SF meets Andrew Yang, a presidential candidate who’s attracting support from Millennials
The unlikely presidential run of Andrew Yang, who is proposing a $1,000-a-month “freedom dividend” to every adult in America, rolled Friday into San Francisco, where some 3,000 supporters listened to the New York tech entrepreneur warn about how artificial intelligence and robotics are taking jobs.
The 44-year-old son of Taiwanese immigrants who met each other at UC Berkeley has already surpassed expectations — virtually nonexistent when he got into the race — by inspiring enough donations to qualify for the Democratic primary debate in June.
Yang outlined his idea for guaranteed universal income to a young, exuberant crowd of mostly Millennials at an outdoor soccer field lined with food trucks on Mission Bay Boulevard North.
Many also held placards and chanted the word “Math,” which has become a campaign mantra for Yang, who founded Venture for America, a fellowship program for entrepreneurs.
More than 66,000 donors have contributed over $350,000 to the campaign this month, an impressive performance for a candidate who seemingly came out of nowhere. Only about 1 percent of Democratic voters have expressed support for the resident of New York City in recent polls, but that’s no worse than his intrastate rival Kirsten Gillibrand and his popularity on social media has been soaring
He said the idea has not only had wide historical support — including from founding father Thomas Paine, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman — but it has already been implemented in Alaska, which uses oil revenue to fund it.
“What they are doing with oil money in Alaska, we can do for all of us around the country with advancing technology,” Yang told the crowd, many of whom waved “Yang Gang” and “Humanity First” signs.
Many also held placards and chanted the word “Math,” which has become a campaign mantra for Yang, who founded Venture for America, a fellowship program for entrepreneurs.
Most of his supporters said they were new to politics and were intrigued by Yang when they heard him speaking on podcasts.
“I was immediately taken with him. I really appreciate how clearly he articulates his policies, his platforms, without grandstanding,” said Aissa Le, 29, of San Francisco. “He’s a straight shooter.”
Yang’s growing grassroots popularity during his first-ever campaign is remarkable considering how his main platform, universal basic income — also known as the freedom dividend — involves taxing tech companies to pay all adult U.S. citizens $1,000 per month.
His idea, which he calls human-centered capitalism, is to offset impending job losses caused by robotics and artificial intelligence. In the next few decades, he said, self-driving vehicles will take over the trucking business and automation will make thousands of other blue-collar jobs obsolete.
The transformation, he said, has already had a profound effect, leaving much of Middle America feeling worthless, a situation that has contributed to drug addiction, a growing suicide rate and lowered life expectancy.
“We’re in the third inning of the greatest technological and economic transformation in the history of the world,” he said. “It is technology that is moving our economy to a point where a lot of Americans are struggling to get by.”
As a result, he said, there is a pervasive feeling among white working-class Americans that their lives aren’t valued. Yang said there is a direct connection between the adoption of industrial robots and the election of Donald Trump.
“He is not the disease, he is the symptom,” said Yang, who fears that if nothing is done to address the problem communities could face mass protests, civil disobedience and even riots.
His plan, he said, would give the 68 percent of Americans who don’t have college degrees — the ones most likely to become unemployed — a basic income that would help boost spending and the economy while the country invests in technical and vocational training for them.
“The money is not a solution. The money sets the stage for the solution,” he told Joe Rogan during a podcast that has been credited with helping Yang’s popularity to soar on social media. “We need to reconstitute meaning for many, many Americans. ... This is very much about human empowerment.”
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