2020 Democratic Nominees - Page 23

On July 26 2019 05:06 Nebuchad wrote:


Free money yay

More seriously it's possible that Yang is doing some crypto stuff but I'm not comfortable making the accusation.

On July 26 2019 04:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I've heard that as well... Any idea why? Seems weird, but maybe Yang found a way to get through to niche Trump supporters, which could be good.

My understanding is the first thing Yang did was appeal to Midwest White America. Something no other dem has done.

There was a perception that Trump is firmly in Israel's pocket, and will never act in America's interest when it comes to foreign policy, instead continuing to cozy up to Saudi Arabia and launch vapid tirades against the Iranian boogeyman. The idea was, if even our best chance was going to be a failure, we may as well get a thousand bucks a month while we watch the country descend into chaos.

His perception that AI is currently the largest 'unseen' threat to the average American worker - me, couldn't have rung more strongly with me. His solutions just made sense to me in a way that I can't articulate. I tried to poke holes in the argument for a basic income, but could only come up short. ... I don't know why, but seeing the benefit to myself in such a dramatic manner just triggered some otherworldly type of empathy within me. Out of 300,000,000 Americans, tens of millions probably live through more stressful situations every single day. What's meaningful to me would be monumental to them.

I'm still de-programming myself from the hate that I absorbed over the last five years. But I can confidently say I am not a racist any longer. I am not a sexist any longer. I am not an anti-semite any longer. I believe Andrew Yang has the winning formula for neutralizing the movement that today is a radicalized, racially-conscious group of disaffected young white men who feel that they have less and less of a future to live for.

Thank you. I am proud to say Andrew has secured my vote in the primaries and I will do my utmost to get this man elected. He has won me my life back.

On July 26 2019 20:36 GreenHorizons wrote:
With the next debate coming up I was wondering which candidates people think most closely reflect the policy positions Hillary ran on in 2016?

On July 26 2019 20:54 Dromar wrote:
Hey, I noticed some talk about Andrew Yang in here, and I'm a pretty big fan of his, so I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.



This is exactly right. A perfect, quick example of this is the unemployment rate right now. It's at 3.8% right now, which many politicians and news sources will tell you is great. But the unemployment rate is designed to me misleading. It doesn't count people who have been out of work for so long that they are no longer looking for work. And further, it doesn't distinguish between those who are employed, but are only part-time or underemployed.

So while 3.8% unemployment sounds pretty good, it seems almost designed to hide the reality that there are tons of people working part-time barely scraping by. There are tons of people with college degrees working untrained labor jobs, and there are tons of people whose job disappeared and they went on disability and fell into the "poverty trap". The reality of employment is largely unrelated to the unemployment rate that politicians roll out to tell us that everything is fine.

The Midwest and rural areas in general are feeling the brunt of this, to the degree that going from an economically depressed area in the Midwest to a coastal city is like walking into a sci-fi novel.

But to get tot the point that started talking Yang - the claim that "white supremacists are voting Yang." He appeals to a very broad audience. It turns out even white supremacists like hearing actual solutions to human problems. But I'm just speculating really. The real reason I came to post is that just last night, someone on Yang's reddit made a post about exactly this topic, from the perspective of a (ex-) white supremacist:

Andrew Yang and his campaign is what ended up leading me out of the depths of the Alt-Right

Andrew Yang is literally de-radicalizing white supremacists by offering real solutions to real problems. Here are some snippets, though I encourage you to read the whole thing (it's not that long) and even check out the subreddit further. We're really nice people.







The notion that "if white supremacists like Yang, he must be a bad guy" is absurd. So is the notion that "if Trump supporters like Yang, he must be bad." These are literally the people that we must reach the most.

Guys (and gals), the enemy is poverty and a mindset of scarcity. When people are afraid for their futures, they justify some very inhuman things. We have the power to essentially eliminate poverty and usher in a new era of humanity in the United States.

On July 26 2019 21:03 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I think these are important points, and reaching out to groups who feel disenfranchised and chipping away at various conservative demographics is something that the Democratic candidates need to be better at. I feel like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren do a reasonable job with this too, which is why I'm happy they're at least mathematically capable of winning the primary.

On July 26 2019 20:36 GreenHorizons wrote:
With the next debate coming up I was wondering which candidates people think most closely reflect the policy positions Hillary ran on in 2016?

I'm not blind to Yang's chances of winning; I realise he's one candidate of many. But I can confidently say that his chances of winning are significantly higher than 2%.

On July 26 2019 22:23 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I largely agree with your response, Dromar, except for this:



I hope Andrew Yang sticks around to continue talking about important topics and foster potential discussion (UBI, automation, technology, etc.), but he has no chance of winning. Percent of national support being at 1-5% does not equate to probability of actually winning the nomination. The top 5 candidates are the only ones who aren't realistically eliminated yet, and 5th place (Buttigieg) is really close to being equally irrelevant to the other lower candidates. I understand that most Democratic candidates are going to stick around longer to spread more ideas and earn more name recognition for future political runs (or business ventures), which are also beneficial for them, but it's 99% likely that our 2020 Democratic nominee will be either Biden, Sanders, Warren, or Harris (with the other 1% just flat-out going to Buttigieg, and 0% to the remaining ~20 candidates).

On July 26 2019 23:03 Dromar wrote:


You could have said the same thing about Trump 4 years ago, and the same thing about Obama 12 years ago. Both times you would have been wrong.

I agree that percent of national polling does not equate to probability of actually winning. But I don't assume that it means their actual chances of winning are 0%, as you do. Again, I'll reiterate that I understand Yang's chances are pretty low at this stage, but I cannot agree that they are essentially 0. That seems pretty foolish to me.

On July 26 2019 23:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I don't think Obama or Trump are analogous to Andrew Yang, either in personality or in their specific situations in the primary. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly confident that both Obama and Trump were polling better after the first primary debate than Andrew Yang currently is, and both Obama and Trump were far more impassioned and resonating in their message to the general public than Andrew Yang is. Also, both Obama and Trump made a splash during their debates; Yang hasn't. I don't see a path for Yang unless ~5-10 of the higher candidates all drop dead or mysteriously disappear. Do you see a path for Yang to win the primary?

On July 27 2019 00:16 Dromar wrote:


Sure. He stands out in one of the future debates, gets more attention as other candidates drop out, continues to gain steam, and starts polling higher. People start to take him seriously as a candidate as more people start paying closer attention to the election, and realize that he's genuine and wants to actually help normal people and has good ideas. Primary voting begins and he does well in at least a couple of the early states. Most other candidates drop out or have already dropped out at this point. He continues to outperform expectations in the primaries, due in part to unexpectedly high primary participation from independents, Trump voters, libertarians, etc.

It's a long path, it's not easy, and it's not even likely. But I'd give it more than 0%.

Trump and Obama were both polling higher at this equivalent point in time; you are correct. But Yang now is looking very similar to Trump and Obama 4 to 6 months prior to the equivalent of now. Is that insurmountable for Yang? I don't know. But the fact that Yang is not analogous to Trump or Obama goes both ways; just because he is not matching their place at the equivalent time in previous elections doesn't mean, well, anything really. Trump and Obama's performance is not necessarily the minimum requirement for a successful presidential run. They only show that unexpected things are possible.

You say you don't see a path for Yang unless ~5 to 10 of the higher candidates drop out. How many candidates do you think are higher than Yang?

On July 29 2019 02:36 GreenHorizons wrote:
Kamala Harris announced a plan for student debt forgiveness. Just start a business, make it past 3 years(that usually happens right?), and "operate in disadvantaged communities" It seems remarkably poorly thought out and impractical to me.

https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1155305122911723526