Andrew Yang: “I Can Build a Coalition That Can Beat Donald Trump”

The media doesn’t understand this.

None of the other Democratic candidates understand this either. Frankly, there are a lot of people in our circles who still don’t understand it either, which is fine. It is only April 2019.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, the latest progressive hearthrob, isn’t going to flip White populist voters who voted for Trump. Neither is Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren or Beto O’Rourke. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden have the potential to flip some of them with populist economic appeals. While Bernie and Biden can peel off the occasional normie Trump voter, Yang’s secret weapon is he doesn’t talk down to them in political correctness and he offers universal basic income.

Why is this such an enticing combination to White populist voters who backed Trump? It is because populist voters value social cohesion and economic fairness. Yang is appealing to them with messaging and policy proposals that addresses their social and economic concerns and their sense of order. Whereas every other Democratic candidate alienates populist voters with political correctness by pandering to the toxic sensibilities of the Far Left, Yang has been very careful not to do so. He doesn’t come across as a SJW while all these other candidates are written off for using that language.

Yang is cleverly dissolving the the primary social issue that aligns White populists with conservative voters. Political correctness is the Great Wall that alienates White America. I would go so far as to say it is now a far more important social issue for younger people than abortion or LGBT rights. Progressives are just written off by huge swathes of the electorate for being miserable, humorless scolds. No one wants to grab a beer and have a conversation with someone like Hillary Clinton.

White populists are voting for Republicans like Donald Trump in spite of their views on economics. They don’t agree with the GOP at all on economics, but are hounded into the GOP by people who are full of resentment, bitterness and hatred of White America.

VELSHI: “But you got a lot of people, it feels populist. Not that part, but your following on social media feels populist, it feels like people think that you are part of a movement, or leading a movement that can gain attention and capture the attention of the American public. How you manage that in the Democratic  nomination is going to be interesting, but if you were to become the Democratic nominee, what’s your argument against Donald Trump?”

YANG: “What I would say again is that we need to solve the problems that got Donald Trump elected, and the best person to beat Donald Trump is someone who can peel off 10, 20, 30 percent of his voters. Because I’ve met now hundreds, thousands of Trump voters who’ve said to me, I voted for Donald Trump and I’m going to vote for you. So I can get the progressives, I can get the Democrats — ”

He is breaking through with his dog whistles.

Solving major social and economic issues …

joking/not joking

… requires reaching unusually huge amounts of voters locked up in the other party. Yang is neutralizing concerns about political correctness while luring populist voters away from the GOP by focusing on economics. There is a strong interplay between these two issues because $1,000 a month is basically FU money for any wage slave to his employer, “journalists” and to SJW social media lynch mobs. It will have the effect of emboldening employees in a free society to resist both exploitation and political correctness by making them more financially independent under capitalism.

If Yang is right and he is uniquely flipping thousands of Trump voters as a candidate with his messaging and policies, then he is winning over populists and moderates. If he is succeeding in doing that, then he is competitive with Trump in unusual places like … Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas, West Virginia. Stupid labels don’t matter because populism reaches those voters.