Okay, so, I read Zach Graumann's book "Longshot", which is about the Andrew Yang campaign. Graumann was Yang's campaign manager and has a solid account discussing the ins and outs of what happened in the campaign. And it was interesting. For the record, I have positive things to say about how they ran his campaign, but I also have some negative things.
To their credit, they faced an uphill battle the whole time. They struggled to remain relevant, and no one really cared, especially at first. Graumann refers to this as the "attention economy", people only have a limited amount of time and attention span to dedicate to things, and outsiders like Yang just struggle too break their way in. I'm going to be honest. I knew about Yang's campaign since about 2017 since I followed UBI since long before then, but I didn't pay much attention to it. I remember my first reaction to Yang was that this is not a serious campaign. Even Yang and Graumann knew this is how people thought. Yang was regularly compared to the "free hugs guy", ie, someone who basically isn't serious. While I loved UBI as a concept, I took one look at his plan and was like "yeah, this isn't gonna work". Like, if I have a better UBI plan than an actual presidential candidate, what does that say about said presidential candidate? So, I'm going to be honest, while I knew about Yang from the moment he announced as he was covered on the basic income subreddit, I never paid much attention to the guy until his Joe Rogan performance in 2019. That was when he got serious for me. Because I listened to his podcast, and I was like "holy crap, he gets it". He actually understood the problems the way I understood the problems, and I found that refreshing. Because almost no one thinks like me. That's why in 2019 I was fairly split between yang and sanders. I loved Yang's core platform of UBI, M4A, and human centered capitalism and even saw a lot of my kinds of thought processes in that, but at the same time Bernie was a more known element with a better chance of winning. Even for someone like me, a die hard UBI advocate with a "human centered capitalist" mindset, a Yang ganger before the Yang gang even existed, I had trouble taking him seriously in the face of more well known and serious candidates. So Yang really had an uphill battle with the attention economy, and the vast majority of his campaign seemed to be looking for a breakthrough moment, and a time to get attention from the media, from people.
Yang's campaign was like a business startup. It was a bunch of people working out of an NYC apartment for a while, barely struggling to survive. At one point they had like 3 months of funds for expenses, then they hired another guy and they were down to 1. So yeah, basically run out of someone's garage, started out relatively unprofessional. I like it, it's authentic. But yeah.
He mentioned trying to beg rich people for money and them ignoring him. Like, a lot of people think Yang is in with the rich. While he certainly has business connections, and talks to people, most of those people couldn't give two craps about his campaign. Zach talks about having to ask rich people with fancy furniture you can't even sit on for money and them largely blowing him off and being condescending, asking why he doesn't run for a lower office instead. While it's a good question, at the same time, democratic donors seem to overvalue experience and playing the game to the point that it just ends up churning out more yes people who sound exactly like Hillary and Biden and who don't do anything. So never stop being you, Andrew. I'm just gonna say that.
So where did Yang grow his campaign? Well, primarily through the internet. Mainstream media would ignore him, so he turned to podcasts. he turned to places like twitter and reddit, he turned to memes. Zach actually has a whole chapter about internet memes. Seriously. And as someone who enjoys good internet memes, yeah it was effective. And honestly, the Rogan podcast was THE breakthrough moment for Yang. There was a sam harris one about that, but it didn't really take off until Rogan. Then suddenly Yang got tons of money and got to grow from there.
However, I'm going to be honest, this is always a weakness he had. Something I've learned from supporting both Bernie and Yang is that the internet isn't reality. You get a nice subset of people, and often independent thinking people on the internet. The internet people aren't normies though. They're young, and they're more likely to support extreme or unorthodox views. If the election was decided by the internet, bernie would win in a landslide. Yet, he doesn't. Because the demographics of the whole country arent the demographics of the internet. Your normie voter is an age 50+ person who watches cable news, works all the time, and has very little attention to spend on politics. Their views were formed in the 80s and 90s, if not the 60s and 70s. So they like reagan, they like clinton and neoliberalism, and they vote for normie politicians.
Yes, Yang got more attention through the internet, but he didn't get even a majority of it. And that's why he was stuck at only 2%. Bernie was able to get 30-40% in a lot of cases and even that lost. I'll get to the reasons why I feel Yang really failed to take off a bit later here, but yeah.
But after achieving success on the internet, they were able to get enough donors and polling in order to get on the debate stage, and they used the debate stage to try to reach out to more normie audiences. But I'm going to be honest. They kind of sucked at this. One thing I didn't know was during that first debate when Yang was grossly ignored, that he actually was very sick that day and struggling just to avoid having a coughing fit. I knew he was weak on debate performance, but let's be honest, MSNBC also had it out for him. He mentioned media bias at the end of the book and how MSNBC blatantly ignored him, but I feel like they downplay that. I know from supporting Bernie the media does all kinds of tricks to downplay candidates they don't support. Media are gatekeepers and theyre gatekeepers for the rich and the establishment. So candidates like Bernie and Yang are often intentionally downplayed and snubbed while they want to promote people like Biden and Harris. So, while I feel like Zach doesn't complain enough about this (possibly for fear of being seen as whiny), it was relevant.
Still, despite this, Yang and his gang did drop the ball here. I remember they mentioned the third debate they decided to use the debate to promote some scheme to give money to american families, in order to drum up media attention, but I feel like they spent too long treating debates as way to do publicity stunts to raise attention when in the process they were kind of failing at growing their numbers through them. The fact is, when you debate, you need to debate. You need to show you know what youre doing. Discuss POLICY. Yang was not only largely ignored, a systemic factor against him, but he never really expressed mastery of any other topic than UBI in them. And that gave him the impression of being a one trick pony. I remember none of my democratic normie friends took him seriously at all. Because he just didn't have a good grasp on policy. He didn't really debate. While the debates aren't formal debates and are a bit circusy, Yang kind of went a bit too far in the "court jester" direction of doing stunts for attention rather than winning people over on policy and talking points.
Another issue I feel like Yang had problems with actually was branding, believe it or not. Toward the end of the book, Zach mentioned how branding can be a double edge sword because while it help distinguish who and what you are, it can also make you inflexible. I disagree, if anything I feel like a major struggle Yang had was that he never was able to truly make a brand strong enough to win in the attention economy.
I mean, to put things in Yang's more business terminology, voters are customers, campaigns are businesses. You're selling something to people. This is something I feel like the democrats take for granted in general in which they just expect their brand to entitle them to votes whether it resonates or not, but Yang I feel like just never really expanded his customer base enough. Because his brand wasn't strong enough. The problem isn't Yang being inflexible, it's yang being TOO flexible. His brand got muddled and confused. His UBI policy was a mess, and Im gonna be honest, Im kind of a crappy Yang supporter because I know how weak his UBI policy actually is. So when I deal with potential customers or voters online, how can I really explain this to them? His numbers didnt add up, there were a lot of questions about how this would affect people on welfare and disability, and this allowed a lot of people who would otherwise be open to him to turn on him. I often hear from the Bernie camp for example how Yang is a neoliberal grifter and his plan is a libertarian trojan horse to destroy welfare. Like, that's a common argument I get from the left. And don't get me into Medicare for all. Why did I ultimately end up shifting my support to Bernie? Because Yang's branding was so muddled on M4A no one knew what he supported. He was nominally for "medicare for all", which i interpreted as single payer, but then he was for a public option and the "spirit of medicare for all", and then he released some plan in December which barely had any details and didn't even mention his public option. No one knew what he supported. And this even alienated me. And I'm like his core demographic here. I'm a freaking UBI advocate whose second top issue IS healthcare. So I'm gonna be honest, Yang just never had a strong brand. It was really hard for anyone to support him over anyone else.
And I know Zach mentioned the NYC mayoral campaign, and how he was originally leading but when the issues shifted from the economy to crime as things opened up again, things shifted away from him. Now, I'm gonna be honest, yes, you can lose support that way. And I say, you know what? Then you should go down with the ship. It's better to stay true to yourself than to change who you are to pivot and lose integrity. Because that's how you lose the voters' trust. Why should anyone support you if they don't know what you're for? You need to COMMUNICATE that. And that's my take on Yang's NYC run to some extent. Yes, the race shifted. But Yang just never got a base. Because he was kind of all over the place. Yang needs to pick a lane, pick a demographic, and stick with it. Because right now he HAS no lane, he HAS no demographic. And as such he's gonna be lucky just to get the 13% he did.
Here's the thing. This is the democratic party in a nutshell. You have three core demographics. You have moderates, idpol voters, and progressives. And I basically figured this out watching both the 2016 and 2020 primaries, and Yang's mayoral race and Nina Turner's primary last year. Moderates are the strongest faction. They're your older, wealthier normie voters. They're the people Zach was begging for money at the start of the campaign with the pointy furniture. They're the people who live in suburbs and are wealthy and professional class. They're the inner circle Yang tried to tap into, only to get shunned at every turn. Those are the people who like Biden, who like Hillary. Moderates often form a coalition with identity voters to win. While identity voters can go in either direction, the establishment spents significant times appealing to them to flesh out their core demographic of voters. They appeal to groups like black voters, hispanics, women, and the LGBT+ community to flesh out their numbers. Often times, appealing to these guys on niche identity issues can often trump more general policy, and this sways this group away from the progressives and toward the moderate faction. And then you have the progressives, the strongest "anti centrist faction" in the democratic party. While often progressive on social issues, they generally are overshadowed by the blatant pandering of the centrist faction and branded as "racists" and "sexists" despite being anything but. And then on economics, they're a major change faction of the party. They want candidates like Bernie. And sometimes Yang. Mostly Bernie. They're hardcore on that specific brand of politics at this point to the part they are inflexible in supporting anything else, and always take potshots at yang for deviating from their platform, often without any nuance at all. Still, despite their inflexibility and intolerance of dissent at this point, their strong branding makes them far more successful and they win a large plurality of the vote to the point the centrists are scared of them, while they just kind of laugh Yang off.
It's possible that centrists might lose power in the party in the future. Ironically because they have no branding. Hillary's branding was the branding of being a flexible moderate and it's one that alienated democrats in 2016. And in 2020 Biden's only ticket to the white house was being anti Trump, and we can see how that's going for him right now with his poll numbers getting worse and worse with every update.
The fact is, you need branding. And branding was important in various elections Yang participated in too.
In 2016, Bernie's brand got him like 40-45% of the vote or something. He started at 1%. While Hillary was that ubiquitous "bud light" brand of inferior quality, she still took a beating in 2016, struggling against Bernie and losing outright to Trump. In 2020, Biden was able to hold on, but in a more split field in which "beating trump" as the big issue people cared about. Still, Bernie had a good showing.
In Nina Turner's race, Shontel brown got Jim Clyburn's help to rally the black base to support the establishment candidate. It was the centrists + identity voters vs the progressives. 2020 looked similarly. Biden also got Clyburns help, which got him south carolina, and then the establishment organized the centrist candidates to drop out and back Biden in time for super tuesday. Again, centrists + identity voters vs progressives.
We see the same ultimate demographics in the NYC mayoral race. Eric Adams got the establishment vote, and the black vote. And Maya Wiley got the progressive vote. That's the real reason Yang was an afterthought. Early on Yang enjoyed a lot of publicity but as time went on, the party settled into its own established camps. The centrists wanted someone more experienced, the black vote wanted someone black, and Eric Adams was experienced and black. And the progressives HATED Yang. Yang felt more robotic this race, did more politicianey things, and said things that alienated a lot of progressive voters, who are attracted toward a more "bernie" type candidate. Yang might have had a decent platform, but quite frankly, he couldn't win the voters. He was outflanked on all sides by the various demographics of voters within the party and all he got were a bunch of rag tag voters who dont fit in any pre established camp.
My take on it is this, if Yang can't reach out to any other voting block, then he has no place in the party. And let's face it. The centrists will never go for him. Because he isnt an establishment politician who spent decades putting in their time and is being rewarded for their contributions to the party. Those guys want a steady hand, and "outsider" is the opposite of that. Yang isn't black. He can try to appeal to blacks, to latinos, to women, etc., but let's face it, he's an asian male, and a lot of that pandering is robotic. And without establishment backing he might not get anywhere. He did try a similar strategy among asians, but given they were only like 1% of the population, again, he had no path to victory. And again, progressives hated him. His entrepreneurial mindset doesn't resonate. It actually is a liability, as they want a pro worker candidate. yang COULD sell his idea on these grounds, but even then, he could still get outflanked, just as I do in trying to defend the idea among pro working class people. Because they got their own solutions to problems that are different and they're not even open minded to UBI in my experience. A lot of those 2016 Bernie supporters took his "socialist" brand identity too seriously and now they scream if he isn't a "socialist" and has a marxist style view of the world, they don't want him. The fact is, Bernie established his brand first, and competes with Yang's brand, and Yang struggles to reach into that demographic. In part because Yang's branding isnt strong enough, he doesn't communicate well enough, and he tries to be more flexible.
Honestly, this is, ironically, why I'm on board with his forward party. I see trying to work within the party as a futile effort. The progressives cant even beat the centrists given their combination of moderate economic politics and radical identity politics, and Yang can neither break into those demographics, or the outsider progressives. And if you can't do that, you'll never win a democratic party primary. But given the centrist's grip on the party, and the progressives unwillingness to work outside of the party despite a stacked deck (outside of a small green party contingent), I think running as a third party could actually go straight to the people more. While Yang struggles with the primary system, working outside of the party can bring in a bunch of independents who otherwise lean democratic but are alienated by the party. There's likely entire contingents of less dedicated progressive leaners for example who aren't engaged enough to vote in primaries, but who could vote democratic in the general. A lot of people register as independents while being closest partisans. That's Yang's "in". Also, republicans of similar stripes. People who lean trump for his populist rhetoric but who also want change, but dislike the democrats. I've seen Yang appeal to those kinds of people before.
I'm not saying Yang can WIN a general election here. But even a strong showing will get the two parties in gear where they are forced to shift out of their current battle lines. Which is the goal. The current battle lines are the problem. With progressives being neutered on economics, leading to the democrats to be moderate and obsessed with cultural issues, and the GOP being populist, and also obsessed with cultural issues, the structural problem with America's current alignment is complete gridlock on economic matters and spiraling hostilities on cultural issues. So we need a third party that really puts a spotlight on economic issues and causes a realignment or mass migration of voters from the two parties to a third party. And while Yang's politics might be dead on arrival among the democrats in their primary process, I could see a lot of those reluctant voters supporting Yang in the general, because do they really LIKE Biden? No.
So, I would discourage Yang and Graumann from saying that they need to be flexible on identity. No, they need to be strong on identity, but they need to actually build an identity, and stick with it. Not just build an identity and shed it for another when convenient. That's how you lose ALL your supporters and get everyone to hate you. If people don't know what you stand for, and you dont have a consistent track record on it, how can they support you?
While I like the forward party approach, I do think deemphasizing UBI and even worse dropping medicare for all is a mistake. That's an excellent vision. And it's been part of my own personal brand since 2014 or so. I have no issue with EXPANDING that, don't get me wrong. I think prioritizing ranked choice voting and trying to work with say the libertarians and the greens is a good move. Breaking the two party duopoly and getting us out of our current rut is essential to making any progress in this country. But previous priorities should not be abandoned at the risk of losing voters.
If anything I feel like expanding Yang's platform is a good thing. Yang had a lot of good ideas in his 2020 campaign. For example in retrospect I really loved his climate plan, and at this point I prefer it to Bernie's. Yang's plan seemed more efficient and geared toward solutions that worked, while Bernie's seemed inefficient and geared toward complex solutions designed to create jobs for the sake of jobs. I liked his democracy dollars idea. But Yang needs to understand foreign policy. he needs to be able to navigate social issues without getting bogged down in them. And he has to work to appeal to his chosen audiences. Again, Yang's campaign is, to some extent, a business without a strong customer base. He needs to break out and steal voters from other campaigns. He needs to convince the Bernie bros why they're better off with UBI and human centered capitalism than democratic socialism. He needs to be able to explain to Trumpers why Yang can "make america great again" better than republicans can. He can do a lot of this without compromising his values too in my opinion. I dont think a lot of supporters of various campaigns are die hard voters. if anything they might be voting for lesser evils. All Yang has to do is convince them why he is a better choice for them.
That said, all in all, to sum up my opinions on Zach Graumann's book, I think it's a good description of the Yang campaign. I think he showed how Yang grew his movement from his apartment in NYC to an actual nationwide campaign. He did what I could never do. Actually establish a campaign presence promoting ideas similar to mine. And I strongly respect him for his efforts.
However, the book also described some amateur weaknesses I feel like his campaign had. Yang spent too long just trying to get the attention out, and shifted from publicity stunts to traditional campaigning and politiking way too late. And, in my own estimation, using Zach's own terms, I feel like Yang always struggled with his own identity branding and was never able to expand beyond that original Joe Rogan podcast listening clique of internet surfers. Even I had trouble supporting Yang at times due to his muddled messaging and inexperience with policy, and I'm like somoene who should be die hard for the guy. And ultimately, I wonder if he can actually win over democratic party voters. It's the attention economy, stupid (not calling him stupid, Bill Clinton reference). Yang just failed to make a case for why he should be their first choice over anyone else. And while there are arguably demographics he will never win, he failed to even make inroads with progressives, with many of those guys hating Yang's guts for some reason due to their fixation on bernie's identity branding. If you can't break people away from other campaigns, you're never gonna win. yang might have won over a niche set of voters who were otherwise politically homeless, but he never really broke into the big three camps in the democratic party and at this point doesn't even have a lane too stick to. While shifting to a third party might help, it remains to be seen if he will get anywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment