71 Republic: Andrew Yang Shows Principle Is Only Worth $1,000 a Month

Peyton Gouzien:

“2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang has a unique following among the right. Yang has become particularly popular among more fringe parts, such as the Alt-Right. Mother Jones contends that the reason for this is Yang’s willingness to talk about topics other candidates largely avoid. Moreover, Yang has been on several podcasts and programming popular among the right, including the Joe Rogan Experience, the Ben Shapiro Show, and Fox News. But many of his ideas contradict the very principles that these people claim to hold.

While Yang has experienced much support from many elements of the right, this seems like a betrayal of their principles. Many on the right claim to be conservatives, libertarians, or traditionalists, but these are contrary to Yang’s platform. Few of his policies actually agree with the principles of any of these labels. The right’s support of Yang as a candidate seems entirely hinged on him appealing to the Trump base in rhetoric. Andrew Yang has focused on the economic woes of those who got Trump elected, making automation and job displacement core to his campaign. The thing is, his actual policies, such as Universal Basic Income, go against much of the principles of the mainstream and even fringe elements of the right. …”

Am I even on the American Right?

For the past 15 years, I have been an ideological populist and nationalist. My values are authoritarianism, social conservatism and economic fairness. I’m a Left-Authoritarian, not a conservative or lolbertarian. I’m on the “fringe right” in the sense of being a moderate centrist.

I deny sharing the same principles as Tomi Lahren or Ben Shapiro. I also have nothing in common with Jeffrey Tucker. I feel like I am both to the left of those people and to the right of progressives. I support the vast majority of things on that list which are not social issues.

Here are the issues where I align in theory with mainstream conservatives: LGBTQ rights, gay marriage, transgenderism, abortion, immigration, political correctness, Christianity and so forth, which is to say, only on social conservatism. This is why I occasionally vote for Republican candidates like Donald Trump in 2016 who vowed to “build the wall” and deport illegal aliens in 2016.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration has proven to me that the GOP’s commitment to the “social issues” is nothing but a scam. These issues are trotted out as campaign rhetoric only to divide the Left and trick folks like me to vote for the Right’s foreign policy and economic agenda. Once in power, the “conservative-populist coalition” turns out to be only the neocon foreign policy and the lolbertarian economic policy. The common ground on social issues like immigration is neglected until the next election cycle when it can be invoked again as a bogeyman to vote for the GOP.

Instead of finding common ground with Blompf on social issues, I have decided to find common ground with Andrew Yang on economics in 2020. We share a considerable amount of common ground on Universal Basic Income, Humane Capitalism, Medicare for All, student loan debt relief, infrastructure spending, postal banking, democracy dollars and especially a shared belief in economic fairness and an acute sense of social concern about the impact of automation on the White working class.

Note: Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men is the greatest Southern novel of all time. Why do you think we like Yang so much? Ever hear of Willie Stark?