How Social Media Allow Fringe Candidate To Get An Audience - Andrew Yang In San Francisco

I don't even know who Andrew Yang is.  I'll look him up in a second.  But below is a video of him giving a talk on the street with a Twitter transcript/commentary.  (Double click on the Tweet to see the whole thread.)

By popular demand, #YangGang #Yang2020 event in SF https://t.co/0r41OkGF3N

— 🤖 Sonya Mann 🎀 (@sonyaellenmann) March 16, 2019

Here's a long interview with Yang which he begins by talking about universal basic income and cites Alaska as an example of it working. I hope our current fight over the PFD doesn't "prove" to people that this idea won't work. Though it sure shows us that some people only think immediate, short term, and 'that's my money, not the state's." But that's another discussion.







What I like about all these young Democratic presidential candidates is that they are bringing to the table important ideas that the older, politically conservative (and by that I don't mean ideologically, but rather people not willing to take risks, people who only back ideas after they look at the polls) have kept off the agenda.

[As I listen to the rest of this two hour video, he talks about the places Trump won are the places that jobs got replaced by robots.  Then he said he went to Washington and started talking to politicians about this and they said, "We can't talk about that."  about 49 minutes in.]

Elizabeth Warren's pushing breaking up the tech industry.  Kamala Harris is talking about reparations for African-Americans in the sense of help dealing with generational trauma.  Beto O'Rourke champions immigrants as necessary to the prosperity and vibrance of the US  ("El Paso has been the safest city in America, not despite immigrants, but because of immigrants.").  Jay Inslee is focused on Climate Change.   You get the point.   Let's get these issues out there so the American people start seriously talking about other options.

And let's hope the candidates continue to care more about making this a much better country and world, than they care about who is ultimately in the White House.  Let's hope they stay positive and see themselves as a team, and may the best candidate be their leader from the White House.

One last note:  This is not an endorsement of Yang or any other candidate.  I like the ideas they are all raising.  As we get to know them better, we'll find out more about their strengths and weaknesses.  But I'm pushing them to all work together as a team.