### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/381 "2019-04-26T23:34:05Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#):
>
> Is Democrats attacking each other the best way to get Individual 1 voted out?
To some degree yes, at this point in the process, depending on the nature of the “attacks.” It is fair game for **Ryan Liam** to argue, as he does below, that he sees massive structural issues that require big and disruptive ideas to address, and to be dissatisfied with candidates who are not offering what he sees as those big disruptive ideas.
And it is fair game for others of us to point out how specific big disruptive ideas are not only not likely to fix the problems they are aimed at but may in fact make them much worse, or how specific big disruptive ideas may make great sales campaigns but have no chance of actually happening.
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
>
> \ … This is the problem with you older types, there are massive structural issues in the US economy and in quality of life, and your support goes to someone who will retain the status quo as much as possible.
>
> What ‘big ideas’ Do Biden, Beto and Buttigieg have? I’ll wait.
>
> Beto is getting sidelined as he’s not needed due to Buttigieg and Biden throwing their hats into the ring. Yang is getting sidelined because his policies are as radical the same way Bernies are.
You of course are free to think what you want but being a pragmatic incrementalist ≠ retaining the status quo as much as possible.
And indeed those candidates are less about the disruptive big idea than movement in the right directions that won’t cause more harms than goods and that can be delivered and not just promised. And being able to win. Failing gloriously is, IMHO, not preferable to succeeding only well.
Beto’s getting sidelined because he is seeming to be more hat than cattle. Buttigieg will likely get sidelined too but will succeed in setting his stage for future accomplishments. Yang (and this is his thread) won’t get off the sideline to begin with but he will likely succeed in getting UBI talked about some during the debates.
---
### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2019, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/382 "2019-04-27T04:38:31Z")
Yang will be in Iowa this weekend then off to Seattle next week. He’s added a stop at Detroit on the tour.
On his tweets today, he retweeted an article on a study that could affect climate change.
[Massive restoration of world’s forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions, analysis suggests](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forests-climate-change-co2-greenhouse-gases-trillion-trees-global-warming-a8782071.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true)
> [@](#):
>
> Replenishing the world’s forests on a grand scale would suck enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to cancel out a decade of human emissions, according to an ambitious new study.
>
> Scientists have established there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion trees to grow in parks, woods and abandoned land across the planet.
>
> If such a goal were accomplished, ecologist Dr Thomas Crowther said it would outstrip every other method for tackling climate change – from building wind turbines to vegetarian diets.
> . . .
> The same approach, using machine learning and AI to analyse the enormous data set, allowed the researchers to predict the number of trees that could feasibly be planted in empty patches around the world.
What’s nice is that it combines both climate change and AI together.
\*
Rolling Stone\* has Yang at #9 of 24 candidates. High five for the Yang Gang.
[The RS Politics 2020 Democratic Primary Leaderboard](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/2020-democrat-candidates-771735/)
> [@](#):
>
> Meanwhile, a groundswell of extremely online – and if his fundraising numbers are any indication, real-life — support has buoyed universal basic income proponent Andrew Yang to number nine. The #YangGang lives.
On [Anderson Cooper 360](https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1121220963067056130?s=17), a reporter went to sit with 8 Democratic voters to talk about their thoughts about Joe Biden as he entered the race. 3 people said they’d vote for Biden. 2 people mentioned Yang. They didn’t say they’d vote for him, just that he had some interesting ideas.
Tucker Carlson talked about Yang on a show on [Fox News](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=313&v=TXK5YLDwVF4) where he was the supposed guest. Tucker talked about how Yang was the only candidate on either side who was talking about what he thought was the major issue affecting the country, which is automation. He also gives props to Tulsi Gabbard for an issue and laughs about the media fawning over Beto and Buttigieg.
I thought this interview on [Fox Nation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=227&v=T0qnpqVVx28) right after the LA rally was pretty amusing. Nothing novel about the questions, but there was a guy in the background moving the Yangbill behind them. The last question the interviewer asked was what are the YangGang colors. Yang said they were red, white and blue based on the Math hat (Make America Think Harder) that the interviewer just asked about. Yang spoke about how he’s looking forward to Trump making up a nickname for him.
From _538_, [We Asked Democratic Activists Who They’re Backing — And Who They’d Hate To See Win](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-asked-democratic-activists-who-theyre-backing-and-who-theyd-hate-to-see-win/) on April 22, 2019. Yang has a 9% share of activists who are considering him. Yang had a 35% share of activists who would NOT consider him, tied with McAuliffe, who is already out. Beating Yang is Delaney with a 38% share, Biden with a 42% share, Bernie with a 50% share, and Tulsi with a 58% share.
Nate Silver [on twitter](https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1121197878062481409) a couple days ago, referencing the whole thing with Trump and Hillary back in 2016 about taco trucks on every corner.
> [@](#):
>
> Sort of disappointed that @AndrewYang doesn’t have a program to subsidize taco trucks in taco-deprived cities.
Yang’s response:
> [@](#):
>
> Thanks Nate - I do love tacos and think all Americans should have access to good ones.
A positive [article](https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/andrew-yang-technocrat-not-politician/) in the _National Review_.
> [@](#):
>
> The appeal of his technocratic ideas — some feasible, some not — shows that there are voters interested in non-ideological solutions.
>
> If you’re paying attention to presidential politics, you should be paying attention to Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur running for president as a Democrat.
>
> Yang is worth taking seriously not because he has a real shot at the nomination (he comes in at about 1 percent in most polls), but because, unlike most of the politicians in the field with him, he has a policy agenda that features genuinely new ideas that, even if unworkable, augur interesting times for the future of American politics.
> , , ,
> Yang is worth paying attention to not because those solutions are the right ones, but because he’s identifying many of the right problems and because his approach deviates from the typical political fare. He matters for what he reveals about our political moment and what is likely to come next. That future will have more politicians, on both sides of the aisle, who sound a lot more like Andrew Yang.
There was a bit of controversy a couple days ago. _USA Today_ put out a poll asking which Presidential candidates people were talking about. Yang, Bernie and Marianne Williamson topped the list. _USA Today_ put out an article sharing the results of the poll and some essays they’d received about the candidates. Later, they put out an article saying that polls like this can be suspect, even though it’s their own poll.
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2019, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/383 "2019-04-27T10:43:12Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Regressive is when a tax effects lower income people proportionally more than higher income people. It doesn’t just mean “bad”. It’s a matter of definition and a VAT on consumer goods is well known to be regressive. Your buddy Yang knows perfectly well that it won’t meaningfully change Amazon’s tax burden. So, he’s a liar by pretending it will.
But he’d only be a liar if he was committed to VAT being the only solution to the problem of Amazon paying its tax, so you seem to be strawmanning VAT into a be all and end all solution to this problem, which Yang through his policies himself has said isn’t the case. Sounds like you’re lying here bud.
That ‘regressive tax’ Which I’ve been over and over and over in this thread, is subjective considering the tax on consumption would help fund social programmes designed to alleviate poverty, such as free healthcare, if it was that terrible, the UK would of abandoned it decades ago, but we haven’t, wonder why that is?
> [@](#):
>
> **DSeid**
> You of course are free to think what you want but being a pragmatic incrementalist ≠ retaining the status quo as much as possible.
Bernie is a pragmatic incrementalist, your definition is akin to plate tectonics.
> [@](#):
>
> And indeed those candidates are less about the disruptive big idea than movement in the right directions that won’t cause more harms than goods and that can be delivered and not just promised. And being able to win. Failing gloriously is, IMHO, not preferable to succeeding only well.
Rubbish, the UK after WWII instituted free healthcare, and this was when it was virtually bankrupt, the US can do the same thing. There’s no excuse.
---
### Author:  [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/384 "2019-04-27T23:14:25Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#):
>
> Tucker Carlson [**…**] also gives props to Tulsi Gabbard for an issue
Not at all surprising.
---
### Author:  [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2019, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/385 "2019-04-27T23:16:07Z")
duplicate post
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2019, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/386 "2019-04-27T23:29:27Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
>
> But he’d only be a liar if he was committed to VAT being the only solution to the problem of Amazon paying its tax, so you seem to be strawmanning VAT into a be all and end all solution to this problem, which Yang through his policies himself has said isn’t the case. Sounds like you’re lying here bud.
I just don’t get it. You’ve been shown that a VAT is not going get Amazon to pay more taxes at all. A VAT, in the end, is a consumer tax. It’s lying to say it’s even a small part of the solution.
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2019, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/387 "2019-04-27T23:54:04Z")
And as far as his not claiming it’s the total solution, once again quoting from your buddy’s VAT page:
> [@](#):
>
> A VAT makes it impossible for them to benefit from the American people and infrastructure without paying their fair share.
Read that slowly. A VAT makes it _ **impossible** _ for Amazon not to pay its fair share.
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2019, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/388 "2019-04-28T12:31:36Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> And as far as his not claiming it’s the total solution, once again quoting from your buddy’s VAT page:
>
> Read that slowly. A VAT makes it _ **impossible** _ for Amazon not to pay its fair share.
It still doesn’t mean that he using that as the lynchpin to finance UBI.
> [@](#):
>
> I just don’t get it. You’ve been shown that a VAT is not going get Amazon to pay more taxes at all. A VAT, in the end, is a consumer tax. It’s lying to say it’s even a small part of the solution.
Business to business transactions also have to pay VAT, weird how you didn’t point that out.
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2019, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/389 "2019-04-28T12:55:34Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
>
> Business to business transactions also have to pay VAT, weird how you didn’t point that out.
It’s not weird. This is the last time I’m going to try and explain your buddy’s plan to you. From [investopedia](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/valueaddedtax.asp)
> [@](#):
>
> How a VAT Works
>
> A VAT is levied on the gross margin at each point in the manufacturing-distribution-sales process of an item. The tax is assessed and collected at each stage, in contrast to a sales tax, which is only assessed and paid by the consumer at the very end of the supply chain.
>
> Say, for example, Dulce is an expensive candy manufactured and sold in the country of Alexia. Alexia has a 10% value-added tax.
>
> 1. Dulce’s manufacturer buys the raw materials for $2.00, plus a VAT of $0.20 – payable to the government of Alexia – for a total price of $2.20.
>
> 2. The manufacturer then sells Dulce to a retailer for $5.00 plus a VAT of 50 cents for a total of $5.50. However, the manufacturer renders only 30 cents to Alexia, which is the total VAT at this point, minus the prior VAT charged by the raw material supplier. Note that the 30 cents also equals 10% of the manufacturer’s gross margin of $3.00.
>
> 3. Finally, the retailer sells Dulce to consumers for $10 plus a VAT of $1 for a total of $11. The retailer renders 50 cents to Alexia, which is the total VAT at this point ($1), minus the prior 50-cent VAT charged by the manufacturer. The 50 cents also represents 10% of the retailer’s gross margin on Dulce.
So you can see, the cost of the VAT is handed down at each step so the end user is the only one paying. Big companies would only really pay VAT on things not part of their core business/supply chain.
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/390 "2019-04-28T15:44:54Z")
Also:
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Your buddy Yang knows perfectly well that it won’t meaningfully change Amazon’s tax burden. So, he’s a liar by pretending it will.
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
>
> But he’d only be a liar if he was committed to VAT being the only solution to the problem of Amazon paying its tax, so you seem to be strawmanning VAT into a be all and end all solution to this problem, which Yang through his policies himself has said isn’t the case. .
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> And as far as his not claiming it’s the total solution, once again quoting from your buddy’s VAT page:
>
> Read that slowly. A VAT makes it _ **impossible** _ for Amazon not to pay its fair share.
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#):
>
> It still doesn’t mean that he using that as the lynchpin to finance UBI.
See how you changed the subject? We weren’t talking about financing UBI, we were talking about making Amazon pay its fair share.
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2019, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/391 "2019-04-28T20:05:58Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Also:
>
> See how you changed the subject? We weren’t talking about financing UBI, we were talking about making Amazon pay its fair share.
They’re inextricably linked, VAT is used in part to finance UBI, come on now, you can do better than that.
> [@](#):
>
> It’s not weird. This is the last time I’m going to try and explain your buddy’s plan to you. From investopedia
You’ve failed to explain the first time, this being after I told you numerous times that framing the VAT tax plan as the be all and end all of his making tech giants to pay fair tax is disingenious.
> [@](#):
>
> So you can see, the cost of the VAT is handed down at each step so the end user is the only one paying. Big companies would only really pay VAT on things not part of their core business/supply chain.
Big companies pay big taxes, and VAT is most effective on high end purchases which alot of businesses do.
As for the consumer, the end user isn’t the only one paying, at each step of the supply chain the tax is already paid for. If a company levies a marginal (And it is marginal) Higher price for the end user, then it’s still fairer than sales tax because whilst there’s no guarantee a consumer will buy the product, the resources to make and produce such product will have been already taxed.
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/392 "2019-04-28T22:57:15Z")
I am explaining some straightforward uncontroversial things that you are refusing to understand. Like I said, that was my last try.
---
### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2019, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/393 "2019-04-28T23:43:21Z")
> [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](#):
>
> On his tweets today, he retweeted an article on a study that could affect climate change.
> [Massive restoration of world’s forests would cancel out a decade of CO2 emissions, analysis suggests](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/forests-climate-change-co2-greenhouse-gases-trillion-trees-global-warming-a8782071.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true)
Following on from the previous day’s tweet, the next day [the tweet](https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1122234184217636865) was about how drones were being used to plant new trees faster than it was done in the past.
[These tree-planting drones are firing ‘seed missiles’ into the ground. Less than a year later, they’re already 20 inches tall.](https://www.good.is/articles/drones-planting-trees)
> [@](#):
>
> In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire “seed missiles” into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.
> . . .
> For context, it took the Worldview Foundation 7 years to plant 6 million trees in Myanmar. Now, with the help of the drones, they hope to plant another 4 million before the end of 2019.
A piece of land in Myanmar is being used to test whether drones could successfully plant trees by firing seed missiles into the ground. Less than a year later, there has been success. Not only would it help with climate change, but it would also help curb land erosion. It takes two operators to man the drones. This is another area where automation is displacing human effort with a positive result in productivity.
Some [twitter pictures](https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1122191453088776193) of Yang’s [campaigning](https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1122305645573746688) in Iowa. I’m liking that there are more women and more diversity in ages in these pictures. Also some [nice pictures](https://twitter.com/Zach_Graumann/status/1122131674932961280) of the rally crowds from Yang’s campaign manager’s twitter feed.
Yang is [polling](https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1122383966227652609) at 2% in New Hampshire. One of the YangGang noticed something [interesting](https://reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/biagii/interesting_statistic_from_the_recent_new/) about this poll. Yang is second to Bernie in winning over voters who didn’t vote in 2016. In most of Yang’s recent rallies, they’ve asked the crowd whether anyone in the crowd was caring about politics for the first time. There have been quite a number of people in his rallies responding to that.
This is the reason that polls are not always effective. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez notes in her [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_1G4_oPt_o) with Stephen Colbert, polls measure who the pollsters think are likely to turn up to vote. AOC changed who turned up to vote. That made the difference for her. But that was only about 10-20K people. I don’t know if it would work on a national level.
I found this hilarious, but maybe it was one of those ‘you had to be there’ moments. I saw the title of the post, [Look who wasn’t omitted off the list!](https://reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/bhz6uv/look_who_wasnt_omitted_off_the_list/) There has been a lot of discussion about how MSM and particularly MSNBC have left Yang off all their graphics, so I thought that this was a MSNBC graphic that was finally corrected. When I opened the post, I found that it was a list from an ([https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1121873861186936838](https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1121873861186936838)) sent by the Trump campaign sent to his supporters to vote in a straw poll about which 2020 candidate is the worst. Trump is looking for who to hate on next. The pictures they chose for that email are comical. At least Yang made it to the list. There were some other candidates who were left off that list. I bet Yang would be proud. 🆒
Yang made a [brief appearance](https://mobile.twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1122607881864536064) on MSNBC on Sunday 4/28/19.
I was looking for [poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/228194/public-split-basic-income-workers-replaced-robots.aspx?g_source=link_NEWSV9&g_medium=LEAD&g_campaign=item_&g_content=Public%2520Split%2520on%2520Basic%2520Income%2520for%2520Workers%2520Replaced%2520by%2520Robots) information on UBI. I found one that showed a split in the US about UBI. Young people wanted it while older people didn’t. Democrats wanted it while Republicans didn’t. Women wanted it more than men. The crowds showing up for the rallies aren’t indicative of this yet. This poll was taken in the latter half of 2017.
For people who like to play in the math, [here](https://reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/biem0k/for_everyone_questioning_the_math_of_the_freedom/) are some calculations of the Freedom Dividend. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/bbq40f/more_than_a_month_in_of_supporting_andrew_yang/eklao0e/?context=3) are some of the source studies.
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/394 "2019-04-29T20:08:02Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> I am explaining some straightforward uncontroversial things that you are refusing to understand. Like I said, that was my last try.
Yeah, such as VAT being collected at each point of production, rather than it all being dumped on the consumer via a sales tax. That kind of straightforward? Or how about the kind of straightforward where it’s harder to dodge paying VAT in comparison to sales tax?
Spare me your psuedo intellect.
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/395 "2019-04-29T23:59:46Z")
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.
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/396 "2019-04-30T20:37:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> **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.
You seem to think that the product manufactured and bought by the retailer which has already had its tax paid, is guaranteed to be sold.
Do I have to keep spelling this out for you?
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/397 "2019-04-30T21:09:42Z")
So we’re all gonna get rich off of Amazon’s unsold merchandise? Sweet.
---
### Author:  [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/398 "2019-04-30T21:41:48Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> So we’re all gonna get rich off of Amazon’s unsold merchandise? Sweet.
No, looks like we’re gonna get rich from all your unsold strawmen.
---
### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/399 "2019-04-30T22:25:04Z")
I’m getting the impression that strawmen are a key demographic for Yang.
---
### Author:  [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2019, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-andrew-yang-presidential-campaign-thread/829555/400 "2019-05-02T03:05:55Z")
The contrast between how the Left and Right media cover Yang has become so stark, people are beginning to [wonder](https://reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/bjifxb/dont_sleep_on_andrew_yang/) if the Right is being ironic. But I guess that could be said of the Left in the opposite direction.
[Here’s](https://www.ocregister.com/2019/05/01/dont-sleep-on-andrew-yang/) an author from _The Federalist_ in an opinion piece in the _Orange County Register_:
> [@](#):
>
> Amid the evil farce that the Democrats’ primary campaign seems fated to spiral into, do not sleep on Andrew Yang, the paradoxically normal oddball candidate who is gaining serious attention because of how powerfully he reveals the Left’s dueling playbooks to be grievously obsolete.
>
> Yang occupies a zone of reality most leading Democrats simply refuse to countenance, much less engage with
> . . .
> But of course, the abject failure of the Obama administration to process the sweeping new social context imposed by the triumph of digital technology—summed up embarrassingly by the Commander in Chief mugging with a selfie stick in the Oval Office as his intelligence community missed both the rise of ISIS and of China as new threats—created the disastrous status quo that Trump’s election responded so angrily against, and which Democrats are still scrambling to explain away.
>
> In fact, the field of Democratic candidates insists, simply rejecting Trump at the ballot box will heroically and magically bring back the good old days of the Obama years, while at the same time launching us toward the shiny, happy, and suspiciously mirthless future of enforced celebration and bogus harmony demanded by the Left’s cultish inquisitionists.
> Yang calmly ignores all that hyperventilating and fantasizing. Seeming to recognize at a gut level that both the inert nostalgia of the Obama-besotted and the vengeful utopianism of those for whom Obama now seems reactionary are soon to be dead memes,
> . . .
> Running on the slogan “Humanity First,” Yang is clearly positioning himself as the candidate who serves neither increasingly automated masters nor our baser animal instincts—neither the technocratic superego of the establishment Left nor the social justice id of the radical vanguard.
On the Left, [here’s](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-2020-candidates-could-still-have-a-breakout-moment/) a piece of the discussion from 538 and Yang’s chances to have a “moment”:
> [@](#):
>
> perry: So I have interpreted this as who is going to have a moment, not necessarily who is most likely to win.
>
> So in that vein, I think Andrew Yang will have a moment in the debates and that will boost his profile.
>
> Universal basic income is an issue that I think resonates with a lot of nerdy people worried about economic inequality and automation — and the debates could help him, because he is a non-politician who will come off as different from the rest of the field.
>
> nrakich: Yeah, Yang checks a lot of boxes for the “moment” thing — low name recognition right now, but lots of room to grow. He has some passionate fans out there. He’s gotten over 100,000 donors, which is the fifth-most in the field, based on the data we have. And he’s been Googled just as much as Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris over the past 30 days.
>
> natesilver: Also, if we’re talking about long-shot candidates, you’d rather have a candidate who’s really weird (I mean that in the nicest possible way) rather than one who’s boring.
>
> Like, maybe nine times out of 10, Yang doesn’t make a dent at all, but that one time out of 10, he has an interesting ceiling.
I watched a [couple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSP9aBoVZ6I) [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di0TPDgXevE) videos of behind the scenes stuff of Yang’s campaign. Again, I’m impressed with how much energy goes into campaigning. After the rally, there’s the compulsory selfie requirement that people stay for. One guy asked during the town hall if Yang would stay to take pictures. Yang promised to stay until everyone who wanted a picture had one. After that, there’s the meeting with the donors and the volunteers who helped put together the rally. More picture taking, some behind the scenes information sharing and some personal question and answer.
I’m also impressed that before and after Yang’s rally in LA with thousands of people, Yang took the time to be interviewed by completely unknown youtube channels. He gave them the same time and attention that he did with every media interview, big or small. He might run out of time for that in the future, but it was really nice of him to do.
Nice [blog piece](https://medium.com/@taylorgipple/can-andrew-yang-be-the-dark-horse-of-2020-c9d1e87b148c) from a guy who was at his Iowa rally. He says that he’s switching from Bernie to Yang. The piece reminded me that the rally had 6 people dressed up as penguins to protest what they thought was Yang’s policy on climate change. Yang has said that when people have the financial boot on their throats, they might say that the penguins can wait. That doesn’t mean that Yang himself doesn’t see the urgency, just that people who are worried about paying their bills may not have the bandwidth to worry about it. So his first priority is to take the financial weight off, then those people might be able to mobilize more. After Yang explained, the penguins seemed happy with what they heard, clapping and smiling.
More and more, the Yang subreddit is seeing other candidates with Yang policies, taken almost verbatim from his website, things like democracy dollars and UBI explained exactly as Yang does. People are of two minds about that. On the one hand, people realize that it’s the ideas that need to spread. It doesn’t matter who is spreading them. On the other hand, there’s something about taking without giving credit that rubs people the wrong way. It’s probably a testament to the campaign that other candidates think the ideas are worth putting out there.
[Emerson polling](https://twitter.com/EmersonPolling) in Texas had Yang at 3.2% with 9.1% of the 18-29 year olds.
On a [C-Span interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIfDnNzXpZ8) Cenk Uygur mentioned that TYT will be hosting another interview with Yang in a week or so. I haven’t heard that from the Yang camp yet.
Yang is set to rally in Seattle, WA on Friday, May 3, 2019.
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