Something Andrew Yang understands better than any other presidential candidate ever.
The candidate who I first thought was a joke meme generated by crypto-twitter captured my interest, and respect, as I listened to his 2-hour interview on The Rubin Report. Prior, I truly thought the $1000 per month for every American adult was a parody. After taking in his talk with Dave, then others, I realized Yang’s Freedom Dividend, more than just a great way to get peoples’ attention, was a brilliant solution to many problems we’re facing. Indeed, the universal infusion of cash would help transition a turbulent workforce, support important roles not recognized currently in the marketplace (like parenting), immediately assist the poorest among us, and turbocharge the economy, among many other potential boons.
The Freedom Dividend is a sweeping, radical, world-shifting policy — three horrifying words to a fiscal conservative like myself, paired to one of the dirtiest of all. Except, the reddest state in the union, Alaska, has had a dividend for all its citizens for decades, pegged to the oil companies profiting off of state land. Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman, and Martin Luther King all supported a universal basic income. If I just captured your interest, I encourage you to research this topic further on your own with an open mind.
More than his jumbotron, flagship policy, I began to notice a consistent trend from Yang (in an arena where consistency itself is a rare and priceless quality). I read The Sovereign Individual at the exact time I realized Yang was a real 2020 presidential candidate, so my radar was specially tuned at the time to detect a common theme in his policies:
Andrew Yang understands that the government of the 21st century will increasingly need to treat its citizenry not as subjects of the state, but rather as customers whose business needs earned.
As the world groans through the transition from the industrial age to the information age, exponentially faster than any revolution before it, the nation-state and all its “assets” will no longer exist as we know it. The main assets I’m referring to are not federal land or military capital, but rather us; you and me, the cattle of modern day government that taxes property and income at 40%-plus. With infinite more freedom — fully empowered by digital information, communication, business, and currency — individuals no longer need to rely on a physical location to conduct commerce, or a bureaucracy-sized police force to protect their property.
The very use of the term “Dividend” reveals that Andrew Yang gets this: in the 21st century, the USA will need to earn its constituents’ business. His understanding of this sea change is expressed in several other policies as well. Auto-filing of taxes, a line to text robocall numbers to, adding Puerto Rico as a state, extending daylight savings time year round, making tax day a holiday — these and many more policies express that Andrew has invested meaningful thought and effort to come up with real, tangible ways to make America a more enjoyable and desirable country now and into the future. These ideas are more than an algorithmic read of the country’s pulse, and this is the kind of thinking we need to lead our country into the next great era of the world.
On a lighter note, I like this guy so much created the “Andrew Yang Sticker Campaign”. So, go to yangstickers.com to get your 10 free Yang2020 stickers!
