Who is Andrew Yang?

Andrew Yang is an American entrepreneur/technologist and alumni of such universities as Brown and Columbia Law, where he studied economics and eventually obtained a Doctorate of Jurisprudence. At heart, however, he is a philanthropist. In 2009, Yang began “Venture for America,” a non-profit program which relocates recent college grads to cities such as Detroit, Cincinnati, and Miami (among many others), and grants them the opportunity to make use of their talent by encouraging and incubating new start-up companies. Aside from Venture for America, which has indirectly created dozens of thousands of jobs in the ten years since its inception, Yang has begun to personally give families $1000 a month out of his own pocket in order to illustrate the impact of his proposed Freedom Dividend, which will offer each and every American the same if he is elected president. As Yang puts it, “it’s Capitalism that doesn’t start at zero.”

As far as politics go, Yang is as substantive as you can get. His website lists nearly 100 policies, which aside from his main shtick (Freedom Dividend) includes a diverse roster of pro-active measures such as the American Mall Act, which promotes the re-purposing of malls, as they continue to become abandoned at an epidemic clip, as well as a plan to legalize marijuana which includes freedom for those who have been incarcerated for its possession. When speaking, Yang is a breath of fresh air. He does not rely on the sort of rhetoric other politicians are notorious for, and his oration is down-to-Earth and rich with statistics. His tech background greatly benefits his argumentation style. We live in a world of ever-increasing technological complexity. In this regard, Yang has an especial sensibility which distinguishes him from his out-of-touch competitors, yet he handles it without coming across as some elitist douchebag from Silicon Valley. Though he may be running as a Democrat, the issues he addresses and the solutions he has proposed have garnered him phenomenal support from normal people across the board.

Yang’s Meteoric Rise to Fame

In 2017, Yang stepped down as Venture for America’s CEO and quietly filed a presidential campaign with the Federal Elections Commission. As recently as three months ago, he was polling at a whopping 0% in Iowa, the state where he’d spent the most time energizing voters. On February 8th he began to poll nationally at 1%. Less than three months ago he had absolutely no mainstream support and next to nothing in terms of public awareness. Two days ago he crushed the DNC’s requirement that each candidate must receive 65,000 individual donations to make the debate floor. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, then take a look at this picture:

A Google Trends search for “Andrew Yang,” illustrating the incredible growth in public interest surrounding him within the last month

While Andrew Yang is not yet a household name, his popularity is skyrocketing, big time. Not only is he growing in popularity, but the speed of his growth is only going to be accelerating as he continues to campaign. The sharp spike in February reflects his appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, which has gained over 2 million YouTube views alone in less than a month.

Because the Joe Rogan Experience is an exceptionally popular podcast, this was dismissed by many at the time as nothing more than a little bit of online buzz. This is a counter-intuitive and laughable way of looking at the situation that seems to suggest the internet is a completely separate thing from real life. The podcast, as many clicks as it got, was nothing more than the starting pistol for Yang’s brand recognition. The hundreds of thousands of podcast listeners who instantly began Googling “Andrew Yang” aren’t just going to shut up about him the next day. Joe Rogan has much more respect from the everyday American than the corporate media does, and he has enough influence over them to make New York Times and CNN salivate at the mouth. Yang was given a real platform outside the traditional media circuit, and as a result he is not currently seen as a serious contender.

Okay but really: Should we take him seriously?

This question was asked by The Cut’s Amanda Arnold. Though she is far from the only one to draw into question the possibility of Yang making it through 2020 with the Democratic ticket, it shines to me as one of the most pretentious examples I’ve come across so far.

The fact that some pundits are already giving him better odds of winning than Gillibrand and Gabbard bodes incredibly well for Yang. At the top of the same poll Amanda cites (the New Monmouth poll 2020), Joe Biden is listed at 28%, and two candidates at 0%. These odds do not reflect the actual likelihood that any particular candidate will win; after all, it would be literally impossible for a candidate to have a 0% chance of winning. The number more or less means, “if we had an election RIGHT NOW, here are the odds,” and they progressively become more accurate over time. Yang is absolutely unheard of at this stage, as word has only begun to spread about him; I can only imagine what his odds of winning will be when voters get their ballots.

Amanda also had this to say:

This is symptomatic of the internet/reality distinction that out-of-touch people operate under. In attempt to mock Yang, she takes aim at his followers with this joke. Most of Yang’s followers were exposed to him through the internet, and they have shown their support for him, you guessed it, on the internet. The internet has been around for decades, and it is the area where much of our culture takes place. In spite of this, the angle the mainstream media has taken is to characterize Yang’s followers as a bunch of iFunny-loving memesters. The intention may or may not have been to discredit Yang as someone who actually might be our next president, but that’s certainly been the effect.

Andrew Yang has already proven that he has a shot in this race, yet he can’t avoid being described as a “long-shot candidate” by almost everybody who’s heard of him. To suggest that Yang will be anything but a top player this season is incredibly shortsighted. After all, the man was on the 1992 US Debate team that went to the world championships in London, and he assures us he will not disappoint on the debate stage. Whether or not he will win the election is obviously uncertain, but his run has no doubt decided the future of American political conversation.