In the meantime, Yang was a blip in the news a few days ago because he experienced the male equivalent of childbirth.
OUCH.
Looks like he’s fallen short in his run for mayor of NYC:
I don’t follow NY politics, but I guess as a casual observer, I thought he had a better chance that it ended up being. He was about fourth place or so?
I do think that he has what it takes to be leader, even President. I did not vote for him in the Democratic primary in 2020(I voted Biden as the best chance to beat Trump), but I would love to see him keep going at it.
According to Zach Graumann, Andrew Yang’s campaign manager, the reason for the loss was because when they started, covid was around, so people were looking for cash relief. But as time went along, the months warmed up, the vaccinations took hold, the economy picked up and crime started to go up. People were looking for someone to deal with the crime. That’s why Adams is leading.
I don’t know anything about NYC politics, so I wasn’t much interested in this race personally. I’m glad that Yang will be around to do more things now that that race is over. I still really like his platform. Not a few days go by when I see some post in a thread where someone is saying they wished that our government did X, and I think to myself that person should have voted for Andrew Yang because that was in his platform. I get it that maverick policies are not winning the day in real life votes, but maybe people will begin to see the things that are possible if the policies are continued to be discussed.
Zach speaks about the mayoral campaign a day after the loss in about minutes 2-4.
Since the large majority of his support would come from people who would otherwise vote Democratic this would mean the Republicans will do better if this party attracts any interest.
Which is one of the big problems with our political system as it currently exists.
“[The] American experiment is under siege,” MSNBC host Malcolm Nance wrote in response to Yang’s announcement. “Liberal govs are falling globally to fascism. Racism abounds. World is literally burning. What’s your genius idea? Start #ForwardParty to peel votes off [from] the only party trying to SAVE IT ALL.”
That pretty much sums it up
People like Yang can make a living by forming a pseudo-political movement and party. Yang can essentially treat his political party as his own non-profit business, pay himself a salary, and keep his little ‘revolution’ going indefinitely. He can write books. Pen articles. Make guest speaking appearances. Appear on podcasts and TV shows.
Okay, fine–he keeps himself in the public eye and makes money. I can live with that.
But if he’s serious about running, he IS going to be personally responsible for helping put Republicans into office. And that will have devastating consequences. It will be unforgivable.
He’s currently—and irresponsibly in my view—trying to sell the idea that his announced 3rd-party activities are all about making it possible to use ranked-choice voting for President. He’s not stupid: he KNOWS this has zero chance of being implemented by 2024. ‘Educating the public’ is a valid goal, but his focus on RCV is distracting from the much more-pressing problems of vote suppression and state measures intended to let legislatures or other state officials overrule the voters in sending their state’s slate of electors to Congress. It is crucial that attention be focused on these immediate dangers.
This is not the time for people of good will go to off on ego trips. If they go off on ego trips then they are not people of good will.
Keep in mind that Andrew Yang is trying to push a gimmick (universal basic income) and he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast. He’s ego trippin.
I don’t think that’s a gimmick. It’s been bouncing around since McGovern, at least.
UBI is a gimmick. If you want a means-tested minimum income scheme, I’m down, but just doling out $10,000 to everyone is just a ticket to inflation, and the poor end up suffering as a result.
The brilliance of it is that it isn’t means tested, and the money gradually goes away via income tax, instead of creating a “cliff” that people are incented to stay below.
That’s clearly not true since you could remove an equal amount of money through taxation without creating any increase in burocrocy. Depends on how you set it up of course but UBI can be a non inflationary way to replace our social safety net and increase personal freedom
ALL people who run for president are going off on ego trips. It has always been a little hard for me to say whether certain third party candidates are genuinely more idealistic or just more stubbornly vainglorious. The Ralph Nader problem as it were. I honestly haven’t paid enough attention to Yang to make a judgement call there.
From a practical POV of course it matters not - in our system third party candidates are almost always harmful for “our side” (whichever side that might be) in terms of realpolitik. But never let it be said that any given presidential candidate doesn’t have a truly gargantuan ego - it’s basically the minimum job requirement.
I like Yang. He comes across a decent earnest person. Politically I think he is a little flimsy but I don’t doubt his sincerity to wanting to solve problems. It’s how he thinks we should solve them I take issue with.
That aside however after his dismal performance in the New York mayoral primary I’ve come to stop paying attention. He’s the biggest proof that internet popularity and going viral does not reflect real life. If he came second place in that local election to Eric Adams who had more local relations then that is understandable. But to come fourth place in an election which garnered national attention because is damning because he had by far the most name recognition and donations to work with. That tells me the more he talked and the more people on the ground, in the offline world, heard from him the less they liked him. And conversely the more they liked others. From what I saw as an outsider was he was messing up basic questions about the role of mayor and frankly what should have been easy local matters
The reduction in bureaucratic overhead is, hypothetically speaking, a potential plus for UBI, but there’s no way you don’t have inflation if everyone is receiving $10,000. If everyone suddenly has more cash to spend, then spend it they will. The reason they invested it during the pandemic is because of mandated closures and fear of COVID. But under normal circumstances, you’re devaluing the currency.
“Ego trip” connotes ‘ego beyond the average’—in this case, the average for Presidential candidates, which most reasonable people would peg at a fairly high level. Nothing in my usage said or implied that I was making a claim that Presidential candidates are normally free of ego or low on ego or anything similar.
As for Yang: as things stand now, any left-leaning 2024 3rd-party Presidential candidate with name recognition is going to siphon votes away from the Democratic candidate. He (or she) will thus help the Republican candidate. This is the reality, and no amount of sophistry will succeed in changing it.
If Yang decides to run, he will be helping the Republican candidate.
While there is 6 month of lag you aren’t devaluing your currency if you give everyone $1,000 and then remove and average of $1,000 per person in taxes. Then it is just straight redistribution.
Then again Garcia and Wiley also were known quantities in the New York City government/political ecosystem, and to the people who are politically active in the City – whose votes are more important to garner than national attention, when it comes to primaries.
So yeah, Yang’s good level of national name recognition failed to impress the people in the boroughs, who were looking for someone to take care of the crime, the rents, the permits, the transit, the garbage, etc. It does not surprise me that’s what happened.
OTOH, trying to do a third-party move under the current circumstances… really??