8 ms·

I registered as a Democrat to vote for Andrew in the CA primary. I find his view of the state of the USA is much more current and much less clouded by the twist

I registered as a Democrat to vote for Andrew in the CA primary. I find his view of the state of the USA is much more current and much less clouded by the twisted incentives that drive so many career politicians. He has positions on just about every topic and explains the rationale behind them. It makes me wonder what the narrative against him would be. In the 2020 primaries and election, he wasn't taken seriously by either dems or reps, as if they felt that doing so would confer credibility. He was quashed in the debates in lieu of ratings, and sometimes did quite well. I suppose the question ultimately will be whether his party pull more votes from Democrats or Republicans, rather than whether they'd win any major elections. As a younger entrant, he should be able to speak to younger voters and perhaps over time, grow a meaningful base. He did admirably in 2020 and I am confident he can build.

UncleOxidant 5y ago
> I suppose the question ultimately will be whether his party pull more votes from Democrats or Republicans I think it's pretty clear that he'd pull more Dems than Reps. That would be a very bad thing in 2024, so you'll probably see a lot of encouragement from Republicans and an lot of discouragement from Democrats.
- krapp 5y ago
  The real ultimate question is whether post-Trumpism will unite the Republican Party or result in a schism among Conservatives by 2024.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - benburleson 5y ago
    I'm not sure if it's just a vocal minority, but it sure seems to be the Party of Trump, no longer the Republican Party.
    - excalibur 5y ago
      I could see a Trump party on the right, a Yang party on the left, and a third party right down the middle full of disenfranchised moderates from both sides of the aisle
      - TomSwirly 5y ago
        Yang is not a leftist. He's not even left of the Democratic party, and they aren't a left-wing party. There's a simple litmus test. Do you think workers should control the means of production? You're a socialist. Do you think capital should? You're a capitalist. The Republicans, Yang, and the Democrats are all capitalist parties.
        willcipriano 5y ago
        Human beings are really funny. Ask someone in a neighborhood about how many houses should be built and virtually all of them will tell you that theirs should have been the last one. Ask someone about what is left and right in politics and they will move the middle around so they aren't either on the far left or right. As if their personal political opinions are some sort of core fundamental property that the universe is organized around. Looking back in history, humans did the same thing with the solar system. We just tend to assume that we are at the middle of things.
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      All the Republican Party needs is for DJT to die of natural causes, so that candidates can quibble over who is the true inheritor of his mantle. Eight years after that the name of Trump will be invoked as a meaningless benediction the way that Reagan is used now.
      - krapp 5y ago
        >All the Republican Party needs is for DJT to die of natural causes, so that candidates can quibble over who is the true inheritor of his mantle I think Trump stopped being a viable figurehead for his own movement once the stop-the-steal movement and insurrection failed to prevent Biden's election, and date after date after date for Trump's triumphant return passed without incident. Republicans are going to have to move on from him either way.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- kenhwang 5y ago
  After his performance in the NY mayoral election where he went from frontrunner to 4th place behind people who never had a national spotlight, he's going to be pulling votes from nobody.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - q1w2 5y ago
    His policy platform came off as uninformed. Overly-naive in certain respects and overly-corporatist in others - appealing to neither side of the aisle.
- silisili 5y ago
  This is such a discouraging and sad view point. I'm not saying it's wrong, just pessimistic, and not blaming you for saying it just venting. Who cares if it's more x than y. Most voters are moderates. Myself, and many moderates, feel completely unrepresented by either side. Not liberal enough to vote D, and not conservative enough to vote R. You'd think they'd be drifting together, but increasingly are drifting further apart. Why not encourage more parties, or at least some middle ground party, if what we have today sucks. Surely there's a better reason than "so the other guys don't win"
  - itsdrewmiller 5y ago
    The vast majority of US voters are either essentially conservative/Republican or liberal/Democrat, however they identify themselves to pollsters. The very small number of people who are actually swing voters generally aren't that way because they have midpoint positions on the issues, and they are on average also much less well-informed in general. See https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17575768/swing-voters-exist https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17575768/swing-voters-exist and links from it for evidence of these claims.
  - noahjk 5y ago
    A lot of my views trend liberal, but I don't really feel very well represented by the Democratic Party... really I think we would do better to have multiple smaller parties and a better voting system, and to somehow remove the giant monetary influences that seem to corrupt all decision making. The past five years have really done a number on us all. You're right about the huge divide that's developed, it's scary.
    - js2 5y ago
      You might be interested in this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/republicans-democrats-parties.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/repub... https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190913854.001.0001/oso-9780190913854 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/o...
    - 5y ago
yann2 5y ago
The argument against him is the same argument against Obama. This is the age of Networks. Replacing one central node in a gigantic hierarchy of power doesnt seem to really do anything. There are too many hubs that need to be replaced to get anything done.
Barrin92 5y ago
>It makes me wonder what the narrative against him would be I think the question is what the narrative for him is. His views probably most closely resemble what the Niskanen-Center dubbed 'liberaltarian' a few years ago and that doesn't have much of a constituency. This sort of slightly wonkish, business man, tech bro hybrid will find some voters among the kind of young male demographic you find here or on reddit but otherwise his political campaigns were stillborn. Conservatives don't support liberal social politics and expansion of government spending, Liberals aren't going to support the Milton Friedman-esque UBI ideas and individualistic free-market attitude.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  > Liberals aren't going to support the Milton Friedman-esque UBI ideas. Isn't that a liberal idea??
  - danrocks 5y ago
    Friedman did support it, though: https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supported-a-guaranteed-income-5-reasons-da6e628f6070 https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supporte...
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    Originally, no. Because originally UBI was designed to be used not as another social program, but in lieu of existing programs. When Friedman invented it, the idea was to get rid of things like public schools or whatever other public welfare program, fire all the public workers involved and instead give money to people so they would choose those services in the open market.
    - Barrin92 5y ago
      As far as I know that is still the case with Yang's UBI, which is why I brought it up in my original post. "The most important part of Mr. Yang’s 2020 guaranteed income plan was not the size of the checks but how he intended to pay for them. He promised to fund the program by implementing some new tax policies and “consolidating some welfare programs.” Anyone who wanted in would first have to make a choice: continue to get the bulk of the direct government benefits they currently received, or forfeit them and instead get $1,000 a month. Other than Social Security retirement, disability benefits (and potentially some other credits), no one could get both a Freedom Dividend and government assistance." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/opinion/andrew-yang-ubi-nyc-mayor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/opinion/andrew-yang-ubi-n...
robotresearcher 5y ago
> He was quashed in the debates in lieu of ratings What does this mean? I know what the words mean, but can't catch your meaning.
- jw433 5y ago
  word soup
- mc32 5y ago
  I think poster thinks Andrew was not called upon often because other candidates had better draw (for their ratings). Back in the debates it was obvious the party had some favorites and some less than favorite candidates. Andrew was among the latter.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    OK that makes sense as the intent. 'In lieu' means 'instead', not 'because', so I think it was incorrect usage that confused me.
- bko 5y ago
  There were a number of instances where national news broadcasters just left him out of polls or included his competitors with lower marks. For instance CNN had a poll for and showed 6 candidates results, the lowest being for Beto O'Rourke, with a result of 1%. But Yang scored 3% in the poll but was just left out because for whatever reason he wasn't seen as a serious candidate. https://nextshark.com/cnn-andrew-yang-graphic/ https://nextshark.com/cnn-andrew-yang-graphic/
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Steko 5y ago
> In the 2020 primaries and election, he wasn't taken seriously by either dems or reps He was one of two Democratic candidates that had significant right wing support. As far as Dem's not taking him seriously, a big part of that is because he had no political experience and America's experiment in electing someone like that was an ongoing dumpster fire.
- kcplate 5y ago
  He also advocated eliminating the minimum wage. Or in other words…he wanted to slaughter the hell out of one of the two DNC sacred cows. Can’t have that…radical ideas that aren’t party approved are bad
  - geofft 5y ago
    I mean, the party has to stand for something, otherwise it's not a party anymore. Imagine a Republican candidate who wanted to increase funding to Planned Parenthood and also repeal the Second Amendment. Both are defensible ideas, but if you want to be a presidential candidate with one of those ideas, the Republican Party is not for you. The Democrats are no different.
    - kcplate 5y ago
      Sure, but if you are going to have a two party system that work together to disenfranchise any viable additional parties, having sacred cows ultimately hurt the country.
kmos17 5y ago
He just didn’t come across as credible or serious during the NY mayoral primaries, and completely squandered an early lead. Just my take from listening in to his zoom, but he seemed light on issues, wasted too much time on gimmicks rather than someone ready to talk about serious problems and how to address them.
gatlin 5y ago
The narrative against him is his refusal to adopt better policies. He wants to be seen as supporting M4A but when it's all done and dusted, he doesn't. That alone will prevent me from giving him a second look. We must look to redistributive policies. If an M4A proposal has flaws, for instance, the discussion needs to be focused 100% on closing those specific gaps. Because the problem is poor distribution of wealth and resources and no sign this will change without intervention. In my opinion a candidate must at bare minimum correctly identify issues and not be afraid to name the unbridled solutions.
- splitstud 5y ago
  Why must we look to redistributive policies? If there is some systemic issue you would like to mitigate with redistribution, why not address the systemic issue?
- throwaway34241 5y ago
  Is there a specific reason you are against non-M4A type systems? As far as I'm aware Germany and France for example have universal health care but not single-payer. The issue in the US seems to be some people with good jobs have health insurance they're satisfied with, and so don't want radical changes. So it's harder to form a political coalition to change health insurance for everybody, than it is to just fix the situation for people who don't have anything.
pope_meat 5y ago
I was a fan of yang, but then he started harping on "illegal food vendors" in NYC, and I realized he's another tech-bro ghoul. I'd like my political donation back, yang, if you're reading.

UncleOxidant 5y ago

> I suppose the question ultimately will be whether his party pull more votes from Democrats or Republicans I think it's pretty clear that he'd pull more Dems than Reps. That would be a very bad thing in 2024, so you'll probably see a lot of encouragement from Republicans and an lot of discouragement from Democrats.

krapp 5y ago
The real ultimate question is whether post-Trumpism will unite the Republican Party or result in a schism among Conservatives by 2024.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- benburleson 5y ago
  I'm not sure if it's just a vocal minority, but it sure seems to be the Party of Trump, no longer the Republican Party.
  - excalibur 5y ago
    I could see a Trump party on the right, a Yang party on the left, and a third party right down the middle full of disenfranchised moderates from both sides of the aisle
    - TomSwirly 5y ago
      Yang is not a leftist. He's not even left of the Democratic party, and they aren't a left-wing party. There's a simple litmus test. Do you think workers should control the means of production? You're a socialist. Do you think capital should? You're a capitalist. The Republicans, Yang, and the Democrats are all capitalist parties.
      - willcipriano 5y ago
        Human beings are really funny. Ask someone in a neighborhood about how many houses should be built and virtually all of them will tell you that theirs should have been the last one. Ask someone about what is left and right in politics and they will move the middle around so they aren't either on the far left or right. As if their personal political opinions are some sort of core fundamental property that the universe is organized around. Looking back in history, humans did the same thing with the solar system. We just tend to assume that we are at the middle of things.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    All the Republican Party needs is for DJT to die of natural causes, so that candidates can quibble over who is the true inheritor of his mantle. Eight years after that the name of Trump will be invoked as a meaningless benediction the way that Reagan is used now.
    - krapp 5y ago
      >All the Republican Party needs is for DJT to die of natural causes, so that candidates can quibble over who is the true inheritor of his mantle I think Trump stopped being a viable figurehead for his own movement once the stop-the-steal movement and insurrection failed to prevent Biden's election, and date after date after date for Trump's triumphant return passed without incident. Republicans are going to have to move on from him either way.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
kenhwang 5y ago
After his performance in the NY mayoral election where he went from frontrunner to 4th place behind people who never had a national spotlight, he's going to be pulling votes from nobody.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- q1w2 5y ago
  His policy platform came off as uninformed. Overly-naive in certain respects and overly-corporatist in others - appealing to neither side of the aisle.
silisili 5y ago
This is such a discouraging and sad view point. I'm not saying it's wrong, just pessimistic, and not blaming you for saying it just venting. Who cares if it's more x than y. Most voters are moderates. Myself, and many moderates, feel completely unrepresented by either side. Not liberal enough to vote D, and not conservative enough to vote R. You'd think they'd be drifting together, but increasingly are drifting further apart. Why not encourage more parties, or at least some middle ground party, if what we have today sucks. Surely there's a better reason than "so the other guys don't win"
- itsdrewmiller 5y ago
  The vast majority of US voters are either essentially conservative/Republican or liberal/Democrat, however they identify themselves to pollsters. The very small number of people who are actually swing voters generally aren't that way because they have midpoint positions on the issues, and they are on average also much less well-informed in general. See https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17575768/swing-voters-exist https://www.vox.com/2018/7/23/17575768/swing-voters-exist and links from it for evidence of these claims.
- noahjk 5y ago
  A lot of my views trend liberal, but I don't really feel very well represented by the Democratic Party... really I think we would do better to have multiple smaller parties and a better voting system, and to somehow remove the giant monetary influences that seem to corrupt all decision making. The past five years have really done a number on us all. You're right about the huge divide that's developed, it's scary.
  - js2 5y ago
    You might be interested in this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/republicans-democrats-parties.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/08/opinion/repub... https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190913854.001.0001/oso-9780190913854 https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/o...
  - 5y ago

yann2 5y ago

The argument against him is the same argument against Obama. This is the age of Networks. Replacing one central node in a gigantic hierarchy of power doesnt seem to really do anything. There are too many hubs that need to be replaced to get anything done.

Barrin92 5y ago

>It makes me wonder what the narrative against him would be I think the question is what the narrative for him is. His views probably most closely resemble what the Niskanen-Center dubbed 'liberaltarian' a few years ago and that doesn't have much of a constituency. This sort of slightly wonkish, business man, tech bro hybrid will find some voters among the kind of young male demographic you find here or on reddit but otherwise his political campaigns were stillborn. Conservatives don't support liberal social politics and expansion of government spending, Liberals aren't going to support the Milton Friedman-esque UBI ideas and individualistic free-market attitude.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
> Liberals aren't going to support the Milton Friedman-esque UBI ideas. Isn't that a liberal idea??
- danrocks 5y ago
  Friedman did support it, though: https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supported-a-guaranteed-income-5-reasons-da6e628f6070 https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supporte...
- elzbardico 5y ago
  Originally, no. Because originally UBI was designed to be used not as another social program, but in lieu of existing programs. When Friedman invented it, the idea was to get rid of things like public schools or whatever other public welfare program, fire all the public workers involved and instead give money to people so they would choose those services in the open market.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    As far as I know that is still the case with Yang's UBI, which is why I brought it up in my original post. "The most important part of Mr. Yang’s 2020 guaranteed income plan was not the size of the checks but how he intended to pay for them. He promised to fund the program by implementing some new tax policies and “consolidating some welfare programs.” Anyone who wanted in would first have to make a choice: continue to get the bulk of the direct government benefits they currently received, or forfeit them and instead get $1,000 a month. Other than Social Security retirement, disability benefits (and potentially some other credits), no one could get both a Freedom Dividend and government assistance." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/opinion/andrew-yang-ubi-nyc-mayor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/opinion/andrew-yang-ubi-n...

robotresearcher 5y ago

> He was quashed in the debates in lieu of ratings What does this mean? I know what the words mean, but can't catch your meaning.

jw433 5y ago
word soup
mc32 5y ago
I think poster thinks Andrew was not called upon often because other candidates had better draw (for their ratings). Back in the debates it was obvious the party had some favorites and some less than favorite candidates. Andrew was among the latter.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  OK that makes sense as the intent. 'In lieu' means 'instead', not 'because', so I think it was incorrect usage that confused me.
bko 5y ago
There were a number of instances where national news broadcasters just left him out of polls or included his competitors with lower marks. For instance CNN had a poll for and showed 6 candidates results, the lowest being for Beto O'Rourke, with a result of 1%. But Yang scored 3% in the poll but was just left out because for whatever reason he wasn't seen as a serious candidate. https://nextshark.com/cnn-andrew-yang-graphic/ https://nextshark.com/cnn-andrew-yang-graphic/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Steko 5y ago

> In the 2020 primaries and election, he wasn't taken seriously by either dems or reps He was one of two Democratic candidates that had significant right wing support. As far as Dem's not taking him seriously, a big part of that is because he had no political experience and America's experiment in electing someone like that was an ongoing dumpster fire.

kcplate 5y ago
He also advocated eliminating the minimum wage. Or in other words…he wanted to slaughter the hell out of one of the two DNC sacred cows. Can’t have that…radical ideas that aren’t party approved are bad
- geofft 5y ago
  I mean, the party has to stand for something, otherwise it's not a party anymore. Imagine a Republican candidate who wanted to increase funding to Planned Parenthood and also repeal the Second Amendment. Both are defensible ideas, but if you want to be a presidential candidate with one of those ideas, the Republican Party is not for you. The Democrats are no different.
  - kcplate 5y ago
    Sure, but if you are going to have a two party system that work together to disenfranchise any viable additional parties, having sacred cows ultimately hurt the country.

kmos17 5y ago

He just didn’t come across as credible or serious during the NY mayoral primaries, and completely squandered an early lead. Just my take from listening in to his zoom, but he seemed light on issues, wasted too much time on gimmicks rather than someone ready to talk about serious problems and how to address them.

gatlin 5y ago

The narrative against him is his refusal to adopt better policies. He wants to be seen as supporting M4A but when it's all done and dusted, he doesn't. That alone will prevent me from giving him a second look. We must look to redistributive policies. If an M4A proposal has flaws, for instance, the discussion needs to be focused 100% on closing those specific gaps. Because the problem is poor distribution of wealth and resources and no sign this will change without intervention. In my opinion a candidate must at bare minimum correctly identify issues and not be afraid to name the unbridled solutions.

splitstud 5y ago
Why must we look to redistributive policies? If there is some systemic issue you would like to mitigate with redistribution, why not address the systemic issue?
throwaway34241 5y ago
Is there a specific reason you are against non-M4A type systems? As far as I'm aware Germany and France for example have universal health care but not single-payer. The issue in the US seems to be some people with good jobs have health insurance they're satisfied with, and so don't want radical changes. So it's harder to form a political coalition to change health insurance for everybody, than it is to just fix the situation for people who don't have anything.

pope_meat 5y ago

I was a fan of yang, but then he started harping on "illegal food vendors" in NYC, and I realized he's another tech-bro ghoul. I'd like my political donation back, yang, if you're reading.