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I raised over 400k for Andrew's POTUS run and devoted a year of my life to running his official Reddit (104k subs at peak), then joined a SuperPAC to further hi

by realce 5y ago

I raised over 400k for Andrew's POTUS run and devoted a year of my life to running his official Reddit (104k subs at peak), then joined a SuperPAC to further his positions after the run. The campaign team was full of fools who squandered almost every good turn received, most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage, and Andrew eventually stole the pac's name and branding - Humanity Forward - put everyone out of a job, and then did basically nothing with the organization. I've given so much time to this person it's insane. He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people, and he never pays off on what he promises. Just dip your toes into YangGang social media and see how his former fans act now, or the stories of abuse within the campaigns that Andrew hardly acknowledged. Inspiring message, but I've been close enough to the sausage factory to know it's fluff. Beware. If you are interested in this endevour do the best you can to build your own power base, do no rely on Andrew's circle to help you in any way other than a retweet.

3pt14159 5y ago
Edit: Proof accepted. Thank you! Sorry, but I'd like some proof about, really, any of this. For example, that you were a moderator of his official subreddit. I dislike Yang making a third party, but this is a pretty hefty charge.
- blfr 5y ago
  > created: October 4, 2020 > karma: 258 Yeah, there are plenty of people here with knowledge and experience from surprising fields but I, too, would like some confirmation.
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    He posted proof here: https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/q2khwm/3pt14159/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/q2khwm/... Not sure if it will stay up or not, but it's convinced me.
- yangang 5y ago
  This is a great public example of Yang being morally rudderless: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/andrew-yangs-israeli-palestinian-gone-awry https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/andrew-yangs-israeli...
- realce 5y ago
  I have dm'd you proof, please edit your comment upon examining it and enjoy your day :) oh you can't do that here - my mistake -- this is where proof went, but I'd like to keep my reddit username kinda separate from here, hope yall understand.
  - hwers 5y ago
    I don't understand how that is proof of anything? Am I missing something. I'm just seeing an image of a subreddit.
    - 3pt14159 5y ago
      If you go to the subreddit you can see that a moderator posted that. If someones a moderator I'm much more likely to believe the rest of this.
    - realce 5y ago
      The 2 green icons next to the title indicate that it's a mod post and that it's stickied to the top of the reddit, and the title of the post is that dude's username.
GoodJokes 5y ago
Yea, it was and is a grift by him. That has been clear from the start.
richwater 5y ago
> I've given so much time to this person it's insane. _why_?
- locallost 5y ago
  Because (s)he believed in something and wanted to make a change. And a lot of times this will be for nothing, but believing enough in something to sacrifice a lot or even yourself is how almost any type of progress happens.
- realce 5y ago
  The message and intention is inspiring and I think engineered poverty is the greatest problem with American society, creating wells of trauma and hatred that make rational governance impossible and make political oppression very simple. There's other stuff - I strongly support a VAT and stuff like that, but the poverty>hatred pipeline is what I'm truly interested in.
- rajin444 5y ago
  I have a high level of skepticism for anyone who is a reddit moderator. This is purely speculative and anecdotal, but the ones I've known are not generally healthy, stable people.
  - realce 5y ago
    I was a redditor for a decade before I did this, and I TOTALLY AGREE. Reddit moderation, esp for large subs of like over 50k, is outrageous. The power you can muster to influence debate and exposure at that level is immense, and there's basically no repercussions for abusive mods. The amount of time you have to devote to managing a community is immense, the ability to keep your mod team on point is hardly possible. It's really hard and thankless and can totally twist your head up.
  - danielkyne 5y ago
    Reddit moderators are a whole breed of their own. Any that I've encountered (mostly for 100k+ subreddits) have lost any shred of empathy they once had.
zaybqp 5y ago
What messages did you find inspiring coming from him? I find a lot his messages to be too abstract to appeal to the American mass. It's missing the kind of "build the wall" messages that get some people excited.
AniseAbyss 5y ago
Sounds like any other politician. I sometimes wonder: is idealism good knowing that you will be disappointed every single time or is aloof cynicism and sarcasm the way to enlightenment?
- Pelic4n 5y ago
  My own enlightenment was realizing that neither virtue nor the expectation of virtue was rooted in anything that I should concern myself with. From Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, The Virtuous: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm#link2H_4_0033 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm#link2...
frankbreetz 5y ago
This is disappointing to read, I guess it is true what they say: you don't become a billionaire by being a good person.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Given that we can give money to people if we choose to, that may be a reflection on society itself more then the billionaires. Voting makes this more obvious of course, we get the elected leaders we deserve.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  ...some are just born into it.
- realce 5y ago
  Not a billionaire, very meagerly "rich"
  - frankbreetz 5y ago
    Wow, you are right[0]! I don't think I would even call him rich. [0]https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/democrats/andrew-yang-net-worth/ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/democr...
    - QuercusMax 5y ago
      How can he possibly be worth only $600K? That doesn't even seem possible. What did he do with all the money he made?
geeB 5y ago
I do not have any personal experience, but sadly it does not sound too surprising from what's been out publicly. The moment he dropped out and immediately got the CNN job really changed my perception of him. Then after some events from his mayoral campaign, such as his Israel comments or the Staten Island ferry cowboy incident, it's pretty clear he is a politician like many others.
- qzx_pierri 5y ago
  I donated to his campaign after seeing him on JRE, and I’ve been getting spam emails from political candidates ever since. I’ve blocked at least 7-8 different “PLEASE DONATE” mailers, but they keep coming. I think Yang sold my info.
  - dfxm12 5y ago
    He did. I mean, maybe not him personally, but unfortunately, that is the punishment for your generosity when you choose to donate to most causes.
  - RankingMember 5y ago
    This happens when I donate to any candidate. Not saying it's right, but it does seem to be the norm.
  - rib3ye 5y ago
    He is quoted as saying he did not, but when you donate directly to a campaign is get put into a public FEC db, which obviously gets scraped. https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00006486/ https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00006486/
  - erentz 5y ago
    I donated to a few candidates and the same thing happened. Not sure if it’s from the campaigns individually, or via the Act Blue platform that they all used.
  - TimJRobinson 5y ago
    I think it's ActBlue that does that, after interacting with them in any way it's a constant deluge of spam from Democratic Candidates.
Pelic4n 5y ago
>He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people, and he never pays off on what he promises. The man was running for POTUS. Do you expect the men who lead the world to uphold your own moral standard? From Machiavelli's The Prince: >Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft . Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. [...] A wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prince_(Marriott)/Chapter_18 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prince_(Marriott)/Chapter...
- afavour 5y ago
  > The man was running for POTUS. Do you expect the men who lead the world to uphold your own moral standard? Yes?!? It’s insane to me how little some people expect of their elected officials. Yes, the cynical side of me knows it’s never going to 100% live up to expectations once they're in power but good grief. "things can never be good, here is a 16th century essay that proves my point" is just self-fulfilling prophecy. The Prince mirrors the politics we see today because we keep electing people who read The Prince and use it as an instruction manual.
  - Pelic4n 5y ago
    If you wish to acquire any kind of power, you cannot embarass yourself with right and wrong. Those who compete with you and won't do so will overrun you. Just like companies in a market or competing species in an ecological niche, you need to be as ruthless as possible. The universe has no regards for your morals. And against the Putins and Xi Jipings of the world, I would not want a virtuous saint upheld by a tight moral code as a leader for my country.
    - afavour 5y ago
      Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with the content of The Prince. Studied politics and listened ad nauseam to all the wannabe politicians that worshipped at its altar. Thing is, nothing you've just stated is fact. It's just a viewpoint. Which is fine, but let's not pretend we have some absolute truth in front of us. Relevant case in point: I live in New York, where until recently we had a governor that was all about ruthless assertion of power and ruled by personality. Then, when he ran into problems everyone turned their back on him because everyone hates him.
UIZealot 5y ago
> Andrew eventually stole the pac's name and branding - Humanity Forward - put everyone out of a job "Not left, not right, forward" had been Andrew's slogan throughout his presidential campaign. The PAC may have come up with it (I have no knowledge either way), but it is as much Andrew's branding as it is the PAC's. As to putting everyone out of a job, I had no idea that Andrew, or any candidate, could guarantee someone a lifetime job once they joined his PAC. Andrew's presidential bid ultimately failed. There's bound to be disappointments all around. But your allegations ring hollow base on this comment alone.
nobrains 5y ago
Sounds presidential to me...
netcan 5y ago
IMO, this is an indictment of the structure, more so than the individual. First, a campaign is a makeshift setup, staffed just in time and fired shortly after. Second a campaign is a campaign. It's about media attention, hammering messages and getting elected. Anything but a messy collapse, post election, is unlikely. I'll suggest that what you wanted to be involved in isn't an individual campaign, it's a party or something that you could join. Something that is supposed to last, and where members are supposed to have influence. Otherwise, there's no room for daylight between the candidate and people supporting them and every crack is structural doom. Yang Gang had a lot of self organising, organic aspects to it. But, it framed itself as a fan club. Yang Gang should have never been subservient to The Campaign, which is really just a bunch of underpaid youngsters run by a handful of professional, non-ideological experts. The campaign should have been subservient to Yang Gang. "Support for Yang among Yang Gang" is a nonsensical frame. That's not sustainable.
- realce 5y ago
  1000% agree.
  - netcan 5y ago
    Glad to hear it. Yang Gang had/has the seeds of an interesting political paradigm, and a lot of that just emerged as people showed up on the sub. The paradigm was just not built to last, grow or evolve. Do you see a path from A to B? It would be a shame to see a general dispersal, without any form of continuity.
    - realce 5y ago
      A lot of people worked very hard to build that bridge from the flash of the POTUS run to a more typical "movement" structure, but even in those efforts the disconnect between the motives and trust of the volunteers vs Andrew's crew was omnipresent. Humanity Forward couldn't even convince the volunteer orgs to adopt their name or charter without some extreme pushback due to their treatment of volunteers during the campaign. They further picked that network clean during the mayoral run, either disillusioning members with his poor, corporately-controlled campaign, or trying to leverage supporters that had nothing to do with NYC. The path from A to B has already happened IMO. Andrew gave a certain group of people the ability to rise above their cynicism and feel politically useful for once. That feeling frees people and makes them uppity in the face of entrenched power, which is great. The next step of this whole game is YG ownership of this "party" instead of acting like it's Andrew's property, leading to a distribution of power throughout the network. Then you attack localities, like city councils and mayoral races, and build a new narrative closer to a "people's party" than "Andrew Yang's Party" The party has to feel like the internet did: Anyone with the grit and intelligence can break through, meritocracy be damned. Sorry to write a book about it lol. UBI isn't a pipe-dream for NEETs, which is what it was in 2016.
ctvo 5y ago
Good to get confirmation. I had a sense Yang was incompetent, and now I know. I still like some of his ideas, and I'm thankful he led to more Americans learning about UBI from the presidential race.
- mypalmike 5y ago
  Now you know? You now know what one person on the internet said.
  - ctvo 5y ago
    Yes. And I also know how he failed in the presidential and New York City mayor race. And I also know his history with his non-profit. And I also know his performance in ventures before that.
Alex3917 5y ago
> The campaign team was full of fools who squandered almost every good turn received He also fired them one day before dropping out of the race just to send a message. I don't know that that's great leadership, but to me that shows he had some idea of what was going on at least. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/06/yang-fires-dozens-of-staffers-after-iowa-debacle-111611 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/06/yang-fires-dozens-o... That's definitely not to undermine the rest of OP's message, just adding a little extra color.
- realce 5y ago
  Those workers were trying to unionize and the campaign fired organizers for the union before the primary :)
  - Alex3917 5y ago
    fwiw I was talking about the campaign HQ folks, not the Iowa folks (who were unionizing).
    - realce 5y ago
      fair point sir!
temp8964 5y ago
> most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage This is something really strange. If you work for a campaign, it is very very very very different from working for the Mcdonal's. You work for a campaign because you support its ideology, and you want it to win. You are not trying to make a living by working for a campaign. I would even say, you are not working for the campaign, you are working for yourself! It's like you are donating to the campaign with your own labor. The relationship between you and the campaign is mutually beneficial. The campaign gets help from you, and you get to use the campaign to fulfil your personal belief. There is no way for you to get the same kind of fulfilment by working in the Mcdonal's. The campaign provides you a platform to express your ideology, a network to find ideological friends. So, no, you are not exploited by the campaign, nor is the campaign exploited by you. It is a voluntary exchange between you and the campaign for mutual benefits.
- ebiester 5y ago
  There is a key difference between volunteers and campaign staff: Campaign staff are managers: they manage the volunteers and bring key competitive advantages to a campaign. Good campaign staff is the difference between winning and losing. Campaign staff can work 60-80 hours a week during the life of a campaign. This is an actual job.
- oneplane 5y ago
  So you'll pay for your house, food, and other living requirements with what then? Every time someone tries to make a case for paying people not enough to survive they just seem to forget that externalities exist...
  - temp8964 5y ago
    If you want to make more money, why don't you go work for the Mcdonal's then? Oh no. I don't like to work for the Mcdonal's! I hate the job! I want to work for the campaign and it must pay me the same! It's a win-win for me!
    - sellyme 5y ago
wonderwonder 5y ago
Appreciate the insight. Even if all of this is true and I have no reason to think its not, I will still cast my vote for someone from his party most likely; assuming the candidate is remotely palatable. I think the country needs a valid third party as a reaction to the extremes of both current parties taking more power and influence. A third party would optimally pull both parties back towards the center assuming that third party is more common citizen focused. As for the negative character traits, I think most politicians eventually become this way. I am not a fan of it but its reality and these days my political viewpoint is very much "Who will do the least amount of harm to democracy", the days of being inspired are very much passed for me. Maybe I am just old and bitter :)
- rchaud 5y ago
  Andrew Yang has never held office. If one election campaign is enough to turn him into a typical politician, what does that say about his value as a prospective public servant?
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    Nothing really, I think people are turned into politicians because most of them have no idea how to run a campaign as its pretty specialized knowledge. They rely on campaign managers to really do everything. Again, while I like Yang or at least the platform he espouses, I am not going to vote for his party because I expect massive change or some sort of feel good reaction. I just want a viable third party to balance the other 2 parties that I currently am very much not a fan of. A third party will optimally bring the other 2 parties closer to center which is where I am. Right now I just vote for the party I dislike the least. If the end result is a 3rd party I dislike but less than the other two then that's an improvement.
csomar 5y ago
You mean he is acting like a regular politician?
winternett 5y ago
Elections now are generally 2 people with influence, connections, and wealth (or someone that can be exploited as a puppet) that are chosen by financial backers to win, and a remaining pool of stooges and fake implants meant to take votes away from either of the 2 people mentioned prior. Everything else, including the idea that an honest candidate can "climb out of nowhere" and win hearts and votes, is a pipe dream because of PACs, political parties, and obvious corruption. Been that way for almost forever if you ask me...
- rayiner 5y ago
  The alternative is where the party doesn’t control the nominee, like the GOP, and you get the base nominating Trump.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    That seems... preferable? Say what you will about Trump, but his ineptitude and lack of party connections meant he was limited in what he could accomplish. Contrast that to the Bush presidency and its two foreign wars.
    - khuey 5y ago
      Bush was able to "accomplish" those wars because the country was "united" after 9/11. It didn't have much to do with his personal competence or connections.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - raydev 5y ago
        That certainly helped, but it was well known even then that Cheney had a lot of power, and he had many connections. GWB wasn't a complete puppet, but he wasn't fully running the show either.
      - Crashbat 5y ago
jb1991 5y ago
I thought the writing was on the wall when, during his campaign, he made self-deprecating racist jokes about his own ethnicity, furthering damaging stereotypes.
infinitezest 5y ago
> He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people Do you have any examples of this? > And he never pays off on what he promises Are you speaking about his campaign promises in particular? If so he lost so I'm not sure what you were expecting. > YangGang social media Eh. The "but some of his supporters are jerks" argument is emotionally potent but doesn't contain much substance in my opinion. Jerks are often very outspoken no matter what their opinions are. I'm not sure why that has anything to do with the person they're supporting. I remember people doing this with Bernie also.
bena 5y ago
I am not that surprised. He kept going on and on about taxing "tech" to fund UBI. And it would work out and it would be like Alaska with their oil fund thing. But, when you get down to it, what is "tech"? How is it different from just anything? We use the word "tech" to essentially describe any business that is based primarily on software. Where software is a major focus. Because, like chemicals, technology is literally everything. The wheel is technology. A car is technology. "Tech" isn't an industry, it's a catch-all term for businesses we don't want to define. So how do you define Google as "tech" in a way that doesn't include other advertising companies or other companies that run their business with software (which is pretty much all of them now)? So with that and everything else I've learned about him, he really seemed like someone who was very articulate, but ultimately empty. His big thing was "MATH" but what he really needed was "ENGLISH".
- hakfoo 5y ago
  Devil's advocate, but starting with a broad based "who to tax" concept allows for more room to horse trade. If he said front and centre "I want to personally dangle Jeff Bezos and Sergei Brin over the edge of a tall building and shake until their wallets fall out" that gives one clear target to fight over. Starting with an amorphous blob target lets everyone involved say "Oh, we'll exclude X, Y, and Z...." and feel like they won something, while still getting what you really wanted in the end. It's why they always talk about the budget proposals as "$3.5 trillion" or "$1.8 trillion" without anyone ever saying "my real red-line is the $12k of subsidies to the local dirt farmers."
  - bena 5y ago
    Yes, and the real trick is to say "Jeff Bezos" without explicitly naming him. Because a law that calls out a specific person has a built-in expiration date.
horns4lyfe 5y ago
Sounds like a pretty run-of-the-mill politician, maybe he'll hack it in D.C. after all. There's nothing wrong with giving your time to improving your community, but if you're devoting any part of your life to a politician, you're begging to be taken advantage of.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bfung 5y ago
I wouldn't say this is unique to Andrew Yang and his campaign. I had a ex-coworker travel from California to Texas to work on Beto's campaign in 2018 and when she came back, she had the same stories of minimum wage/volunteer workers being treated with abuse and that abuse and misconducts ignored. The campaign eventually did get around to making things right, but it was too late and she had already left Texas. Memorable quote was: Mistreatment of campaign staff is common (I think for similar reasons as artists and video game programmers often get abused? the short-term pressure and passion project nature encourage exploitation)
qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
Yang was an outsider who didn't have access to a deep bench of campaign talent the way an established candidate would. It seems entirely possible to me that you are correct but Yang himself isn't to blame -- amateurs were the best available people he had to hire. In any case, he is right about the duopoly. In order to overcome the duopoly, we need the involvement of major public figures. I haven't seen many volunteer--I'll take what I can get. I would prefer he advocate for approval voting though: https://electionscience.org/ https://electionscience.org/
froggertoaster 5y ago
Echoing the comment about this being an indictment of election structure - my wife used to work on political campaigns as a high level operative and she says this is par for the course. Note: am not a Yang supporter, just offering a different perspective.

by realce 5y ago

3pt14159 5y ago

Edit: Proof accepted. Thank you! Sorry, but I'd like some proof about, really, any of this. For example, that you were a moderator of his official subreddit. I dislike Yang making a third party, but this is a pretty hefty charge.

blfr 5y ago
> created: October 4, 2020 > karma: 258 Yeah, there are plenty of people here with knowledge and experience from surprising fields but I, too, would like some confirmation.
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  He posted proof here: https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/q2khwm/3pt14159/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/q2khwm/... Not sure if it will stay up or not, but it's convinced me.
yangang 5y ago
This is a great public example of Yang being morally rudderless: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/andrew-yangs-israeli-palestinian-gone-awry https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/andrew-yangs-israeli...
realce 5y ago
I have dm'd you proof, please edit your comment upon examining it and enjoy your day :) oh you can't do that here - my mistake -- this is where proof went, but I'd like to keep my reddit username kinda separate from here, hope yall understand.
- hwers 5y ago
  I don't understand how that is proof of anything? Am I missing something. I'm just seeing an image of a subreddit.
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    If you go to the subreddit you can see that a moderator posted that. If someones a moderator I'm much more likely to believe the rest of this.
  - realce 5y ago
    The 2 green icons next to the title indicate that it's a mod post and that it's stickied to the top of the reddit, and the title of the post is that dude's username.

GoodJokes 5y ago

Yea, it was and is a grift by him. That has been clear from the start.

richwater 5y ago

> I've given so much time to this person it's insane. _why_?

locallost 5y ago
Because (s)he believed in something and wanted to make a change. And a lot of times this will be for nothing, but believing enough in something to sacrifice a lot or even yourself is how almost any type of progress happens.
realce 5y ago
The message and intention is inspiring and I think engineered poverty is the greatest problem with American society, creating wells of trauma and hatred that make rational governance impossible and make political oppression very simple. There's other stuff - I strongly support a VAT and stuff like that, but the poverty>hatred pipeline is what I'm truly interested in.
rajin444 5y ago
I have a high level of skepticism for anyone who is a reddit moderator. This is purely speculative and anecdotal, but the ones I've known are not generally healthy, stable people.
- realce 5y ago
  I was a redditor for a decade before I did this, and I TOTALLY AGREE. Reddit moderation, esp for large subs of like over 50k, is outrageous. The power you can muster to influence debate and exposure at that level is immense, and there's basically no repercussions for abusive mods. The amount of time you have to devote to managing a community is immense, the ability to keep your mod team on point is hardly possible. It's really hard and thankless and can totally twist your head up.
- danielkyne 5y ago
  Reddit moderators are a whole breed of their own. Any that I've encountered (mostly for 100k+ subreddits) have lost any shred of empathy they once had.

zaybqp 5y ago

What messages did you find inspiring coming from him? I find a lot his messages to be too abstract to appeal to the American mass. It's missing the kind of "build the wall" messages that get some people excited.

AniseAbyss 5y ago

Sounds like any other politician. I sometimes wonder: is idealism good knowing that you will be disappointed every single time or is aloof cynicism and sarcasm the way to enlightenment?

Pelic4n 5y ago
My own enlightenment was realizing that neither virtue nor the expectation of virtue was rooted in anything that I should concern myself with. From Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra, The Virtuous: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm#link2H_4_0033 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm#link2...

frankbreetz 5y ago

This is disappointing to read, I guess it is true what they say: you don't become a billionaire by being a good person.

willcipriano 5y ago
Given that we can give money to people if we choose to, that may be a reflection on society itself more then the billionaires. Voting makes this more obvious of course, we get the elected leaders we deserve.
dfxm12 5y ago
...some are just born into it.
realce 5y ago
Not a billionaire, very meagerly "rich"
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  Wow, you are right[0]! I don't think I would even call him rich. [0]https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/democrats/andrew-yang-net-worth/ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/democr...
  - QuercusMax 5y ago
    How can he possibly be worth only $600K? That doesn't even seem possible. What did he do with all the money he made?

geeB 5y ago

I do not have any personal experience, but sadly it does not sound too surprising from what's been out publicly. The moment he dropped out and immediately got the CNN job really changed my perception of him. Then after some events from his mayoral campaign, such as his Israel comments or the Staten Island ferry cowboy incident, it's pretty clear he is a politician like many others.

qzx_pierri 5y ago
I donated to his campaign after seeing him on JRE, and I’ve been getting spam emails from political candidates ever since. I’ve blocked at least 7-8 different “PLEASE DONATE” mailers, but they keep coming. I think Yang sold my info.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  He did. I mean, maybe not him personally, but unfortunately, that is the punishment for your generosity when you choose to donate to most causes.
- RankingMember 5y ago
  This happens when I donate to any candidate. Not saying it's right, but it does seem to be the norm.
- rib3ye 5y ago
  He is quoted as saying he did not, but when you donate directly to a campaign is get put into a public FEC db, which obviously gets scraped. https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00006486/ https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/P00006486/
- erentz 5y ago
  I donated to a few candidates and the same thing happened. Not sure if it’s from the campaigns individually, or via the Act Blue platform that they all used.
- TimJRobinson 5y ago
  I think it's ActBlue that does that, after interacting with them in any way it's a constant deluge of spam from Democratic Candidates.

Pelic4n 5y ago

>He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people, and he never pays off on what he promises. The man was running for POTUS. Do you expect the men who lead the world to uphold your own moral standard? From Machiavelli's The Prince: >Every one admits how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith, and to live with integrity and not with craft . Nevertheless our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held good faith of little account, and have known how to circumvent the intellect of men by craft, and in the end have overcome those who have relied on their word. [...] A wise lord cannot, nor ought he to, keep faith when such observance may be turned against him, and when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prince_(Marriott)/Chapter_18 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prince_(Marriott)/Chapter...

afavour 5y ago
> The man was running for POTUS. Do you expect the men who lead the world to uphold your own moral standard? Yes?!? It’s insane to me how little some people expect of their elected officials. Yes, the cynical side of me knows it’s never going to 100% live up to expectations once they're in power but good grief. "things can never be good, here is a 16th century essay that proves my point" is just self-fulfilling prophecy. The Prince mirrors the politics we see today because we keep electing people who read The Prince and use it as an instruction manual.
- Pelic4n 5y ago
  If you wish to acquire any kind of power, you cannot embarass yourself with right and wrong. Those who compete with you and won't do so will overrun you. Just like companies in a market or competing species in an ecological niche, you need to be as ruthless as possible. The universe has no regards for your morals. And against the Putins and Xi Jipings of the world, I would not want a virtuous saint upheld by a tight moral code as a leader for my country.
  - afavour 5y ago
    Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with the content of The Prince. Studied politics and listened ad nauseam to all the wannabe politicians that worshipped at its altar. Thing is, nothing you've just stated is fact. It's just a viewpoint. Which is fine, but let's not pretend we have some absolute truth in front of us. Relevant case in point: I live in New York, where until recently we had a governor that was all about ruthless assertion of power and ruled by personality. Then, when he ran into problems everyone turned their back on him because everyone hates him.

UIZealot 5y ago

> Andrew eventually stole the pac's name and branding - Humanity Forward - put everyone out of a job "Not left, not right, forward" had been Andrew's slogan throughout his presidential campaign. The PAC may have come up with it (I have no knowledge either way), but it is as much Andrew's branding as it is the PAC's. As to putting everyone out of a job, I had no idea that Andrew, or any candidate, could guarantee someone a lifetime job once they joined his PAC. Andrew's presidential bid ultimately failed. There's bound to be disappointments all around. But your allegations ring hollow base on this comment alone.

nobrains 5y ago

Sounds presidential to me...

netcan 5y ago

IMO, this is an indictment of the structure, more so than the individual. First, a campaign is a makeshift setup, staffed just in time and fired shortly after. Second a campaign is a campaign. It's about media attention, hammering messages and getting elected. Anything but a messy collapse, post election, is unlikely. I'll suggest that what you wanted to be involved in isn't an individual campaign, it's a party or something that you could join. Something that is supposed to last, and where members are supposed to have influence. Otherwise, there's no room for daylight between the candidate and people supporting them and every crack is structural doom. Yang Gang had a lot of self organising, organic aspects to it. But, it framed itself as a fan club. Yang Gang should have never been subservient to The Campaign, which is really just a bunch of underpaid youngsters run by a handful of professional, non-ideological experts. The campaign should have been subservient to Yang Gang. "Support for Yang among Yang Gang" is a nonsensical frame. That's not sustainable.

realce 5y ago
1000% agree.
- netcan 5y ago
  Glad to hear it. Yang Gang had/has the seeds of an interesting political paradigm, and a lot of that just emerged as people showed up on the sub. The paradigm was just not built to last, grow or evolve. Do you see a path from A to B? It would be a shame to see a general dispersal, without any form of continuity.
  - realce 5y ago
    A lot of people worked very hard to build that bridge from the flash of the POTUS run to a more typical "movement" structure, but even in those efforts the disconnect between the motives and trust of the volunteers vs Andrew's crew was omnipresent. Humanity Forward couldn't even convince the volunteer orgs to adopt their name or charter without some extreme pushback due to their treatment of volunteers during the campaign. They further picked that network clean during the mayoral run, either disillusioning members with his poor, corporately-controlled campaign, or trying to leverage supporters that had nothing to do with NYC. The path from A to B has already happened IMO. Andrew gave a certain group of people the ability to rise above their cynicism and feel politically useful for once. That feeling frees people and makes them uppity in the face of entrenched power, which is great. The next step of this whole game is YG ownership of this "party" instead of acting like it's Andrew's property, leading to a distribution of power throughout the network. Then you attack localities, like city councils and mayoral races, and build a new narrative closer to a "people's party" than "Andrew Yang's Party" The party has to feel like the internet did: Anyone with the grit and intelligence can break through, meritocracy be damned. Sorry to write a book about it lol. UBI isn't a pipe-dream for NEETs, which is what it was in 2016.

ctvo 5y ago

Good to get confirmation. I had a sense Yang was incompetent, and now I know. I still like some of his ideas, and I'm thankful he led to more Americans learning about UBI from the presidential race.

mypalmike 5y ago
Now you know? You now know what one person on the internet said.
- ctvo 5y ago
  Yes. And I also know how he failed in the presidential and New York City mayor race. And I also know his history with his non-profit. And I also know his performance in ventures before that.

Alex3917 5y ago

> The campaign team was full of fools who squandered almost every good turn received He also fired them one day before dropping out of the race just to send a message. I don't know that that's great leadership, but to me that shows he had some idea of what was going on at least. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/06/yang-fires-dozens-of-staffers-after-iowa-debacle-111611 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/06/yang-fires-dozens-o... That's definitely not to undermine the rest of OP's message, just adding a little extra color.

realce 5y ago
Those workers were trying to unionize and the campaign fired organizers for the union before the primary :)
- Alex3917 5y ago
  fwiw I was talking about the campaign HQ folks, not the Iowa folks (who were unionizing).
  - realce 5y ago
    fair point sir!

temp8964 5y ago

> most campaign workers were paid less than minimum wage This is something really strange. If you work for a campaign, it is very very very very different from working for the Mcdonal's. You work for a campaign because you support its ideology, and you want it to win. You are not trying to make a living by working for a campaign. I would even say, you are not working for the campaign, you are working for yourself! It's like you are donating to the campaign with your own labor. The relationship between you and the campaign is mutually beneficial. The campaign gets help from you, and you get to use the campaign to fulfil your personal belief. There is no way for you to get the same kind of fulfilment by working in the Mcdonal's. The campaign provides you a platform to express your ideology, a network to find ideological friends. So, no, you are not exploited by the campaign, nor is the campaign exploited by you. It is a voluntary exchange between you and the campaign for mutual benefits.

ebiester 5y ago
There is a key difference between volunteers and campaign staff: Campaign staff are managers: they manage the volunteers and bring key competitive advantages to a campaign. Good campaign staff is the difference between winning and losing. Campaign staff can work 60-80 hours a week during the life of a campaign. This is an actual job.
oneplane 5y ago
So you'll pay for your house, food, and other living requirements with what then? Every time someone tries to make a case for paying people not enough to survive they just seem to forget that externalities exist...
- temp8964 5y ago
  If you want to make more money, why don't you go work for the Mcdonal's then? Oh no. I don't like to work for the Mcdonal's! I hate the job! I want to work for the campaign and it must pay me the same! It's a win-win for me!
  - sellyme 5y ago

wonderwonder 5y ago

Appreciate the insight. Even if all of this is true and I have no reason to think its not, I will still cast my vote for someone from his party most likely; assuming the candidate is remotely palatable. I think the country needs a valid third party as a reaction to the extremes of both current parties taking more power and influence. A third party would optimally pull both parties back towards the center assuming that third party is more common citizen focused. As for the negative character traits, I think most politicians eventually become this way. I am not a fan of it but its reality and these days my political viewpoint is very much "Who will do the least amount of harm to democracy", the days of being inspired are very much passed for me. Maybe I am just old and bitter :)

rchaud 5y ago
Andrew Yang has never held office. If one election campaign is enough to turn him into a typical politician, what does that say about his value as a prospective public servant?
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Nothing really, I think people are turned into politicians because most of them have no idea how to run a campaign as its pretty specialized knowledge. They rely on campaign managers to really do everything. Again, while I like Yang or at least the platform he espouses, I am not going to vote for his party because I expect massive change or some sort of feel good reaction. I just want a viable third party to balance the other 2 parties that I currently am very much not a fan of. A third party will optimally bring the other 2 parties closer to center which is where I am. Right now I just vote for the party I dislike the least. If the end result is a 3rd party I dislike but less than the other two then that's an improvement.

csomar 5y ago

You mean he is acting like a regular politician?

winternett 5y ago

Elections now are generally 2 people with influence, connections, and wealth (or someone that can be exploited as a puppet) that are chosen by financial backers to win, and a remaining pool of stooges and fake implants meant to take votes away from either of the 2 people mentioned prior. Everything else, including the idea that an honest candidate can "climb out of nowhere" and win hearts and votes, is a pipe dream because of PACs, political parties, and obvious corruption. Been that way for almost forever if you ask me...

rayiner 5y ago
The alternative is where the party doesn’t control the nominee, like the GOP, and you get the base nominating Trump.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  That seems... preferable? Say what you will about Trump, but his ineptitude and lack of party connections meant he was limited in what he could accomplish. Contrast that to the Bush presidency and its two foreign wars.
  - khuey 5y ago
    Bush was able to "accomplish" those wars because the country was "united" after 9/11. It didn't have much to do with his personal competence or connections.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - raydev 5y ago
      That certainly helped, but it was well known even then that Cheney had a lot of power, and he had many connections. GWB wasn't a complete puppet, but he wasn't fully running the show either.
    - Crashbat 5y ago

jb1991 5y ago

I thought the writing was on the wall when, during his campaign, he made self-deprecating racist jokes about his own ethnicity, furthering damaging stereotypes.

infinitezest 5y ago

> He's not trustworthy, he's a horrible manager of people Do you have any examples of this? > And he never pays off on what he promises Are you speaking about his campaign promises in particular? If so he lost so I'm not sure what you were expecting. > YangGang social media Eh. The "but some of his supporters are jerks" argument is emotionally potent but doesn't contain much substance in my opinion. Jerks are often very outspoken no matter what their opinions are. I'm not sure why that has anything to do with the person they're supporting. I remember people doing this with Bernie also.

bena 5y ago

I am not that surprised. He kept going on and on about taxing "tech" to fund UBI. And it would work out and it would be like Alaska with their oil fund thing. But, when you get down to it, what is "tech"? How is it different from just anything? We use the word "tech" to essentially describe any business that is based primarily on software. Where software is a major focus. Because, like chemicals, technology is literally everything. The wheel is technology. A car is technology. "Tech" isn't an industry, it's a catch-all term for businesses we don't want to define. So how do you define Google as "tech" in a way that doesn't include other advertising companies or other companies that run their business with software (which is pretty much all of them now)? So with that and everything else I've learned about him, he really seemed like someone who was very articulate, but ultimately empty. His big thing was "MATH" but what he really needed was "ENGLISH".

hakfoo 5y ago
Devil's advocate, but starting with a broad based "who to tax" concept allows for more room to horse trade. If he said front and centre "I want to personally dangle Jeff Bezos and Sergei Brin over the edge of a tall building and shake until their wallets fall out" that gives one clear target to fight over. Starting with an amorphous blob target lets everyone involved say "Oh, we'll exclude X, Y, and Z...." and feel like they won something, while still getting what you really wanted in the end. It's why they always talk about the budget proposals as "$3.5 trillion" or "$1.8 trillion" without anyone ever saying "my real red-line is the $12k of subsidies to the local dirt farmers."
- bena 5y ago
  Yes, and the real trick is to say "Jeff Bezos" without explicitly naming him. Because a law that calls out a specific person has a built-in expiration date.

horns4lyfe 5y ago

Sounds like a pretty run-of-the-mill politician, maybe he'll hack it in D.C. after all. There's nothing wrong with giving your time to improving your community, but if you're devoting any part of your life to a politician, you're begging to be taken advantage of.

deleted 5y ago

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bfung 5y ago

I wouldn't say this is unique to Andrew Yang and his campaign. I had a ex-coworker travel from California to Texas to work on Beto's campaign in 2018 and when she came back, she had the same stories of minimum wage/volunteer workers being treated with abuse and that abuse and misconducts ignored. The campaign eventually did get around to making things right, but it was too late and she had already left Texas. Memorable quote was: Mistreatment of campaign staff is common (I think for similar reasons as artists and video game programmers often get abused? the short-term pressure and passion project nature encourage exploitation)

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago

Yang was an outsider who didn't have access to a deep bench of campaign talent the way an established candidate would. It seems entirely possible to me that you are correct but Yang himself isn't to blame -- amateurs were the best available people he had to hire. In any case, he is right about the duopoly. In order to overcome the duopoly, we need the involvement of major public figures. I haven't seen many volunteer--I'll take what I can get. I would prefer he advocate for approval voting though: https://electionscience.org/ https://electionscience.org/

froggertoaster 5y ago

Echoing the comment about this being an indictment of election structure - my wife used to work on political campaigns as a high level operative and she says this is par for the course. Note: am not a Yang supporter, just offering a different perspective.