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If the 2020 nominee improves on Hillary’s performance by 1% they’ll win in an electoral landslide. I think everyone but Yang s easily capable of being 1% better than Hillary.
I think you will be very surprised come November. If I’m reading this correctly, your level of comfort with this batch of candidates is partially indicative of why the Dems will lose.
If the 2020 nominee improves on Hillary’s performance by 1% they’ll win in an electoral landslide. I think everyone but Yang s easily capable of being 1% better than Hillary.
I think you will be very surprised come November. If I’m reading this correctly, your level of comfort with this batch of candidates is partially indicative of why the Dems will lose.
The boomers are deadset on leaving this world worse than they found it. We have to have huge youth turnout. We have to have the far-left voting and behind the candidate. We need non-typical voters showing up and the ability to win back independents.
Pete has very little chance. Polls terrible with POC and youth voters.
Yang won't get the nom and if he did he wouldn't get the left vote any better than a moderate progressive would.
Biden is a ticking time-bomb that's offering nothing.
Warren's campaign has pretty much fucked her chances... even if she gets the nom the left will revolt at this point. And there is a chance of this happening if Pete tanks soon enough.
If the 2020 nominee improves on Hillary’s performance by 1% they’ll win in an electoral landslide. I think everyone but Yang s easily capable of being 1% better than Hillary.
If Trump wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, no change in popular vote will matter because those are the only states that matter in the electoral college. The rest will go blue and red as they do. To add insult to injury three of those five states (OH, FL & WI) are becoming more red by the day.
If the 2020 nominee improves on Hillary’s performance by 1% they’ll win in an electoral landslide. I think everyone but Yang s easily capable of being 1% better than Hillary.
If Trump wins Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin, no change in popular vote will matter because those are the only states that matter in the electoral college. The rest will go blue and red as they do. To add insult to injury three of those five states (OH, FL & WI) are becoming more red by the day.
Didn't Hillary's campaign pretty much give up on Ohio in 2016? I feel like there was talk of them pulling out and focusing elsewhere in the last couple weeks. But yeah, Ohio is basically a red state now.
Michigan, Penn and Wisconsin are all very much winnable. One problem to overcome there is voter suppression. If you live close... it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to drive up and help GOTV drives in those states.
Florida is just going to be fucking weird no matter what.
If the 2020 nominee improves on Hillary’s performance by 1% they’ll win in an electoral landslide. I think everyone but Yang s easily capable of being 1% better than Hillary.
I think you will be very surprised come November. If I’m reading this correctly, your level of comfort with this batch of candidates is partially indicative of why the Dems will lose.
I’m not trying to be douchey but im genuinely curious how you think the dude getting crushed by Bernie/Biden/Warren/Buttgieg would be more likely to win the general election.
I think you will be very surprised come November. If I’m reading this correctly, your level of comfort with this batch of candidates is partially indicative of why the Dems will lose.
I’m not trying to be douchey but im genuinely curious how you think the dude getting crushed by Bernie/Biden/Warren/Buttgieg would be more likely to win the general election.
I gave a list of reasons earlier, but you have to understand that a 1v1 vs Trump where you are the only alternative is different from needing to rise from anonymity to beating 20 other options in the primaries when most of the population is not yet paying attention.
I think you will be very surprised come November. If I’m reading this correctly, your level of comfort with this batch of candidates is partially indicative of why the Dems will lose.
The boomers are deadset on leaving this world worse than they found it. We have to have huge youth turnout. We have to have the far-left voting and behind the candidate. We need non-typical voters showing up and the ability to win back independents.
Pete has very little chance. Polls terrible with POC and youth voters.
Yang won't get the nom and if he did he wouldn't get the left vote any better than a moderate progressive would.
Biden is a ticking time-bomb that's offering nothing.
Warren's campaign has pretty much fucked her chances... even if she gets the nom the left will revolt at this point. And there is a chance of this happening if Pete tanks soon enough.
It's really just Bernie.
What makes you say that about the left vote for Yang? He’s sparked a movement among young people and much of the Yang Gang voted for Bernie in 16. He has a larger percentage of his funding coming from small donors than Bernie does. He outflanks Bernie to the left on the topic of drugs.
He would do much, much better with the left than Cory Booker or someone like that.
I think Bernie would have a shot at beating Trump, but the reason Yang would have a better shot is that he easily evades the Socialist tag and would be able to win over conservatives and libertarians in addition to those anti-establishment people that they would both win back from Trump. When someone calls UBI socialist, Yang simply says, “Nah UBI is actually just Capitalism that doesn’t start at $0.” Which is a brilliant way of putting it when fending off those attacks from the Right.
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It's utterly insane that the left or left leaning UK parties (Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Green) got 50.3% of the vote whereas the right ones (Tories, Brexit) only got 45.6% and yet Boris fucking Johnson now has 56% of the seats.
How the hell do they not have something like Ranked Choice Voting implemented given how many parties there are?
I think you will be very surprised come November. If I’m reading this correctly, your level of comfort with this batch of candidates is partially indicative of why the Dems will lose.
I’m not trying to be over confident or anything, but there is a clear path to victory. I think sitting around talking about how fucked we are and making no efforts to hit the pavement and change anything is much more destructive to Dems chances than pointing out how Dems can win. I think all these candidates are better than Hillary. That’s not a hot take. That doesn’t mean I don’t have fears about how each one of them could fuck it up, but they all can win.
I’m beginning to think the degree to which Hillary was a bad candidate has been memed out of control. She was shit, but I don’t know if there were major differences between how bad she was and how bad Biden is. At least Hillary was competent.
In addition to that, I think Trumps support will be much stronger this time around. Especially in the face of Bernie or Warren. I imagine there will be a bunch of conservatives who weren’t comfortable with Trump back then who now are after seeing that not much has changed in their eyes other than a small bump in monthly pay due to the tax cuts.
Of course, I hope you are right and I’m wrong. I’m very nervous that he has a simple path to victory against anyone other than Bernie or Yang.
I’m not trying to be over confident or anything, but there is a clear path to victory. I think sitting around talking about how fucked we are and making no efforts to hit the pavement and change anything is much more destructive to Dems chances than pointing out how Dems can win. I think all these candidates are better than Hillary. That’s not a hot take. That doesn’t mean I don’t have fears about how each one of them could fuck it up, but they all can win.
I’m beginning to think the degree to which Hillary was a bad candidate has been memed out of control. She was shit, but I don’t know if there were major differences between how bad she was and how bad Biden is. At least Hillary was competent.
In addition to that, I think Trumps support will be much stronger this time around. Especially in the face of Bernie or Warren. I imagine there will be a bunch of conservatives who weren’t comfortable with Trump back then who now are after seeing that not much has changed in their eyes other than a small bump in monthly pay due to the tax cuts.
Of course, I hope you are right and I’m wrong. I’m very nervous that he has a simple path to victory against anyone other than Bernie or Yang.
A lot of middle class people were fucked over by the "tax cuts" though. Not just in NY, NJ, and CA, either, my mom lives in Florida and saw her taxes go up by about $2000 after the tax bill went into effect. Plus you've got the trade war which is devastating the agricultural industries and the lack of a real comeback for manufacturing and coal jobs. Combining all that with the 2018 results and I feel pretty good about MI and PA going blue in 2020, which means the Dem only needs one of WI, IA, AZ, FL, NC, or OH to win.
"UBI is actually just Capitalism that doesn’t start at $0.”
I love it when politicians explicitly tell you why their ideas are awful.
Have you checked out Yang's vision for a Human Centered Capitalism? While he does intend to eliminate all poverty in the United States as quickly as possible, he also has a frankly beautiful vision of discontinuing our obsession with GDP and alternatively using a Power Point presentation at the State of the Union to transparently show the data on Suicides, Drug Overdoses, Childhood success rates, clean air and clean water, etc... In turn, he wants to economically incentive people and companies that contribute to those measurements instead of GDP. In his book, he goes as far as outlining the possibility of establishing a parallel economy / currency that would be set up to reward volunteerism, care-giving, artistic contributions to society, etc... These are the things that Yang is passionate about.
I love it when politicians explicitly tell you why their ideas are awful.
Yang is 100% right, his UBI isn't socialism because it's a trojan horse to destroy the social safety net
He has admitted this, on camera, and yet ostensibly "left" people still support him
Shut the fuck up about Andrew Yang forever
I'm trying to decipher which of these two buckets you are falling into.
1. You realize that Yang is clearly the 2nd best candidate without a close 3rd. But you also realize that every vote he gets is a vote that Bernie would have gotten. So you are trying to bluntly hammer home that there is gulf between #1 and #2 in your mind.
2. The Michael Brooks and Sam Seders of the world just have you hook, line, and sinker, and you haven't truly thought about what you are saying here. This Trojan Horse argument is a strawman without having to get into the conversation.
Yang's UBI is opt in, so nobody has to give up their current benefits if they still want them. If people love these programs more that $1,000 per month, the safety net won't be touched. Second, the social safety net can be gutted now anyways. The UBI doesn't change that likelihood.
But let's talk about this as if the UBI would flat out replace the social safety net down the line. So what? Who cares? Every single person on earth would prefer unrestricted cash to the bullshit program they are currently on. A safety net program tells you where you can and can't spend the money. Cash let's you spend it how you want. I don't imagine you to be in the "I don't trust poor people to make good decisions" camp. Current programs involve a ton of bureaucracy and case monitoring. People on the programs live in fear of losing them and feel stigmatized by being on these programs in the first place. A UBI would eliminate all of that.
The poverty trap due to safety nets does exist. I prefer us having a strong safety net rather than ignoring those among us that are struggling... of course, but Yang is presenting a superior 3rd option. If a waitress makes $22,000 a year and is on a cash-like safety net program that affords her $7,000 extra per year that will help her as long as she is making 25k or less... if she is up for a promotion to manager that will have her making $28k a year, she comes out in a worse situation after taking the promotion. This example is at the margins, but we don't want to disincentive poor people from advancing up the ladder in this way. Every conversion from poverty to middle class will require this jump out of the safety net where you lose the $7,000 in this example. And it is hard to receive a bump in pay equivalent to that loss. Now I realize I've cooked up a bit of a strawman here because in some programs you would transitionally lose your benefits as you slowly earn more. But it is absolutely frustrating as hell to take on more and more responsibility, feel like you are making more and moving up, just to realize that you are losing portions of your safety net as you advance.
If you have a universal basic income, you completely eliminate any incentive to stay on as a waitress instead of moving up to manager. There is no reason to get sneaky with your reporting or try to find loopholes. You aren't stigmatized for being on welfare since everyone receives it. This is the future we need to get to as quickly as possible as more and more jobs get eliminated.
I really don’t understand the Yang gang. Is it the $1,000? What is it about this yahoo that is appealing?
SupeЯfuЯЯyanimal not all Boomers are hell bent on destroying the planet. Promise.
While the $1,000 per month is the most important reason, I have seen a ton of people saying that they would be #YangGang even without the UBI, and I am one of them.
He is a data driven problem solver. He doesn't need to abide by party lines. He simply tries to find the best answers to problems by analyzing the stats and finding a the most sensible solution. This instantly sets him apart from every other candidate and excites a lot of people including myself.
But here is another way I can explain why I love Yang's vision and the UBI:
Over the course of the last decade, I myself have been caught up in the rat race. I've always been on a journey with the goal of reaching a place that is void of financial stress. I thought that if I removed that burden, I could just have fun in life and improve my relationships with friends and family while donating money to causes I cared about.Thats all I thought I wanted out of life.
So I lived paycheck to paycheck throughout college. Graduated. Didn't know what to do with a Poli Sci degree. Went back and got 2 Masters degrees. Shitload of student loans. Got an unpaid internship with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Then I made big moves to get a $10 per hour coordinator position with the Jags. After a year, I made another big move and got promoted to Manager where I was moved to a $40,000 salary. All throughout this process I was being moved off of my parents "safety net" (extremely privileged to even have my middle class parents that paid my car and health insurance until I was 26 or so). The hand-me-down car I had from the 90s broke down and I now have a car payment. My dad put more and more of my bills on me as I progressed as he should have. I have now paid all of my bills for the last two years. But as I was moving up, I was still living paycheck to paycheck regardless.
Then... I got my first bonus. 15k dropped into my bank account at once, and I was effectively done with the rat race that I had been in for 7 years or so. This may not be a ton of money to others, but it was / is to me. I am no longer stressed about being able to afford life.
But after 2 years of thoroughly enjoying financial freedom, I've realized that the rat race was actually beneficial in a sense that it distracted me from the fact that I have no true passion. I don't have active hobbies. I have passive hobbies as in I like to watch / listen to what other people are doing and creating (sports, music, TV, etc). I'm a consumer. Now that I have financial freedom, I am able to more deeply search for ways I can make an impact on this world before I die.
The problem is, as we all know, a ton of people die in that rat race. They never win and get out of it like I did. They didn't have the assistance I had. And by the way, if I chose to get married and have kids, I 'd be thrusted right back in it based on my current salary.
Yang is trying to get everyone to where I am currently at, ASAP. We all need to be able to clearly think about what would provide meaning to us. We need to redefine what jobs are and what their value is to your life. The current problem is that as automation eliminates a ton of manufacturing, truck driving, call service, retail, and clerical jobs, the passion projects that do provide meaning in peoples lives are considered risky because they aren't properly valued by the market. So the UBI doesn't just help poor people - it encourages someone in a similar situation to me to take a leap. It's a transitional cushion that would put artists and entrepreneurs in a better position to pursue their dreams.
Bernie's plan for the bleak future approaching us is a Federal Jobs Guarantee and $15 per hour minimum wage. This vision is much, much darker than a UBI that, by the way, will increase from $1,000 over time. With a Federal Jobs guarantee, you are looking at a future of everyone working for the Government and doing things that they don't necessarily want to do with their lives. Why would that be superior to giving people the foundation to be able to chase the dreams they want to chase? Similarly, what does $15 minimum wage do for someone making $16 but still can't afford a $400 unexpected bill? And this is before mentioning the practical problems of the implementation of these programs. The UBI / Yang vision is one that I believe would be a jump-start for creativity and freedom from the machine, where I think Bernie's plan for the tech revolution paints a very dark picture where people are still beholden to shitty government jobs or the same terrible jobs they currently have but now just pay them better. That isn't the long-term answer in my opinion.
So yes - The $1,000 per month is the most simple way to explain why Yang is doing as well as he is, but it is deeper than that. Every one of his policies makes sense in the context of his vision. In the next 50 years or so we are going to experience an unprecedented amount of job loss due to automation / tech. How can we get ahead of this inevitable problem and actually turn this situation into a positive? How can we re-evaluate some of the values that have come to define our country?
If you are interested in hearing him out, I recommend listening to his 3 hour interview with Joe Rogan. That interview launched the YangGang into existence. So even if you disagree with him, you could understand the YangGang by watching that.
I’m beginning to think the degree to which Hillary was a bad candidate has been memed out of control. She was shit, but I don’t know if there were major differences between how bad she was and how bad Biden is. At least Hillary was competent.
In addition to that, I think Trumps support will be much stronger this time around. Especially in the face of Bernie or Warren. I imagine there will be a bunch of conservatives who weren’t comfortable with Trump back then who now are after seeing that not much has changed in their eyes other than a small bump in monthly pay due to the tax cuts.
Of course, I hope you are right and I’m wrong. I’m very nervous that he has a simple path to victory against anyone other than Bernie or Yang.
A lot of middle class people were fucked over by the "tax cuts" though. Not just in NY, NJ, and CA, either, my mom lives in Florida and saw her taxes go up by about $2000 after the tax bill went into effect. Plus you've got the trade war which is devastating the agricultural industries and the lack of a real comeback for manufacturing and coal jobs. Combining all that with the 2018 results and I feel pretty good about MI and PA going blue in 2020, which means the Dem only needs one of WI, IA, AZ, FL, NC, or OH to win.
This is the key to the election in my opinion. Yang is laser focused on the displacement of those jobs. He and Bernie are the only two that are truly resonating with those people.
You would think it would be simple to flip those people back over to the Blue, but only Bernie and Yang are providing an alternative vision and path forward to those issues. Many of the others are solely focused on saying "Trump bad and racist, so vote for me. I'm good and not racist."
I don't believe that those people trust that Cory Booker is going to do anything significantly different. At least Trump was speaking to them and sympathizing with their problems.
I'd rather have health care than 12 grand a year. A significant number of people, myself included, are going to have to pay more than 12 grand a year in medical bills, and I don't want people to continue to have to ration their care, as I have, in any way, weighing their health vs every other aspect of life, like housing (which should also be a right and costs more than 12 grand a year for a lot of people).
I do appreciate that you at least trotted out the Trojan Horse strawman. You've definitely listened to your Michael Brooks videos and learned how to recite his baseless arguments.
I'd rather have health care than 12 grand a year. A significant number of people, myself included, are going to have to pay more than 12 grand a year in medical bills, and I don't want people to continue to have to ration their care, as I have, in any way, weighing their health vs every other aspect of life, like housing (which should also be a right and costs more than 12 grand a year for a lot of people).
As you know from our conversations, I have total respect for this opinion. This is rational and I actually do think this is the choice that literally every person in the democratic party should make. Do I want everyone to have Bernie's M4A, or do I want everyone to have $12,000 a month? I think that both of them would get their big thing done if elected. Whereas I think every single other candidate would get in and change almost nothing.
You don't agree with me on which choice I am making, but to act like Yang is a "yahoo" that deserves less respect than Biden, Pete, Amy, Steyer, etc... is... idk.. what it is, but it's frustrating coming from "progressives." I'll hear the argument that Warren is better, I guess. I respect the argument that Bernie is better even though I strongly disagree with it. But how is Yang not considered the 2nd or 3rd best option AT LEAST?
I'd rather have health care than 12 grand a year. A significant number of people, myself included, are going to have to pay more than 12 grand a year in medical bills, and I don't want people to continue to have to ration their care, as I have, in any way, weighing their health vs every other aspect of life, like housing (which should also be a right and costs more than 12 grand a year for a lot of people).
You don’t see how people could think Yang’s platform is dehumanizing? “Robots are taking your job, industry is destroying the planet, there’s nothing we can do about it so here’s $12,000.”
I’ve done a lot of work with people who lost their jobs to automation or are on disability because their backs have been ground down to the point of uselessness (and are coincidentally are receiving $14,000 from SSDI). The vast majority of these people want to work, and the people on disability would gladly give up their $14 grand to be able to work again. I feel like Yang’s whole platform is based on the conservative myth that people on welfare a perfectly happy to sit around at home and cash their dole checks.
I’m all for expanding the social safety net to address the real problems of automation and climate change, but there’s something grossly transactional about Yang. He just strikes me as another tech bro who won’t let human beings stand in the way of his own brilliant ideas.
I would tweak that first quote a bit. He paints the darkest picture of any candidate. This bleak future is the only reason he's running - because he wants to get in front of these problems before they amplify. But the $12,000 should be presented as more of a transitional landing pad when, for instance, self-driving trucks hit the highways and 2-3 million truckers lose their job. Rather than saying it is the only solution. Say Yang gets into office in 2020. The checks roll in starting 2022 or something. As Yang warns everyone about incoming automated trucks, the truck drivers save say half of their UBI and have a $30k savings fund for themselves when they are finally replaced by the automated truck. So that year they'd have $42k to plan with as they figure out their next move.
I also think about how, in a town of 60,000 people. The UBI essentially drops $60,000,000,000 into consumers hands. Much of that money will be spent in that local economy. Not all of it, of course. But this would be a jump-starter for small businesses. It would make more sense to open your own bakery if you knew there was that much more buying power in the community.
As for your disability statement. Yang has been persuaded by people like you and decided to let the UBI stack on top of it. I guess I'm struggling to see how Yang views disability like this. I've learned from him that, "half of the people who lost their manufacturing jobs filed for disability and never returned to the works force. Governement retraining programs were only effective in 5-15% of the cases. And we saw a massive increase in drug overdoses and suicides in those regions." I think he is acutely aware of the massive issues that exist there, and does admit that the UBI is not a silver bullet answer to every problem. It is a foundation that needs to be built upon. And he does have 150 other policies detailed on his website showing how he wants to plan for the future. But I want to drive home that one reason I love the guy is because I have seen him change his mind on topics when presented with good evidence, and I don't believe he thinks he has every single solution figured out yet.
Yang's UBI is opt in, so nobody has to give up their current benefits if they still want them. If people love these programs more that $1,000 per month, the safety net won't be touched. Second, the social safety net can be gutted now anyways. The UBI doesn't change that likelihood.
But let's talk about this as if the UBI would flat out replace the social safety net down the line. So what? Who cares? Every single person on earth would prefer unrestricted cash to the bullshit program they are currently on. A safety net program tells you where you can and can't spend the money. Cash let's you spend it how you want. I don't imagine you to be in the "I don't trust poor people to make good decisions" camp. Current programs involve a ton of bureaucracy and case monitoring. People on the programs live in fear of losing them and feel stigmatized by being on these programs in the first place. A UBI would eliminate all of that.
The poverty trap due to safety nets does exist. I prefer us having a strong safety net rather than ignoring those among us that are struggling... of course, but Yang is presenting a superior 3rd option. If a waitress makes $22,000 a year and is on a cash-like safety net program that affords her $7,000 extra per year that will help her as long as she is making 25k or less... if she is up for a promotion to manager that will have her making $28k a year, she comes out in a worse situation after taking the promotion. This example is at the margins, but we don't want to disincentive poor people from advancing up the ladder in this way. Every conversion from poverty to middle class will require this jump out of the safety net where you lose the $7,000 in this example. And it is hard to receive a bump in pay equivalent to that loss. Now I realize I've cooked up a bit of a strawman here because in some programs you would transitionally lose your benefits as you slowly earn more. But it is absolutely frustrating as hell to take on more and more responsibility, feel like you are making more and moving up, just to realize that you are losing portions of your safety net as you advance.
If you have a universal basic income, you completely eliminate any incentive to stay on as a waitress instead of moving up to manager. There is no reason to get sneaky with your reporting or try to find loopholes. You aren't stigmatized for being on welfare since everyone receives it. This is the future we need to get to as quickly as possible as more and more jobs get eliminated.
I really don’t understand the Yang gang. Is it the $1,000? What is it about this yahoo that is appealing?
SupeЯfuЯЯyanimal not all Boomers are hell bent on destroying the planet. Promise.
While the $1,000 per month is the most important reason, I have seen a ton of people saying that they would be #YangGang even without the UBI, and I am one of them.
He is a data driven problem solver. He doesn't need to abide by party lines. He simply tries to find the best answers to problems by analyzing the stats and finding a the most sensible solution. This instantly sets him apart from every other candidate and excites a lot of people including myself.
But here is another way I can explain why I love Yang's vision and the UBI:
Over the course of the last decade, I myself have been caught up in the rat race. I've always been on a journey with the goal of reaching a place that is void of financial stress. I thought that if I removed that burden, I could just have fun in life and improve my relationships with friends and family while donating money to causes I cared about.Thats all I thought I wanted out of life.
So I lived paycheck to paycheck throughout college. Graduated. Didn't know what to do with a Poli Sci degree. Went back and got 2 Masters degrees. Shitload of student loans. Got an unpaid internship with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Then I made big moves to get a $10 per hour coordinator position with the Jags. After a year, I made another big move and got promoted to Manager where I was moved to a $40,000 salary. All throughout this process I was being moved off of my parents "safety net" (extremely privileged to even have my middle class parents that paid my car and health insurance until I was 26 or so). The hand-me-down car I had from the 90s broke down and I now have a car payment. My dad put more and more of my bills on me as I progressed as he should have. I have now paid all of my bills for the last two years. But as I was moving up, I was still living paycheck to paycheck regardless.
Then... I got my first bonus. 15k dropped into my bank account at once, and I was effectively done with the rat race that I had been in for 7 years or so. This may not be a ton of money to others, but it was / is to me. I am no longer stressed about being able to afford life.
But after 2 years of thoroughly enjoying financial freedom, I've realized that the rat race was actually beneficial in a sense that it distracted me from the fact that I have no true passion. I don't have active hobbies. I have passive hobbies as in I like to watch / listen to what other people are doing and creating (sports, music, TV, etc). I'm a consumer. Now that I have financial freedom, I am able to more deeply search for ways I can make an impact on this world before I die.
The problem is, as we all know, a ton of people die in that rat race. They never win and get out of it like I did. They didn't have the assistance I had. And by the way, if I chose to get married and have kids, I 'd be thrusted right back in it based on my current salary.
Yang is trying to get everyone to where I am currently at, ASAP. We all need to be able to clearly think about what would provide meaning to us. We need to redefine what jobs are and what their value is to your life. The current problem is that as automation eliminates a ton of manufacturing, truck driving, call service, retail, and clerical jobs, the passion projects that do provide meaning in peoples lives are considered risky because they aren't properly valued by the market. So the UBI doesn't just help poor people - it encourages someone in a similar situation to me to take a leap. It's a transitional cushion that would put artists and entrepreneurs in a better position to pursue their dreams.
Bernie's plan for the bleak future approaching us is a Federal Jobs Guarantee and $15 per hour minimum wage. This vision is much, much darker than a UBI that, by the way, will increase from $1,000 over time. With a Federal Jobs guarantee, you are looking at a future of everyone working for the Government and doing things that they don't necessarily want to do with their lives. Why would that be superior to giving people the foundation to be able to chase the dreams they want to chase? Similarly, what does $15 minimum wage do for someone making $16 but still can't afford a $400 unexpected bill? And this is before mentioning the practical problems of the implementation of these programs. The UBI / Yang vision is one that I believe would be a jump-start for creativity and freedom from the machine, where I think Bernie's plan for the tech revolution paints a very dark picture where people are still beholden to shitty government jobs or the same terrible jobs they currently have but now just pay them better. That isn't the long-term answer in my opinion.
So yes - The $1,000 per month is the most simple way to explain why Yang is doing as well as he is, but it is deeper than that. Every one of his policies makes sense in the context of his vision. In the next 50 years or so we are going to experience an unprecedented amount of job loss due to automation / tech. How can we get ahead of this inevitable problem and actually turn this situation into a positive? How can we re-evaluate some of the values that have come to define our country?
If you are interested in hearing him out, I recommend listening to his 3 hour interview with Joe Rogan. That interview launched the YangGang into existence. So even if you disagree with him, you could understand the YangGang by watching that.
Yang wants to fund his UBI, at least partly, through a VAT - which is an inherently regressive scheme.
You talk about the rat race that people are living in - and I think your experience working for the NFL perfectly illustrates the systemic problem. Sure, you'd love to have an extra $12 grand a year. But you work for an organization that made close to $17B in revenues last year. That's a perfect example of the shit that Bernie is talking about with worker exploitation for the billionaires at the top.
you reduce Bernie's plan to a Federal jobs guarantee and minimum wage, but that is a woefully incomplete picture of his plan. Of all the candidates, Bernie has the best platform for all workers - increasing union membership, federal workers union, banning at will employment, repealing right to work, making it easier to strike, giving workers a place on company governing boards. these are all things that bring more systemic change than just UBI. I mean, giving people a $1000 doesn't really mean people are free from "the same terrible jobs." A bigger issue is the stagnation of wages for "normal people" and exponential growth of salaries for the CEO class. UBI doesn't really address that and ultimately won't be enough to counteract the systemic issue of inequality in the laborforce.
The loss of jobs due to automation and AI is vastly overrated as well. People said the sky was falling during the industrial revolution. Yes, some jobs will be lost due to automation, but that means new jobs can be created in other fields/sectors and using different skill sets. MIT has been doing a huge, interdisciplinary study on the future of work. read the report here. Some of their major finding are that the US labor force is actually shrinking due to low birth rates and immigration policy, and with an aging population there is a trend toward job scarcity, and the biggest threat to worker prosperity is inequality, not automation, and a key to the future is recognizing workers as stakeholders (sounds sorta socialist, amiright?)
Ultimately, I think Bernie and Yang have a similar idea in that they want to help the working class, and Yang's central tenet seems to be to give them $1000 and Bernie wants to empower them by giving them a seat at the table and holding the billionaires accountable.