Andrew Yang is a serious candidate with serious policy positions.

Yang, who is sixth and rising in the polls, has not been treated as such. Reporters have laughed at him and main stream media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC have both left him off of graphics showing candidates who qualifying for polls and debates, in favor of lower-polling candidates like Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar. MSNBC even went as far as to call him “John Yang” on a graphic on September 9th. This mistreatment has caused a lot of outrage and frustration within his devout fan-base which call themselves the Yang Gang.

Yang is not a shy man. Often to try to keep a debate a bit lighter, he will tell jokes playing on Asian American stereotypes. A line he and crowds both enjoy is that the “opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.” In the third debate in Houston when discussing health care, Yang began his answer saying, “Now, I’m Asian, so I know a lot of doctors.” Although some found his joke irritating, it is quite clear that the intent of this joke was not to perpetuate an Asian stereotype, but to demonstrate that Donald Trump’s school yard bullying tactics will not work on him. With jokes and statements like these, Andrew Yang truly shows that he is Trump’s kryptonite and his “opposite.”

Although Yang is able to joke about himself, he takes his 100+ policy proposals very seriously and gives genuine care and consideration to each one. Chief among his many policies, Yang supports a $1000 a month Freedom Dividend for each United States citizen over the age of 18. The main stream media outlets are not sure how to cover his unique platform and policies and often simply don’t. He is the second to last mentioned candidate just in front of Mariam Williamson.

Due to this lack of coverage, Yang has had to be creative in advertising his campaign. For example, Yang has been trending on Twitter with the hashtags: #YangMediaBlackout, #GoogleAndrewYang, #TrumpFearsYang, and finally #YangBeatsTrump which was in response to a poll conducted by Emerson University which showed that Yang was beating Donald Trump 54-46 in New Hampshire.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang hoists a supporter’s sign after speaking at a rally in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 22, 2019. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Another marketing tactic that Yang employed during his opener of the third debate was a giveaway of 10 Freedom Dividends to 10 American citizens. This idea has been characterized as buying votes, however I do not interpret this way. Instead, I understand it as a showing that Yang is so confident that his proposed Freedom Dividend will help American lives that he would use $120,000 of his campaign dollars do test and study it.

Andrew Yang is climbing in the polls and while more Americans are hearing about him and his ideas, expect to see him stick around for a while longer.