Don’t count out Andrew Yang, the populist technocrat who wants to be president - Macleans.ca

Last year, around 100 people showed up to the Belknap County Democrats’ annual summer picnic. Many had white hair and walkers and knew each other by first name. This year, on an unseasonably cool August afternoon in the economically debilitated New Hampshire town of Laconia, surrounded by postcard-perfect lakes and roadside sycamores, more than 500 people are visiting Leavitt Park for an extension of that event, called the Summer Blue Bash.

All this emanates from one of Yang’s taglines: “Humanity first.” Digital spaces, sometimes malicious, can also be meeting places for deeply personal connections, and personal connections are Yang’s secret weapon. As soon as he walks onstage in Laconia, he waves his fans over. “Come on up. Gimme some love,” he says, offering high fives and handshakes. “That’s more like it. This is more human.” He’s the personification of the Good Guy Boss meme: supportive, in control and totally normal.

He worked briefly as a nightclub promoter and on the tech side of urban hospitals, eventually joining Manhattan GMAT, a tutoring company. Yang rose to CEO in 2006, facilitated its sale to a massively popular education company in 2009, and resigned in 2012 with millions of dollars to his name. But Yang’s success with VFA, by his own admission, was mixed. By 2017, when Yang left the start-up to plan his presidential run, VFA’s fellows had allegedly created just 3,000 jobs. Nearly half of all VFA fellows ended up leaving their host cities; one, in Las Vegas, committed suicide by jumping off a building downtown. By all accounts, the tragedy devastated Yang, who felt personally responsible.

It’s a better solution than a $15 minimum wage, he argues, because it helps stay-at-home mothers and those who cannot work, not to mention people earning $16 an hour. Senator Bernie Sanders, the race’s loudest proponent of a minimum-wage hike and arguably Yang’s biggest opponent , has shifted his stance on UBI over the years. Sanders sounded open to it several years ago, but these days attacks it as unrealistic, perhaps sensing the need to squash Yang before his gang grows too large.

Yang across the ballot!

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