www.dailykos.com/…
Reading this blog, I realized that in some circles, there is prevalent sentiment to dismiss Andrew Yang as a joke candidate with a small group of fanatical followers. When he scores high in polls, something must be wrong with the polls. Maybe they are bots. There is no way he actually has a big following. I get it. The whole notion is crazy. Some anonymous man runs for the president of the Unites States promising to give everyone $1000 a month! He’s clearly a charlatan and his followers are fools for falling for free money scam!
This is a perfectly sensible reaction. Especially in an era of fake news, when you hear something this radical, it’s smart to be skeptical. Some people never even heard of him, how can he possibly amass such a following?
I’m not usually politically engaged but the society would definitely throw me into a political bucket called West Coast liberal. I would vote Democrat down ballot. Just like everyone else, I never heard of Andrew Yang until last year when, for some reason, speech he made at Clear Lake, Iowa appeared on my YouTube recommendation. I thought “Now that Trump is president, every Tom, Dick and Harry are going to run and this country is really going to fall to shit.”. By the end of the video, I agreed with everything he said. He seemed like a normal guy, a real patriot, genuinely and rightly worried about the country and has ideas to fix it. I thought “Everything he's saying makes sense. It’s a shame he’s never going to make it.”
Then I forgot about him. i thought the campaign just fizzled out. So I was pleasantly surprised when I heard him on Sam Harris podcast earlier this year. He hasn’t given up! This was an hour long interview where he confirmed all the dread I was feeling about the country with numbers and data. He has correctly analyzed the cause and has a clear vision for better future with detailed policies to get us there. He has the right experience, skills and knowledge to do the job. But sadly, the country is not ready yet. He’s never going to make it. No one else even knows about him.
A few months later, I saw a short segment on either CNN or MSNBC. It was a fluff piece about some random man running for president. I thought, “Wow! he’s still in this and he’s got real followers! Who are these people?” I don’t use social media but logged onto Reddit to find out who these people are.
I thought they would all be progressive liberals like me. The policies seemed too extreme to appeal to wide variety of voters. He probably has a very small but dedicated followers which means he might have a quick rise but going to hit the ceiling fast. So I was very surprised to find that they are people from all sides of the political spectrum: progressives, liberals, democrats, independents, libertarians, conservatives, disillusioned republicans, pro-trump, never-trump, disaffected voters, pro-choice, pro-life and Yangocrats (lifelong Republicans who will switch only for Yang). People from all walks of life who accidentally came across his message and it just happened to resonate. This was a group of people the media said would never agree on anything. Turns out, we agree on most things.
Accidentally seeing his rise from very early on, I understand the fervor behind the campaign. I’m excited too. At the same time, if you had never heard of him. And the first time you see him on TV, is just an Asian man with a crazy idea and no other explanation. How can anyone possibly take that seriously?
If you have already checked him out on podcast, youTube and you disagree with his message, thank you for keeping an open mind and checking him out! It would be weird if we all agreed on everything.
If you haven’t yet, check out what he has to say. Maybe the message will resonate with you too.