think I'll be trying those out.

Yang just spoke at the DNC meeting.

Rachel Maddow did a small piece that was fairly positive (bad quality video)

When he talks, it lands. In part because he's saying things that are unique. . . . In Detroit, in debate 2, even stronger. He not only got some big applause in the room, he also again talked about stuff, including the economy, in ways that wasn't like a single other candidate on the stage. It didn't make him sound weird. It just set him apart, and it worked in the room.

There are a number of youtube channels that feature Yang in a positive light.

Nerds for Andrew Yang
Paget Kagy
American Jobs Factory

Tom at Nerds for Andrew Yang did an interview with Scott Santens, who is a staunch advocate for UBI. They talked about Yang's UBI plan and the campaign. He answered a few questions on how UBI works, the benefits and debunked some concerns. Scott Santens spoke about a march for UBI in September in NY.

The Yang Gang have created a couple tools to explain some of the concepts in the campaign or help find answers. Someone created Yanglinks.com which is a website that people can search for timestamped clips of videos of Yang. There is also a website that some people put together to break down the Freedom Dividend further.

Another Yang Ganger put together a video for the campaign with Yang clips.

There's so much creativity in the Yang Gang. They often joke that if they're all bots as so many people in the media insist, then Yang is right, the bots are about to take over.

Some recent random tweets.
Vicky Larson (writer) on Yang's policy of free marital counseling

It’s refreshing to hear a presidential candidate address the challenges of parenting today, and not just about work-life balance and parental leave.

Carla Marinucci (writer) on Yang's DNC speech

So on a day that the stock market tanked, and worries about tarrifs booming, @AndrewYang was strangely the only candidate who talked at length about economic impacts on Americans at #DNC19 -- a sharp, focused and entertaining speech, one of the better moments of the day.

Adam Singer on the marijuana MATH hat (500 sold out in less than 3 hours)

Why the entire country doesn't already support you I have no idea.

Joe Garofoli (writer) on Yang's DNC speech

.@AndrewYang -- the only presidential candidate who has not run for office before -- delivered one of the most engaging speeches @DNC #DNC19 . Talked about the need to address the future of work in the US

The Yang Gang has a marathon phonebank session livestreaming event going on. 480

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

Andrew Yang's campaign has hit some round number milestone markers.

Donors just hit 200K.
Donations just passed $3.5M for the quarter. (now very close to $4M)
Subs on reddit just past 50K. (now 53.9K)
Twitter followers passed 700K. (now 717K)

Since the last update 10 days ago,

Donors just passed 209K
Donations just passed $5M for the quarter
Subs on reddit at 57.6K
Twitter followers passed 750K (at 753K)

Andrew Yang put out his new climate change policy, more detailed than his previous policy.

Yang's campaign hired Tim Ryan's national organizational director

Tim Ryan's national organizing director joins Andrew Yang's campaign in same role

Yang's campaign spokeswoman Hilary Kinney said that Zach Fang joined their staff as national organizing director on Aug. 1.

Fang was one of two Iowa-based staffers working for Ryan, although much of his work focused on the national level. Ryan's state director, Chris Bowen, is the only Iowa staffer left.

Axios wrote an article about how the media attention to Yang doesn't match his poll rankings.

Andrew Yang gets media cold shoulder

Despite polling in the top 6 of the Democratic primary and getting plenty of online attention, businessman Andrew Yang is being treated by the media like a bottom-tier candidate.

Why it matters: The discrepancy between demonstrated voter support and the level of media coverage — both on cable and in the online world — shows that the press is in unfamiliar territory in covering a candidate from outside the political world who keeps a low profile.

In the graphic, Yang is shown polling in 6th place, tweeted about during debates in 4th place, articles written about him in 14th place and cable news mentions in 13th place.

Tara McKelvey, BBC writer commented

He’s been frozen out of the national media, as @nrothschild3 and @sarafischer explain, but the Yang Gang is super-devoted and know how to work social media. During the debate next week, he’s the one to watch

Krystal Ball of The Hill talked with Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk about the article on youtube

Progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski: Why the media dismisses Gabbard, Yang, and Sanders

There was a CNN graphic claiming to be the top 6 candidates in a Quinnipiac poll. The top 6 included Beto at 1% and excluded Yang at 3%. After the Yang Gang brought it to people's attention on twitter, CNN later apologized to the campaign and changed the graphic.

To be clear, Yang (and most of the Yang Gang) are not considering any of this a conspiracy theory. But it's clearly happening and should be pointed out.

Chris Cillizza's take on why Yang is overlooked. Cillizza has been writing about and had a video piece about Yang long before any of this happened. And yet, Cillizza chose to place Steyer in his top 10 ranking instead of Yang, even though Steyer hadn't made the debate stage (and didn't make it for Sept.) and Yang had. Cillizza's take was that Steyer had a better chance because Steyer has more money. Cillizza says that the placement of Steyer over Yang was a mistake and will be corrected in the next ranking.

Cillizza's reasons for the media ignoring Yang are that he's an outsider with radically different ideas and the Ron Paul experience.

The broader point here is that there are legitimate, non-media conspiracy reasons to explain why Yang isn't getting noticed as much as he should be.

But candidly, he should be getting more attention. If the 2016 election taught us anything, it's that voters are very sick of the status quo and politics as usual. Writing off Yang's candidacy because of his lack of political background or willingness to talk about less high-profile issues isn't a mistake we should make.

Mary Jordan on ABC's This Week, talked about Andrew Yang and then defended him when another person on the panel tried to dismiss him as polling at 2% and not being one of the 3 top candidates. He said that people say that the race is between the top 3 and maybe one or two more. [OK, but Yang is in 6th place, so he only has to overtake one person to be part of that race.]

Mary Jordan: "I'll tell you why it matters. He's directly addressing the pain in the country. . . . He's saying basically that the middle class is hurting. A lot of people talk about the 1% and the poor. But what about us? The average savings in a household in America is only $12K."

Yang did a climate change town hall on CNN today. Part 1 and Part 2. (not official videos) It looks like it was well received by some.

Yang hits the ball out of the park

From the Sunrise Movement:

Deep and yet simple point from @AndrewYang at the #ClimateTownHall. Our economy cannot just be about dollars. It's about the well-being of people, who live on and rely on our planet.

"We can't fall into this false dichotomy that what's good for the planet is bad for the economy"

Whoopi Goldberg pressed Bernie Sanders on why he wasn't following Andrew Yang's plan on The View. (not an official video)

Yang will be in New Hampshire on Saturday 9/7/19 at the NH Dem Convention. Then he's flying to LA to meet with a "someone very cool" on Sunday. 481

[Heffalump and Roo]

John Dickerson about the interview Yang had with CBS recently.

In this tidy answer to @AnthonyMasonCBS @AndrewYang
diagnoses 2016, gives a window into the way his mind works, reiterates traditional norm about relationship between the self and public service and puts finger on key economic challenge. https://instagram.com/tv/B2DCUhnFaSV

Anthony Mason asks Yang why Yang is running for President. Yang explains that he realized that the problem was automation and not immigrants. He mapped out the downsides which were money, his reputation, years of his life and possible total humiliation and weighed that against the upsides of moving the country forward, helping people to figure out what's going on and helping to eradicate poverty. The downsides were personal and the upsides could help millions of people. That made it a no-brainer for him.

In a continuation of the saga of the media blocking out Yang, MSNBC put out a graphic where it was labeled the 10 Democratic people on the debate on Sept. 12. There were only 9 on the graphic. Yang was left out. A twitter storm followed with a producer at MSNBC, Michael Hopper.

Yang: I did the #MATH, looks like @nbc may have miscounted
Hopper: @AndrewYang you’re wrong. Your image is doctored here’s a screen grab from the original and a link to the piece. Would love to have you on our broadcast any time.
Yang: Hey Michael thank you for checking it out. You can see the omission here at :12 in.
Hopper: You’re right. I’m sorry. We’ll correct.
Hopper: I think you’ll agree we’ve done a pretty good job covering your campaign & would love to continue doing so. Apologies for the omission.
Yang: No problem it happens. Thank you Michael.

Then it's pointed out that there's another omission.
Yang: Hey I seem to be missing from this relatively exhaustive list of candidates too. Kind of odd given that I’m currently in 6th place.
Hopper: I have publicly apologized for the error in video and tweet. Taking the tweet down makes it look like I have something to hide. I've owned the error, a correction has been issued, and I've personally apologized to Mr. Yang for our omission. (to someone in the comments)
Yang: They are correcting it now which is great. Thanks @mhopp7.

Later, Steve Kornacki also issues an apology since the graphic was on his show.

Kornacki: There's no excuse for it and it's my responsibility to check any graphic that I go on-air with, so I apologize for this screw-up. It's been corrected in the clip you are linking to here. I owe viewers, candidates and their supporters information that is 100% reliable.
Yang: Thanks Steve - appreciate your professionalism and responsiveness. These things happen. 👍

Fox News wrote about it. NBC News staffers apologize to 2020 Democratic hopeful Andrew Yang over botched graphic

That whole thing would have been more of a nothing burger if MSNBC hadn't left Yang out of their graphics so many times most people have lost count. It's in the double digits. Some people have it up to 30. Yang tweeted a few examples, and there's even a video of some of the examples that's pretty funny. Back in April, Joy Reid tweeted that Yang being left out of graphics would be corrected. It wasn't.

In the meantime, Biden was on the Stephen Colbert show (at minute 11) talking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution which is Yang's line. Biden's solution was job training and adding more money for pre-K. Yang has already shown that job training by the government only has a 0-15% effectiveness. I'm not sure how educating 3-5 year olds helps the current automation problem.

Bill de Blasio was also on the news talking about the problem of automation. He's advocating for a robot tax. In the past, when Yang has been asked about a robot tax, he generally points out the difficulties of defining a robot. Are self-serve kiosks robots? Are card readers? If it's hard to define, it will also be hard to administer.

Yang was in New Hampshire today at the NH Dem State convention. Looks like a pretty nice sized crowd.

While that was happening, the Yang Gang decided to tweet to Donald Trump, getting the hashtag #TrumpfearsYang trending. I was firmly against the idea. But so far, it seems to have gone well. Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale tweeted about the media blocking.

So now many on the left agree with us, the media has an agenda and is not about the news. Incredible watching the media just ERASE Yang (@ 3%). I love how MSNBC says 10 names, but just puts 9 on screen.

I've seen multiple stories of Trump supporters seeing the hashtag, checking out Yang's policies and joining the Yang Gang. Here's one. I was not expecting that.

People say that stories of people who are Libertarians who follow Yang or who are first time supporters who follow Yang are just made up for the internet. But Paget Kagy went to an LA Yang Gang meet up where she interviewed a bunch of people at random and found such people with real names, real faces and stories to match. #YangGang Are NOT BOTS (#YangGang Day interviews)

One of the Yang Gang put together a video called Rising, of Yang clips that plays like an ad for the campaign.

Tomorrow, Yang flies to LA to meet his mystery person (wink wink nudge nudge). Then he prepares for the debate on Thursday Sept 12. 2019. 482

[pjacks]

I am glad Andrew Yang continues to rise in the polls and qualifies for the debates.
At this point, he likely gets my vote in the primary. He has practically no chance of winning, but if Biden is the Chosen One, might as well vote my conscience and support the one dude who actually understands what kind of mess we're in. Maybe if he gets a few delegates his policy ideas will be taken more seriously in the future, at least. 483

[septimus]

I'm late to this party, but I'll try to clear up some confusions.

Although there are several exceptions, Many Taxes are Regressive. Yet the taxes are still necessary (e.g. to raise money for public spending) or appropriate (e.g. gasoline tax to improve the future). Taxes should be logical and effective — can anyone explain why a sales tax might be better than VAT? (No? Didn't think so.) Denmark, Germany, France etc. all have VATs far higher than U.S. sales tax yet are far more progressive than the U.S.

One must look at the total policy picture to decide if a policy is regressive or progressive. My carbon tax is offset by thousands of dollars in SocSec rebates to each worker. Yang offers each adult $12,000! To complain that some of the $12,000 will be offset by regressive taxes is to recite the blindingly obvious and to miss the whole point.

Originally Posted by CarnalK

... Read that slowly. A VAT makes it impossible for Amazon not to pay its fair share.

A poorly worded sentence? Gasp! What is the world coming to. Let's throw the baby out with the bath-water.

Originally Posted by CarnalK

You don't see that the VAT is recouped by the manufacturer and retailer when the product gets to the consumer. Don't know why but that is your essential misunderstanding, if you want to work through it on your own.

If Amazon loses some of its tax advantages, it will be playing on a more level playing-field 484

[CarnalK]

It's not a poorly worded sentence. It says exactly what Yang wants the rubes to think. 485

[Heffalump and Roo]

Andrew Yang went crowdsurfing in LA. MSNBC has a graphic with the crowdsurfing calling him John Yang. (at 34:30 here)

Yang tweeted:

John Yang? That’s a new one.

First they can't count to ten on a graphic and now they can't get his name right. The broadcaster corrected herself after reading the graphic, but somehow they couldn't get the graphic right. Makes one wonder what else they're not getting right.

The Yang Gang is so hilarious. One of the Yang Gang went to look up John Yang to see what they could find. It turns out that there's a John Yang who is a PBS news correspondent who did a piece on robots taking jobs and the future of work in Dec. 2018.

Will robots take our jobs? Are we doing enough to educate the next generation of workers? This week, @NewsHour is looking at these and other questions about the #futureofwork. Starting tonight, watch online and on your local @PBS station.

This gets even crazier. There's a tweet from a CNN correspondent, Athena Jones, from back in July 31, 2019 where she talks about a John Yang but clearly is talking about Andrew Yang.

John Yang comes with the comedy: The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math. #DemDebate
5:23 PM - 31 Jul 2019

The media had him renamed from way back then.

Tyler MacDonald in The Inquisitr has it nicely laid out. Andrew Yang Mistakenly Referred To As ‘John Yang’ By MSNBC In Viral Flub

Scott Santens, a UBI advocate and Yang Ganger who has been documenting the media coverage quips,

NBC: "Okay okay, we'll start covering this John Yang guy."#YangGang #Yang2020 #YangMediaBlackout #YangSurfing #WhoIsAndrewYang pic.twitter.com/ySIMpcrS3m

This is Scott Santen's ongoing thread on twitter with examples of when media has cut Yang out. One of the funniest ones is when Kornacki mentions Yang's name and his screen blacks out.

The Yang Gang have #WhoisJohnYang trending on twitter.

Yang playing the piano for a few seconds at what sounds like in the background an event since they're cheering for him.

In other news, Yang polled at 3% on an ABC poll. He's at 2.7% on the Real Clear Politics aggregate.

I've seen a couple isolated reports of people saying that Yang was not mentioned by pollsters calling them. Here's one. Can't vouch for whether this is real or not.

Gallup poll called me did not mention Yang said that's who I support went thru bunch other ?s @ the end I said hey do me a favor next time you make this call pls mention @AndrewYang she says im sorry I have a list to read off of. HE'S NOT ON THE LIST #YangMediaBlackout #YangGang

In another enigmatic tweet, Yang mentioned

.@Grimezsz is awesome. That is all.

who I had no idea is Elon Musk's girlfriend.

On Sunday, he was in California on Ryan Higa's (the youtuber nigahiga) podcast. I think it's airing on the podcast Off the Pill and not on the youtube channel, but I'm not sure.

Then tonight, he's in Houston doing a fundraiser with some local media covering it. [Yang must not get jet lag because he's everywhere.]

It’s #DemDebate time in Houston, and with that comes fundraisers! @AndrewYang is appearing in an event tonight, and only #abc13 has a sneak peak inside the local #YangGang efforts. Check out all of our debate coverage here: https://abc13.com/politics/democrati...olls-/5525787/ …

The Yang Gang is strategizing on how to best support Yang for the debate on Thursday Sept. 12, 2019. 486

[ralfy]

"Andrew Yang's free $1,000-per-month welfare scheme was tried in Mississippi; the results were not a surprise" 487

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by ralfy

"Andrew Yang's free $1,000-per-month welfare scheme was tried in Mississippi; the results were not a surprise"

This is not UBI. It does not resemble Andrew Yang's plan. The original article that this piece in the Washington Examiner came from had "universal basic income" in quotes. It's not universal. The study gave $1K a month for 6 months to "20 low-income black single mothers living in public housing." The criticism was that they didn't use their money wisely in the first couple months. But even in that study, in a few months, there were some positive outcomes from the original article in The Washington Post here.

Soon, Johnson said, the women began sharing small victories. One woman used the extra money to take time off and finish community college. Some sent their children to day camp. One woman filled her gas tank to drive her children to see their grandfather in Pennsylvania. The children had never met him.

At the end of six months, none of the women reported using an emergency lender. Nearly all said they had enough money to buy school supplies, when fewer than half had said that before. They reported cooking more balanced meals, visiting the doctor and attending church more often.

“The beauty of all of this has just been how folks are light,” Nyandoro said. “They aren’t walking around with the heaviness of life that, unfortunately, so many times low-income folks have to carry.”

Paget Kagy, a Yang Gang youtuber, has a nice analysis of these articles in this video. (at minute 10:35)

If anyone is interested in more UBI studies, Yang has many listed on his Yang 2020 site in The Freedom Dividend defined. And Scott Santens has a wealth of information on his Reddit sub on the subject.

In other news, a new Emerson poll in New Hampshire is showing Yang in 2nd place in head to heads against Trump next to Joe Biden. In that poll, Yang is beating Trump 54/46 next to Biden at 55/45. Warren is losing to Trump 49/51.

Nate Silver of 538 talks about the fate of low single digit candidates but makes an exception for Yang, saying that Yang is sui generis. If You’re Polling In The Low Single Digits, You’re Probably Toast

For candidates outside of that group — those polling in the low single digits, or worse — I have less welcome news. I don’t really care which order you place them in, because unless they turn it around soon, they’re probably toast.

In this article, I’m mostly referring to Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro and Amy Klobuchar, who I’ll refer to as the BOCK candidates (Booker/O’Rourke/Castro/Klobuchar) for short. Some of this also applies to candidates (e.g. Michael Bennet) who didn’t make this week’s debate at all, although they’re in even worse shape. I’m not counting Andew Yang as part of this group, however. He’s actually polling slightly better than the BOCKs, despite lower name recognition, and is more of a sui generis case.

Trevor Noah on the Daily Show did a skit on Yang, showing his crowdsurfing, his Cupid shuffle and his basketball playing, saying that if Yang wants more media attention, he's going to need to do more stunts. In 6 months, he'll have to go full Tom Cruise.

Yang responds:

Don't worry @Trevornoah, we've got something big in store! @TheDailyShow #StayTuned #DemDebate

Funny sketch, funny response. But I don't think Yang is doing any of that for publicity. That's just Yang being Yang. He was snowsledding with Steve Marchand in New Hampshire and hitting a baseball in batting practice months ago, long before anyone was watching.

I'm looking forward to the debate on Thursday Sept. 12, 2019. I think Yang will benefit just being on the stage when people are starting to tune in. 488

[ralfy]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

This is not UBI. It does not resemble Andrew Yang's plan. The original article that this piece in the Washington Examiner came from had "universal basic income" in quotes. It's not universal. The study gave $1K a month for 6 months to "20 low-income black single mothers living in public housing." The criticism was that they didn't use their money wisely in the first couple months. But even in that study, in a few months, there were some positive outcomes from the original article in The Washington Post here.



Paget Kagy, a Yang Gang youtuber, has a nice analysis of these articles in this video. (at minute 10:35)

If anyone is interested in more UBI studies, Yang has many listed on his Yang 2020 site in The Freedom Dividend defined. And Scott Santens has a wealth of information on his Reddit sub on the subject.

In other news, a new Emerson poll in New Hampshire is showing Yang in 2nd place in head to heads against Trump next to Joe Biden. In that poll, Yang is beating Trump 54/46 next to Biden at 55/45. Warren is losing to Trump 49/51.

Nate Silver of 538 talks about the fate of low single digit candidates but makes an exception for Yang, saying that Yang is sui generis. If You’re Polling In The Low Single Digits, You’re Probably Toast



Trevor Noah on the Daily Show did a skit on Yang, showing his crowdsurfing, his Cupid shuffle and his basketball playing, saying that if Yang wants more media attention, he's going to need to do more stunts. In 6 months, he'll have to go full Tom Cruise.

Yang responds:



Funny sketch, funny response. But I don't think Yang is doing any of that for publicity. That's just Yang being Yang. He was snowsledding with Steve Marchand in New Hampshire and hitting a baseball in batting practice months ago, long before anyone was watching.

I'm looking forward to the debate on Thursday Sept. 12, 2019. I think Yang will benefit just being on the stage when people are starting to tune in.

Thanks for sharing that. I shared the article because I'm not a Post subscriber.

I want to know if it's possible to establish whether the UBI will work before implementing it (which should the case for any project of such magnitude), and whether it has been implemented in other countries, and what the results were. My reading is that because what took place in Mississippi isn't really UBI, then it should be ignored, but because there were also positive outcomes, it should?

Finally, FWIW, I like the idea of UBI. 489

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by ralfy

I want to know if it's possible to establish whether the UBI will work before implementing it (which should the case for any project of such magnitude), and whether it has been implemented in other countries, and what the results were. My reading is that because what took place in Mississippi isn't really UBI, then it should be ignored, but because there were also positive outcomes, it should?

Finally, FWIW, I like the idea of UBI.

I started a thread in Great Debates with your post to give more room to discuss the issues you're asking about here. UBI in the US (from the Andrew Yang thread in Elections) There's a link in that OP to a previous Andrew Yang UBI thread in Great Debates that might interest you. 490

[Heffalump and Roo]

Andrew Yang is polling at 5% in a HarrisX poll, ahead of Buttigieg. Also 5% in New Hampshire in Boston Herald poll. He's also at 5% in 5th place in a CNN poll in the category of African American voters.

A sign of Yang's campaign picking up is that reporters were at his basketball workout today, the day before the debate. Before the last debate, it was just the Yang Gang watching.

Yang's campaign is hinting that he's planning something big for the debate on Thursday 9/12/19, but they won't say what it is.

From reporter Sam Stein:

Andrew Yang’s campaign manager just called to tell me that at tomorrow night’s debate, Yang will be doing "something no presidential candidate has ever done before in history.” He declined to go further than that.

I hope it's something fun. The Yang Gangers have been trying to guess. Some of the guesses go from the mundane (wearing a tan suit) to the outrageous. 491

[ripopgome]

Thanks for these updates, Heffalump. I actually only returned to SD boards very recently, in part to see what was being said about Yang here. There is a lot of support (as you might expect) in silicon valley where I am, but wanted to see what things look like "outside the bubble" a bit, and I keep finding reasons to donate to his campaign a little more here, a little more there, much as I was with Bernie in 2016. I'm excited to go to a debate watch-party tomorrow as well, and although I still think it's unlikely he'll be the nom (and I'm sad about that, but am keeping my fingers crossed), his policies make a lot of sense to me and I just hope he figures out how to counter the media inattention and mischaracterizations. Thanks again! 492

[Heffalump and Roo]

Originally Posted by ripopgome

Thanks for these updates, Heffalump. I actually only returned to SD boards very recently, in part to see what was being said about Yang here. There is a lot of support (as you might expect) in silicon valley where I am, but wanted to see what things look like "outside the bubble" a bit, and I keep finding reasons to donate to his campaign a little more here, a little more there, much as I was with Bernie in 2016. I'm excited to go to a debate watch-party tomorrow as well, and although I still think it's unlikely he'll be the nom (and I'm sad about that, but am keeping my fingers crossed), his policies make a lot of sense to me and I just hope he figures out how to counter the media inattention and mischaracterizations. Thanks again!

Thanks for the encouragement! Keep the faith!

Even from this small corner, there has been more interest in Yang from what I can tell. When I first started posting updates to this thread, there was an average of 200-400 views. Over the months, that has increased over time to about 1,500 views if I don't post for a while. For reference, there are about 3,245 active members on the board.

Good to hear that there's a sizeable silicon valley following. I had heard otherwise but it makes sense, especially after the Elon Musk endorsement.

One thing I've been interested in watching is where Yang supporters come from based on people's testimonials in the Yang subreddit. At first, there were a lot of Trump supporters crossing over. Then of course, there are a lot of Bernie fans such as yourself. But I've also seen a couple Kamala fans, a couple Pete fans, and couple Beto fans and a handful of Warren fans when that paper she wrote about automation not being a serious problem got circulated.

Originally Posted by Elizabeth Warren

Others blame “automation” for American job losses, especially in manufacturing. It’s a good story — robots and other new technologies made American manufacturing workers more productive, so companies needed to hire far fewer actual human beings. A good story, except it’s not really true.

Let's hope Yang can convert more people after the debate tomorrow. Have fun at the watch party. 493

[JohnT]

Just want to chime in that this stunt has pretty much cost him all credibility for me. Never really considered him a serious candidate, but his "enter to be one of ten lucky winners!" schtick is disqualifying. It's a sign of a candidate with more money than sense, and we already have one of those in the WH. 494

[Boycott]

I'm starting to think his limited speaking time is by design from his own back than moderator bias. I rarely see this guy raise his hand whereas Biden and Bernie want to talk all the time.

Maybe he feels out of his depth talking about branches of government and role of executive authority given he's never held office to be accountable.

His best moments are always more broad philosophical issues rather than political where he has interesting answers and perspectives. 495

[CarnalK]

Yang is not that rich and this giveaway has to count as a campaign stunt, so I can only assume these lucky winners are going to get paid from his campaign funds. I honestly wonder how his donors will feel about it. 496

[ShadowFacts]

I didn't hear the entire debate last night - and note that I listened, didn't watch - but what I did hear from Yang was surprisingly terrible. I've heard him interviewed on some podcasts and I thought he came across as smart and charming in a nerdy way, but he sounded like a little boy lost in the woods last night, trying to say the directions that Mommy made him memorize to find his way home.

And now I hear that his big announcement is a $12,000 giveaway to 10 lucky families? What a fucking joke! I mean, I understand that the idea is to sell it as a pilot for UBI, but it comes across a bush league, game show nonsense.

My interest in Yang just went from "Vaguely intrigued and Glad There's a Fresh Face Proposing New Ideas" to "GTFO." 497

[ElvisL1ves]

His ethnic jokes were cringeworthy, too - "I'm Asian, so I know a lot of doctors" wasn't the only one, either.

Time to clear the stage, Andrew. 498

[iiandyiiii]

Of the ten on stage last night, Yang is my 2nd from the bottom, only ahead of Biden. I think he might have interesting ideas (maybe even very good ones, though I'm far from an expert on such issues), and I think he should take these ideas to congressional or state politics. 499

[Jonathan Chance]

Originally Posted by Heffalump and Roo

I started a thread in Great Debates with your post to give more room to discuss the issues you're asking about here. UBI in the US (from the Andrew Yang thread in Elections) There's a link in that OP to a previous Andrew Yang UBI thread in Great Debates that might interest you.

As a moderator, I want to give you a 'well done' for this. This sort of action is exactly how spin offs should be handled. Thanks for doing so. 500