So, a lot of Yang gangers don't seem to understand why Yang lost. I see a lot of people doing stuff like pulling dishonest idpol arguments claiming it was because people won't vote for asians and blah blah blah. Look, no. Long story short, Yang has the same issue I have as of late. He's politically homeless and has no real coalition. To win elections, you need people to like you. Even more, you need people to like you more than anyone else. But...remember where I was after 2020, stating that I felt too left for the establishment wing of the democratic party, and not left enough for the growing progressive wing of the party, which is bordering on socialism as of late? Yeah, that's why Yang lost. The fact is, he didn't have the numbers. The establishment is never going to be friendly to a UBI guy UNLESS the left really DOES go socialist and they throw something out there just to "save capitalism" (see: what happpened with FDR), and the left is growing to be too far left for someone like Yang to win with them either.
The establishment has a machine that is hostile to the left. Period. Anyone who isn't coronated or chosen from within the establishment, does not get support, and generally doesn't win. The democratic party is run like an oligarchy, where the party chooses their candidates behind the scenes, and then uses their leverage with the media to push them, and the majority of passive voters vote for them. That's one thing that happened here. Yang discussed this on Yang speaks somewhat too, about how New York Times pushed all of these hit pieces on him, claimed that they had to because they were impartial, but then didn't cover Adams' problems. The race also shifted from a race about economics to one about crime. Yang's message was UBI and housing. But Adams was a police guy who wanted to increase the police budgets. Given NYC has had crime problems in the relatively recent past, running against an explicitly pro police platform is going to cost support. Progressives have that issue too. So Yang neither had the blessing of the establishment, nor campaigned on issues more moderate voters were interested in. That said, Yang never had much of a chance.
This is why, despite my misgivings and issues with progressives on an ideological level, I tend to support them regardless. Because if you are going to fight the establishment, you need as broad of a coalition as you're going to get. Even if you do everything right, you're still likely going to lose, given the party machinery. But at the very least, you can make a good showing and hopefully break through from time to time by winning the progressive vote. But...Yang is unpopular with progressives. Part of this is his ideas. He fails many progressive purity tests. He isn't for a higher min wage, he isn't for medicare for all any more, and this pisses progressives off. Sometimes this even alienates me, I've expressed frustration with Yang's lack of clarity on healthcare in 2020. You cant win a race JUST on UBI dude. And I admit, progressives do go too far with the purity testing. Some of them retreat into literal fantasy solutions and calls for socialism in tearing his UBI apart. It comes off as very hacky and dishonest. You just can't please these people. But you do have to try. There's a reason I end up trying to build bridges with progressives come election time. Because at the end of the day, we're both against the establishment. We have different visions, but we do have a lot of common ground. I believe yang gang and social libertarians need to work with the progressive movement, if we wanna get anywhere. We need to engage with socialists and the like and explain why our ideas are better. We need to show we want similar things. And while some are just too far gone, the least we can do is to try, and not alienate them.
Yang ended up listening to political consultants too much, causing him to go off in weird directions on issues like Israel, where he just flat out pissed off and alienated progressives. I ringed when Yang did that, and while it doesn't affect my support for him, it does affect much of the left. Again, I'm not sure the left can be satisfied, some of them are just too far gone down the far left rabbit hole. But again, you need authenticity, and you need to not cross the left on issues. Yang just screwed up.
Because he failed to secure the support of either coalition, he got pincered between them and got crushed. Eric Adams is winning and Garcia and Wiley are #2 and 3 respectively. It stings, but this does matter. Because it shows how well a UBI candidate is polling among democrats at this point in time. If were gonna get anywhere, we need to expand our coalition and make inroads with other groups. And because I just dont see the establishment supporting UBI, that means we need to establish a truce with progressives, trading support for their key items in exchange for their suport for UBI. We cant win alone. We just can't. And this is why I try to work with progressives. We have a common enemy in the democratic establishment, and we need to work with each other to get stuff done. This is why im hyper purity testy on top issues but not so much on anything else. I only care to get democrats and progressives to support those top priorities, with other stuff im flexible. Because you have to be in politics. Get your list of top concerns you really care about, and let the rest go. And ideally we should take progressive stances on those other issues to bring progressives in. I'm willing to go a lot more left than I really am just to appease these guys and get UBI in the process. I'll work with SJWs, borderline socialists, whatever, just get on board with UBI and M4A. That's what you gotta do. It's either that or sell out your principles to become an establishment sell out, which Yang flirted with doing with his Israel comments, which just alienated and angered these guys instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment