The Case for Andrew Yang for Progressives

Only two candidates are truly fighting for us. Only one has the right vision.

Investing in Us

No more corporate handouts

Trillions spent on war, multi-billion no-bid contracts to Haliburton, trillion-dollar bank bailouts, and virtually no discussion on where the money comes from. No one arguing about it causing inflation, or calling it “handouts.” No one calling it “unrealistic”, or too ambitious.

But when we talk about free healthcare, childcare, college, or just putting money back into people’s hands all of a sudden everyone in the entire political establishment from Bush to Obama, from Trump to HRC, from Biden to Buttigieg, starts chuckling about the naive unrealistic idealists that back this sort of thing! “Oh, Bernie!” they say, “Oh, Andrew! That’s so special of you. Now back to the adult conversation.”

As progressives, we see this and we don’t like it. At the DNC, its another story. The DNC does everything it can to stop candidates like Bernie and Yang exactly because they are suggesting spending a military sized budget on investing in our people!

Empowering the public with free higher education, or $1000 a month represents too big of a shakeup, and it means less money available for the next trillion-dollar corporatist scam. It means a population less subject to exploitation. Scams and exploitation represent a lot of how the elites, working together as Democrats and Republicans, became the elites. And its a lot of how they stay elites.

Everything else aside, Bernie and Yang are the only candidates who are really pushing for us in a way that reflects the wealth and might of the country. The only ones who are proposing something better than an insulting handful of crumbs.

For Bernie, its free healthcare for everyone, free college for everyone who wants it, a higher minimum wage, canceling all student loan debt, free meals in schools, and a federal jobs program. Ideas that could be game-changers for many, many Americans.

For Yang it means putting $1000 a month in every adult Americans pocket, healthcare as a human right, treating data as our own property, along with a lot of other great ideas.

These are, IMO, the only two candidates that anyone who calls themselves a progressive should be considering. The rest of the debate, from electability to identity politics, to feuds, charisma and pre-planned “takedowns” are all a bunch of noise when compared to the question “Do we spend a military sized budget on investing in ourselves for once, when we so desperately need it? Or forever reserve big budgets and big ideas for the military only?”

I don’t see how any candidate other than Yang or Sanders could really say “YES” and to the former and mean it. This is what makes them both real champions for us, the American people, and the rest of them more of the same.

Yang’s Vision

Like Yang, I believe in people’s ability to solve their own problems if they have better means to do so. I think a family of 4 with $2000 guaranteed a month and health care can do better for themselves than a family of four with free college and a guaranteed job at the Federal Gov’t if they want it.

Bernie is a hero and I love him. I would be overjoyed with him as the next president. But his ideas are decades old. He wants to hang on to the idea that working for the government and going to college are the keys to the American dream.

Yang, while also being fiercely supportive of unions and traditional means for workers to empower themselves, recognizes that most Americans do not aspire to work for the gov’t and that many, many Americans still wouldn’t go to college even if it was free. Yang recognizes that putting the money directly in people’s hands gives them the opportunity to craft their own vision of their future.

Imagine two futures, one with Yang and one with Sanders as POTUS. Great either way for sure! Now imagine a family of 4; a truck driver and a retail clerk both in their mid-30s, and young children.

In the next 5 years, both have been automated out of a job, replaced by robot trucks, and automated checkouts and kiosks.

In Bernie’s world, both could go get a job with the government (assuming the program is functioning properly). They could earn about the same amount they do now, and if they save a lot of it, hopefully, retire with dignity after another 30 or so years in the workforce. It’s unclear how much say they would have in what they are doing for those 25 years. They might hate it. They might learn to love it. But either way, they’re doing it. For the next 30 years.

In Yang’s world, knowing the robots are coming, both parents save 100% of that extra $2000 a month they get combined. In 5 years they have over $120,000. Enough to start a small business based on their passion, or go back to school. Or enough to pay off their house. And that $2000 keeps coming in! They are MUCH more empowered to do what they want for the next 30 years. And even if their plans fail, they still have $2k a month coming in that can keep them and their family off of the street.

In Warren’s world, they get free childcare, which they won’t need without jobs to go to. In Biden’s and Pete’s world they get to have their liberal elite friends be free from the painful embarrassment of having Donald Trump as president. I’m sure they will take great consolation from that as they move their family onto the street.

Now imagine Yang’s world again, and what $1000 a month would do for the homeless, the sick, the developmentally disabled, the disabled, and the mentally ill. Imagine that as compared to a federal jobs guarantee and free college!

Imagine what $1000 a month per adult would do for families displaced by hurricanes compared to a jobs guarantee and free college! Imagine what $1000 a month per adult could do for single parents compared to a federal job guarantee and free college!

This is the real beauty of Yang’s plan. It truly helps EVERYONE that needs it. It helps rural Americans, as their money goes farther. It helps disabled vets. It helps women working exploitative jobs they can’t quit because they need the money.

It can be “free education” if that’s what you spend it on. It can be “free childcare” if that’s what you spend it on. It can also be food. Or an investment in your new small business.

And it can do all this with VERY LITTLE overhead, bureaucracy, oversight, or a waste of tax dollars.

Do we really think our government would make good use of our tax dollars in a giant federal jobs program that is asked to place millions of workers in positions, train them, and pay them? When the gov’t is historically horrible at doing this? Give the money directly to people and let them manage, or mismanage it themselves. On the whole, I think we will do a whole lot better managing our own money than letting bureaucrats do it for us, and I think most Americans agree with me on that.

Investing Smartly in Our People

Bernie wants to spend a military sized budget to help people, which is fantastic. But he wants to spend all of that money on large federal programs that we know are going to waste a tremendous amount of money, AND are going to treat people like one-sized-fits-all. Better than a trillion-dollar bank bailout, that’s for sure! But hardly ideal.

Yang wants to spend that same amount of money (more or less) but just give it directly to us. Most of that money will be spent right in our local economies, giving everything and everyone even MORE economic boost. If any of the money is wasted, its because WE wasted it, not because of some bureaucrat somewhere closed his eyes and pushed a button.

I think we should all be able to agree that with two candidates who are talking about finally investing trillions back in the American people, after decades of trillions in corporate handouts to the 0.01%, that these are the only candidates who we should be taking seriously.

And fortunately, we don’t need to sacrifice “elect-ability” at all — these are the SAME two candidates who do the BEST against Trump in the general. Biden does worse, often loses to Trump in polls, and even if he gets in, he still might call people fat on twitter, embarrass himself, and keep spending that military budget on missiles.

Unifying the Country

Also importantly, Yang’s election unifies the country. How much do we need this right now!?? A cross-section of Americans from all walks of life and political parties resonate with his message. He’s not a fierce ideologue. And I’ve seen again and again from conservatives that they like Yang because he “is the only one that doesn’t talk down to us.”

Some of us are so suspicious of the Americans who voted for Trump that this counts as a negative for Yang in our minds rather than a positive. But if you watch Yang, there is nothing negative he is saying that Trump voters like. Its the positive things he says that they like.

So why do they like what Yang says but not the rest of the democrats? I’d say two reasons:

- Big gov’t vs small gov’t (Yang’s solutions do not include giant federal programs and the corresponding bureaucracy and waste)

- Yang is new and his platform is new. So he himself and his platform have not been subject to years of disinformation and ridicule on right-wing media.

- He’s genuinely empathetic for all Americans

This country desperately needs some unification. It needs healing. It needs to move FORWARD.

The Great Debate

Lastly, would you really want to see anyone debate Trump more than Yang? He’s not just much smarter than Trump, but he’s also more relatable to Americans across the political spectrum. And he’s FUNNY. He would school Trump like your smart, mature older brother from High School schooling a bully from your 2nd-grade class. He wouldn’t go easy on him, but he would keep it classy. He would come into it knowing he would win over a section of Trump's own base by being classy, smart, inspiring, funny, and a LOT cooler than Trump, and inspiring and uplifting his support on the left at the same time.

A vote for Yang is an uncompromising vote for the American people and, as Yang says, our ability to tell our children that they will be OK, and mean it.

A Yang presidency is one that unifies the country and empowers the American people to solve their own problems and become far more resilient and agile to face the challenges ahead.

Vote Andrew Yang in 2020