Democratic Primary Debates, Night 2 Analysis (Andrew Yang, Kamala Harris)
In case you were wondering who that Asian man standing next to Joe Biden was, that was Andrew Yang. Someone even made a website for it, lol. (Sort of an insider joke, there.) Here’s a quick analysis of what happened last night from a Yang fan’s perspective.
There were two interesting moments during the debate that people will be talking about, in my opinion: one was when Kamala Harris confronted Joe Biden on the racial segregation bus issue — a very emotional moment that will likely win her a lot of support. This has been the bread and butter for the Democratic party for a long time so you can probably expect the media to be playing clips from that over and over.
On the other side of the aisle, is the moment when Andrew Yang mentioned his UBI (Universal Basic Income) policy — The Freedom Dividend — there was an audible *gasp* from the audience members there. You can sort of hear people’s heads exploding when Yang mentions his ideas, which “makes sense” on a rational level, but might come across as being strange and alien to folks used to the dysfunctional economics that we have today. (I often get similar reactions from Americans when I explain how Japan’s housing policies work. Did you know that over there, home prices actually depreciate over time? *Mind Blown*) I don’t think that the media is going to cover this moment too much so it’ll be up to the #YangGang to see this one through.
Random thought, but a Harris/Yang ticket would be a mind blowing duo of emotional control and technical smarts, driven by a very strong sense of humanitarian purpose. As a musician I can appreciate both types of strengths but also know that the best results come from a balance of the two.
I thought Yang did a nice ending remark where he made an effort to reach out to people across party lines, despite being right in the middle of what’s probably the most partisan event in the US political process. He didn’t bash Trump the whole time — something that the rest of the candidates were doing to score cheap political points (it IS the DNC, after all)— but explained to people why he disagreed with his policies and showed people a roadmap of how he was going to win. And that involves winning people over from both the left AND the right, which he is already doing anyway. We will see if the DNC rewards or punishes him for it — if they haven’t learned their lesson from 2016 by now, then their defeat in 2020 is pretty much guaranteed.
But even in tonight’s debate, the DNC has already shown their hostility to Yang, since in addition to avoiding giving him air time, Yang was the only one to have been given an openly hostile question (which implied that the value-added-tax was self-defeating) during the whole debate — it was designed to trip him up, rather than make him look good. The party itself — audience included — was obviously stacked in favor of the front-runners, Biden and Saunders.
But I do think that Yang was savvy enough to anticipate this type of reaction, since he knows as an entrepreneur, that new ideas are always met with resistance from institutional norms and you cannot count on the system being “fair”. Some Yang fans were frustrated that he didn’t interrupt other candidates more, speak out more to get air time — be more like Trump, in other words — but he had already told them ahead of time that that’s not his style and it wouldn’t really help him since he’s already moving onto the next round of debates anyway. Besides, he probably packed more information in the little amount of time that he was given more than any other candidate to begin with. More air-time does not necessarily mean more success.
I did a small watch party on Twitch tonight with a few guests here and there, which was a lot of fun! I think this is something I could do more regularly going forward.
[Ryan is the Online Director at Abundant Housing LA. Views here are mine, not the organization’s. He’s also the founder of the YIMBY Arts Project, which is starting a gaming/political podcast series with Fallout 76 as its backdrop. Support the project by downloading the Brave Browser, using this link!]
