Andrew Yang has lost the plot entirely

 So I just came across this gem on facebook from Andrew Yang:

I can’t ####ing believe they’re letting this shutdown go into the weekend given what’s at stake. Truly awful on BOTH sides.

Food stamps for tens of millions lapse this weekend. That doesn’t matter to these ###holes.

(censorship added by me)

 

This is where I will unapologetically break from Yang on everything and go full scorched earth (metaphorically speaking of course). 

 

Look, I get it, you don't like the democrats. I don't blame you. They're fricking worthless. They don't support UBI, they don't support medicare for all, they BARELY support a public option and dropped that idea the second it was politically convenient for them. They are a bunch of weak necked wimps. I get why you initially turned on them. They are scummy and they oppose good things. But...that doesn't mean we should be enlightened centrist here. The problem is that both parties suck, but let's contextualize that suckiness. At the absolute core, my ideology is very similar to what you proported in your 2020 campaign. Basic income, medicare for all (and yeah I did downgrade that to a public option for pragmatic reasons), and human centered capitalism. That's my jam. That's my thing. And my problem with the democrats is they don't support this crap. because too often they wanna compromise with the republicans and sell out left wing progressive principles to the right, who is, in my own mind, EVIL.

As someone who is arguably one of the original creators of human centered capitalism (I still mostly believe he got the idea from Scott Santens, and Scott Santens may have been influenced by me via reddit in this regard), let me be frank. The point of human centered capitalism was never to do this enlightened centrist both sides nonsense. The problem with the two party system is such. The right is evil, and because the left concedes the moral argument to the right, they become half evil. I know that basic income is "not left or right but forward", but let's contextualize that. That quote ALSO came from Scott Santens, who came up with it to demonstrate how basic income has had a unique ideological umbrella of supporters over the years ranging from Martin Luther King Jr and George McGovern on the left, and Milton Friedman and Richard Nixon on the right. However, let's be frank, this ideologically centrist tradition is contextualized in tbe shadow of the New Deal movement, where the left was for greater levels of government action, but often proposed such ideas in highly inefficient and piecemeal ways, and the right ended up reflecting those values, compromising with the left, and saying "well if we're gonna do this let's do it right", leading to them to back ideas like UBI as an alternative to the traditional welfare state.

In the modern political context from 1980 onward, the consensus has changed. The right has gone all in with trickle down economics, work ethic, and social darwinism, and now the left operates in the RIGHT'S shadow and compromises with them half way on everything. And in this context, basic income is no longer this ideologically centrist idea, it's a radically left wing one. Because that's how much the dialogue has changed since around 1970! And when I come at the ideas of UBI, medicare for all (or a public option), and human centered capitalism, I come at these ideas FROM THE LEFT. Andrew, in 2020, you were debatably as progressive as BERNIE SANDERS. You said once in your own book that you actually thought you were to the left of Sanders in a way because not even he would touch UBI. I understand the left/right continuum is more complicated than that, and we could debate in circles all day about whether a UBI centric human centered capitalist vision or a democratic socialist/new deal liberal vision is more "left" or more "progressive" (left wing infighting coming), but the point is, WE ARE THE LEFT. In the modern environment, politics is like driving a car. A really crappy car, but a car nevertheless. You go D if you wanna go forward, you go R if you wanna go backward. And yeah, the car sucks, it goes 15 miles an hour like its in a school zone even on the interstate, and yeah it's not going forward fast enough. And it won't even try. Because it still lives in that shadow of the right.

 

Human centered capitalism, at least how I designed it, was intended to be a secular humanist progressive alternative to the christian nationalist conservatism of the right. I believe that 2016 marked the start of a party realignment, one that the left should have very easily won, but is now losing because it cant get its crap together and wont fight the right. And the rejection of progressives, like you, and Bernie Sanders, were part of that. We are in this situation because the democrats shot themselves in the face MULTIPLE TIMES (metaphorically, of course) pushing lukewarm candidates like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris who weren't up to the task of clearly advocating for effective solutions to the country's socioeconomic problems, and instead proposed a bunch of band aid fixes they failed to even really pass AT BEST. 

Quite frankly, if we want to get out way out of this mess, we need the democrats to take the fight to the republicans. And the one time they do that, YOU'RE BASHING THEM FOR IT! Let's recontextualize this shutdown. It happened because the republicans decided to gut healthcare, throwing tens of millions off of medicaid and letting ACA subsidies expire which could QUADRUPLE HEALTHCARE PRICES! Democrats said this is unacceptable, and the government shut down came from that. And then the GOP decided to weaponize hunger and food in order to force the dems to capitulate. The shutdown amounts to "if you dont let us take away your healthcare, we'll take away your food too." They are EVIL, EVIL GHOULS. 

 

And let's be frank, universal basic income, universal healthcare, and human centered capitalism are an ANATHEMA to them. They are fundamentally and morally opposed to such things. They will NEVER support UBI. Because they believe people should work to earn every penny they get, while all income and wealth redistribution through social programs is unacceptable to them. They want to take us back to the gilded age. I get it, our current safety nets aren't perfect, but wasn't UBI and universal healthcare intended to MAKE THINGS BETTER? To improve on what we have? 

 

With that said, let's not "both sides" this crap. We need to rally around the democrats and support them through this shutdown, even if it is painful in the short term. Because in the long term, if we don't stop these guys, we'll lose anyway. They'll eventually gut SNAP anyway too. They WANT to do that. They dont WANT poor people to eat. They want them to suffer. I mean, the GOP is literally talking about CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR HOMELESS PEOPLE. And you wanna both sides this crap, Andrew? Get the heck out of here. 

Really, Yang needs to figure out what side he's actually on, and to actually take a side here, because this enlightened centrism is just cringe and a capitulation of all values that he built his original political career around. This is not a both sides issue. Democrats suck for not being progressive (ie, "forward") enough. They dont suck when they do things. When they do things, we should rally around them and defend them. Only yang can get so cringe with the enlightened centrist crap he makes me turn around and actually defend the democrats.