Though I’m not apart of the Yang gang… at least not yet, last week I attended Andrew Yang’s Humanity First Tour at gasworks Park in Seattle Washington. Yang is a democratic candidate with about 3% of the vote for popularity right now. Many were confused as to why I went, but I don’t equate campaign rally attendance with full-fledged support of the candidate. It’s important for me to witness the type of crowd that candidates bring together on their tours because if the candidate were to be elected as president then their rally crowd represents the type of people that would have the most social impact on our nation under said candidate. Not enough people went to the Trump rallies to see what type of people were congregating there. Had we seen the white supremacist KKK-esque nature of Trump rally attendance maybe we would not have been so careless about his rise through the race to the primaries. Maybe we would have also been more aware of the type of nation to prepare for, instead of being shocked by the outcome. We should have known that when Trump rallies were obviously an unsafe space for minorities that the country would not be either… not that it ever has been.
Rally Moods Become National Trends
I want to emphasize the importance of attending the rally of different candidates regardless of their stance on the issues. This is the case especially when we have yet to endorse a candidate. Even for those candidates that we are completely against, it can be valuable to hear what they have to say in a live setting and to see the type of people who are in support of them. Being that space gives one the opportunity to analyze the climate and the mood that the candidate creates and spaces that they have command over, they have the potential to have command over our country.
At the Humanity First Tour, the space that Yang created was inviting and diverse. Though Seattle itself is a relatively more ethnically diverse place, whiteness is always much more heavily represented. Yang’s rally was heavily mixed raced and Asian. I felt welcomed, like I ‘fit in’. Yang’s supporters are mostly young and enthusiastic, the mood of the space was like him quirky and energetic. All the way down to the campaign slogan Yang created, #math which I learned stands for Make America Think Harder and I very much enjoyed the fact that his campaign does force us to think harder about some core elements of the way that we measure national success. Arguing that our government’s use of the GDP isn’t representative of society. To measure a nation’s success by the GDP, Andrew argues, does not measure the quality of life for the homeless or the level at which people successfully re enter society from incarceration. I was pleased with the fact that he voiced his concern for formerly incarcerated citizens. I appreciate that he wants to change the way that we measure our nation’s success from being money-based to people-based though human-centered capitalism.
Look for Exclusions, Are Prisoners Included?
Yang also raised concerns about our current healthcare system. He mentioned the problem that many Americans face total financial depletion as a result of a medical crisis. He’s passionate about making revisions to our healthcare system, recognizing the fact that a medical emergency can bring any middle-class family to their breaking point. He wants to address this by providing medicare for all. On the same trend of providing for all, a final point that Yang emphasized was universal basic income. This would provide a monthly $1,000 to every citizen over the age of 18. My hope is that it would include incarcerated citizens through which they could support themselves without draining financially from their families, many of whom come from impoverished communities. A $1,000 monthly income would also allow for incarcerated citizens to save money in preparation for their release.
The amount of time that Yang spoke to the audience was quite short less than an hour but he also spends an equal amount of time signing autographs and taking selfies with his supporters (which I’ve come to realize is the most critical part of campaigning). I came to the rally to ask a specific question about prisoners’ voting rights if I would have gotten the opportunity. Yang previously came out publicly in favor of restoring incarcerated citizens voting rights during the time of their incarceration but I haven’t seen the reasoning behind his stance on this issue aside from the fact that he doesn’t believe that incarceration makes a person less of a citizen.
Elevate Our Rally Attendance
I want to criticize rally attenders for just a moment because the space that we share with a presidential candidate is sacred and a lot of us are wasting it. Instead of being so focused on celebritizing the candidate by taking pictures of them, bum-rushing others for a selfie or asking for an autograph they should be celebritizing us. We should be using the time allotted to us before and after a candidate speaks to ask critical questions. I noticed that Yang did have time carved out for an interview with King 5 that I could barely hear behind rows of people trying to be on television, but I wish he would have carved out space for Q&A, giving people an opportunity to ask him questions. I’m sure that Yang has had Q&As in other parts of the country but thinking about Seattle specifically and the people who had a chance to access him here, we missed out on that opportunity.
Campaign tours are not concerts, they are places where we should literally be ‘thinking harder’. They are more like a mass interview, we should be thinking beyond what’s in front of us. We should do all we can to stretch the candidate beyond what they thought they were going to get out of a rally. We can’t allow a candidate to say that they came to our city and still have questions about their campaign or their stances. I want campaign rallies to look so much different than what they do now. I understand that we’re trying to build up stamina for someone, but more importantly we’re trying to build a country around the needs of those who aren’t currently represented. The beautiful thing about Yang is that he’s a candidate with a few radical ideas rising to the top organically without being pushed down our throats by corporate media. Now its our responsibility to make the most out of that by being intentional about how we share space with him and all presidential candidates, to make the most out of this season of campaigning.
