FORWARD

by Andrew Yang

But they aren’t in the interest of many politicians who have become accustomed to succeeding within the current system, and so they aren’t solutions that you tend to hear much about from current elected officials or the media.

Ranked-choice voting will be the crucial change that unlocks us from stasis and polarization.

But that approach had started to feel hollow after traveling the Midwest and the South for six years.

Venture for America was doing important work, but the economic system it was operating in had gone haywire and turned on millions of people.

What was required was a recasting of our economy to serve human needs instead of capital efficiency.

That required running for president.

In December 2016, in Barack Obama’s last full month in office, his administration published a study projecting that 83 percent of jobs that paid less than $20 per hour will be subject to automation and that more than 2.2 million car-, bus-, and truck-driving jobs would be replaced by self-driving vehicles.

I was beginning to realize something else: either politicians didn’t understand the gravity of what was coming, or they simply saw no incentive to rock the boat by pointing the problem out or proposing meaningful solutions.

I found it impossible to sit back and pretend to be the champion of job creation when I thought that the opposite was about to happen society-wide.

Democrats and Republicans were having the same arguments, passing the leadership torch back and forth, while communities around the country were sinking into the mud.

I had first discovered universal basic income a few years earlier through thinkers like Andy Stern, Martin Ford, and Rutger Bregman.

One thing you might notice is that the name of the campaign was originally “UBI2020.” I wanted to build the entire campaign around universal basic income.

the idea that our little ragtag campaign would go on to raise tens of millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of donors, outcompete the campaigns of five senators, four governors, six members of Congress, and the mayor of New York City, and get hundreds of thousands of votes nationwide was beyond what anyone would

regard as remotely plausible.

Instead, many members of the national media feel they have a responsibility to reinforce particular candidates and their “narratives” and dismiss others. They don’t just report on the news; they form it.

The numbers were not great: I was dead last of the twenty-one candidates listed, including some people who weren’t running, like Eric Holder. I had the lowest name recognition of any of the twenty-one candidates and was the only one with net unfavorables: of the 17 percent who had heard of me, 12 percent didn’t like me. Zero percent said I was their first choice for president.

Twitter became a very effective way to meet with and engage supporters. I would often DM with someone whom I would see on the road, where I would then say, “You’re Lacey Delayne!” or “You’re @divinetogether!” It was fun “meeting” someone

Others were various online hangers-on, people you might politely refer to as “influencers,” who used the perceived gaffe as an opportunity to attack in the hopes of drawing attention to themselves. I spent a little time responding to them but eventually gave up.

We should acknowledge that more than 90 percent of school shooters were boys and that we have a disproportionate problem raising strong and healthy boys and men.

I also talked about how we have an increasingly punishing and inhuman economy that makes many young men in particular feel like they don’t have a stable path forward.

Mental health

but there was often an entire chain of factors and events that we should try to interrupt and remediate at every level.

I underestimated the interest people would have. The “Andrew Yang Cupid Shuffle” video circulated to millions in hours. Chance the Rapper retweeted it and said, “I can’t be pandered to. But the confidence of that headbob: 11 seconds in mighta made me #YangGang.” My doing the Cupid Shuffle became one of the defining images of the campaign.

I rounded the corner and saw a large crowd of people holding campaign signs. They started cheering as soon as they saw me. I bounded toward them high-fiving people and thanking them. In moments I was surrounded by people chanting my name and clapping me on the shoulders. A number of people had their phones out to snap pictures, and I pivoted my head for a couple seconds in each direction so they each could get the right angle. Zach was right: there was no way I could take selfies with everyone in a reasonable time frame. I surveyed the crowd and tried to brainstorm a way I could mix with all of them. I laughed and said, “Maybe I should crowd-surf.” An excited man in his thirties heard me and said, “Yes! Let’s do it! CROWD-SURF! CROWD-SURF!” Before long a dozen people were chanting the same. The first guy even cupped his hands together and crouched in order to give me a boost.

But the campaign required attention as its oxygen, and the mainstream media would not cover ideas so much as characters.

MSNBC once bumped my segment entirely because Bernie decided to go for a walk and they cut to him.

In other words, I would pivot the answer to address the substance of my campaign. But any number of alternative responses went through my head at different times, all of them at least equally truthful: “Well, I was editor of the Columbia Law Review and passed the bar on my first try, so I understand law and policy better than most.” “I’ve run a private company that became number one in the country in its category and was acquired by a public company for millions of dollars, so I understand business.” “I’ve worked in entrepreneurship and technology for more than a decade, so I understand technology.” “I worked in health-care software for four years, including working on-site in hospitals in the Bronx, Newark, and suburban Florida, so I understand health care.” “I was the CEO of an education company for five years and interviewed and hired hundreds of teachers and taught thousands of students, so I understand education.” “I started a national nonprofit that impacts thousands of people to this day, so I understand philanthropy and social impact.” “I’m a husband and the father of two young boys, one of whom is autistic, so I understand the realities of raising a family.” “I grew up the son of immigrants, so I know what it’s like to feel like the odd person out while trying to fit in.” “Well, I have started a national movement that has raised tens of millions of dollars from hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans, so I understand fighting for people.” “I’m under the age of...

Often, what the questioner really seemed to be asking was, “You haven’t spent years acclimating yourself to Washington, schmoozing donors, doing robotic press conferences, and generally insinuating yourself with the political leadership class, demonstrating that you will get very little done. How can we also trust you to get very little done and maintain the status quo?”

I found out later that some campaigns were known to be in touch with debate moderators to suggest that certain questions get asked. If you don’t have a direct line to the journalists, you can at least signal ahead of time to the press questions and topics that you would like to get, generally by attacking someone. When I realized this, in July 2019, I tweeted, “I would like to signal to the press that I will be attacking Michael Bennet at next week’s debate. Sorry @MichaelBennet but you know what you did.” Reporters contacted my team to see if I was serious.

But the MSNBC flap offered another campaign trail lesson: don’t expect TV news organizations to act accountable, fair, and objective. Many don’t even see themselves that way. They’re not there to report the news; they’re there to make the news. They have set audiences to whom they are appealing and are comfortable making judgments as to what and how to present “the news” to that audience. They may not be eager to add new variables to the mix that may not line up with their audience’s tested preferences.

respects running for president requires qualities that would make you a terrible leader.

The process through which we choose leaders neutralizes and reduces the capacities we want most in them. It’s cumulative as well; the longer you are in it, the more extreme the effects are likely to be over time.

Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Julián Castro, Beto O’Rourke, Marianne Williamson, and others withdrew in the days before. John Delaney, who had declared before me, dropped out too.

“You didn’t get any national delegates in Iowa. If you don’t do well in New Hampshire, the press will treat you as if you don’t exist unless it’s to make snide comments about how you should drop out. What support you do have in Nevada and South Carolina will go down, not up. And then, when you do eventually drop out, it will be a tiny blurb or mention. Alternatively, if you drop out as soon as it’s clear you won’t win, you will get tons of positive press coverage and praise.”

“Hey, Anderson, can you send it to me after the break? I’m going to endorse Joe.” I then gave my best pitch that Joe was going to be the nominee and we needed to come together to defeat Donald Trump in the fall. I felt a lot of responsibility in part because a survey back in January had indicated that 42 percent of my supporters weren’t sure they were going to support the Democratic nominee. I always felt that defeating Donald Trump was the number one goal.

Bureaucratic failures will continue to recur because many of our governing institutions aren’t built for efficiency, urgency, or accountability. They are built for continuity, stability, and the bureaucracy itself. They will fail us during the next crisis, and we will be left crying for answers time and again.