Forward! Or: Andrew Yang Might Actually Be A Troll

its looking like Yang is going to run for NYC mayor

https://twitter.com/business/status/1341868441569996806

as much as i would love for this to happen don’t progressives usually get crushed in this race? And it seems like being a huge asshole is seen as a positive in NYC politics and Yang is not one of those.

2 Likes

Not a Yang fan, but he could not be worse than the usual NYC mayors.

2 Likes

I’ll allow it

7 Likes

well he’s got the most name recognition right now, if he runs we’ll see if that holds up, dunno, there’s a few that have a shot there.

shame deblasio can’t run just because he’d get trounced

NYC mayor stuff are the only markets I didn’t immediately pile a ton of money against him so maybe?

Would be a step up from D’Blasio.

I’m still waiting for somebody to explain why I should hold Yang in high regard, or really any sort of regard at all. He doesn’t have any political experience or accomplishments. His non-political experience is pretty meh if you really look into it a bit. His big ideas aren’t actually his, and he’s not doing a particularly effective job of selling them.

Why should I care about this guy?

3 Likes

He at least talks about big ideas. I agree he hasn’t really done anything but I’d rather see Yang making waves talking about UBI and shit instead of another warmed over milquetoast centrist selling the best ideas of the 1990s as a path forward.

4 Likes

not sure if i need politicians to have their own ideas.

there certainly aren’t enough good ideas out there for everyone to have different ones. and ideas usually need a decade or two of actual science to be sure it’s good.

i think of yang as a UBI salesman. he got the early adopters part of the curve. to get anywhere in NYC he’ll need to sell it to the fattest part of the distribution. that’ll be a challenge but it’s also a necessary part for that idea

2 Likes

If you are a progressive that swallowed the poisoned pill that was Biden in 2020, I’m not sure how one could think this wouldn’t be a positive development. Even if you aren’t excited by the idea it would be forward progress.

2 Likes

Watching Yang’s speach from earlier when he officially announced.

I’m actually really pumped about this.

He has a real vision and a lot of policy ideas.

2 Likes

NYC seems like a pretty good cautionary tale about the perils of one party rule. DeBlasio is objectively awful.

1 Like

That’s partly why he wrote the book “The War on Normal People”. He realized that his non profit was creating jobs but not fast enough.

And I guess you would have to define “meh”.

If you look at his career he has kind of practiced what he preached. He prioritized the well being of humans over making as much money as he possibly could.

1 Like
1 Like

Bloomberg was mayor for 3 terms and he was basically a Republican. Giuliani literally was a Republican. Guess NYC doesn’t typically have awesome mayors.

Listening to Yang on the breakfast club and it sounds like his plan to start is giving 1 billion a year to the poorest half a million New Yorkers.

Haven’t read the details but it sounds like more of a negative income type thing.

He said he is going to tie it to some of the existing programs that are in place and if you are below a certain level they are going to “cash them up”.

I guess there is a half million New Yorkers in “extreme poverty” (not sure how that is defined) and wants to cash them up right away.

Next step is getting high speed interenet to everyone who does not have it.

Talking about looking at the NYPD budget and allocating some of that money somewhere else. I doubt he will get a police union endorsement.

AY said he is going to be announcing an endorsement a day.

Every licensed yellow cab should become a Cash Cab, except you don’t need to answer trivia questions to get money, they just give it to you when they drop you off. Compete with that Uber.

2 Likes

That will just force Uber into becoming FakeTaxi to survive.

2 Likes

Wonder how this will play? [He’s been living mostly upstate during Covid because, apparently, many New York City apartments are kinda small]

"We live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. And so, like, can you imagine trying to have two kids on virtual school in a two-bedroom apartment, and then trying to do work yourself?” Yang said.