The Andrew Yang Presidential Campaign thread

Politics & Elections
461

John Dickerson about the interview Yang had with CBS recently.

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. :+1:

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.

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.

462

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.

463

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.

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

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

464

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

465

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

Yang tweeted:

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.

This gets even crazier. There’s atweet 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.

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,

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.

In another enigmatic tweet, Yang mentioned

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.]

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

466

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

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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 subon 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.

468

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.

469

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.

470

Andrew Yang ispolling 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:

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.

471

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!

472

Thanks for the encouragement! Keep the faith! :slight_smile:

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.

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

473

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.

474

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.

475

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.

476

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? :smack::smack::smack: 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.”

477

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.

478

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.

479

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.

480

Same. Also, I’m concerned about a candidate that has obnoxious and ill mannered fans, like the current POTUS.