Can Andrew Yang Save Us?

In Episode 5, Cody, Katy, and Robert discuss presidential candidate Andrew Yang. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart Radio.
Welcome Together Everything, so don't don't do so. Welcome to

(00:24):
the Worst Hear Ever Podcast. My name is Katie Stole
and I'm Robert Evans. And in case you guys didn't
hear that, this is going to be the worst year
ever because Cody is continuing to do his time machine noises. Uh,
and they are grotesque. I was told that there were
some mixed reviews and uh, I didn't go over all

(00:46):
with some people, and now doubling down, that's where we are.
This is your fault, you guys. You've encouraged I forgave O. J.
Simpson when he came back on Twitter with that series
of charming videos. But I can't to give this interesting
interesting your can for giveness mechanism? You have? Wait, so
when he posted when he posted the videos saying like

(01:08):
I got a lot of what do you say, like
I got a lot of scores to settle or something
like that that that garnered your forgiveness. When I when
I was a child and I would do something wrong,
or when you know my parents would do something wrong.
I was raised to believe that when you apologize, you
pose with a set of golf clubs on a golf
course and talk about all the scores you have to settle,

(01:30):
and that is the truest way to express contrition. So
I can assume that O. J. Simpson meant to express
his deep sorrow over his past actions. And uh yeah, okay,
well then I apologize for the time travel noise, and
I promised to get revenge on you by doing it.

(01:54):
I don't believe it without the golf course. We can
addit this out, but can I read it? It's really
The review says that time machine noise was all it
took back to Rachel Maddow, which I was like, you
know what, that's part out Daniel. By the way, Oh no, no,

(02:14):
I say we leave it in the world needs to
know I'm de radicalizing people with my time noises. I'm
imagining that person was like on their way to bomb
a bank with like a mask on and stuff, and
they heard your time machine noises and said, you know
what I'm going, Joe, we gotta get rid of We
gotta get rid of. Drump turns on him a moderate cool. Well,

(02:39):
today guys were gathered here to discuss not Joe Biden,
not Rachel matt Out, not time Machine voices, but Andrew Yang,
the meme king, the unabashed lover of s n L.
He loves SNL. Well, he was tweeting about how much
he liked this last week's episode or something like that,

(02:59):
and you know he wanted to sit down with Shane Gillis.
I don't know, guys, this is going to be a
different kind of episode because Andrew Yang has never been
a politician. Uh So, there's we're going to be digging
in right, There's not a lot of record, and we're
talking about his life, his career. Are you ready for this?

(03:21):
I am so ready. Everyone seems pumped. I'm gonna need
to take the energy downal looney, Okay, Okay, let me
try this again, Katie, I am. I am so into
Andrew Yang that whenever I read studies on the efficacy
of universal basic income, the crutch of my pants explodes. Okay,

(03:46):
that's the kind of setup, Like we are so on,
we're on fire right now. Yeah, Like it's crotch, geez
my crotch. When I even think about Andrew Yang's policy statements,
you just this is going to be a very un
comfortable episodes for you. Then, I can't wear quaduroy anymore.
Too many third degree burns. Just take off your pants

(04:07):
now then, okay, I'm pansless because of Andrew Yang, which
is interestingly enough, his new slogan going into he doesn't
need anymore memes, but he's got one that'll that'll do.
Pig that'll do. Andrew Yang, leader of the Yangang, self
described serial entrepreneur, was born in Snectadee, New York, to

(04:30):
Taiwanese immigrants. In growing up, Yang was bullied for his race.
That sucks. Both of his parents went to grad school
at Berkeley, and Yang attended Brown as an undergrad before
getting his lotgrey from Columbia. Uh. He quickly got a
job as a corporate attorney at Davis, Polk and ward Well,
which is an international law firm in New York City,
but that did not last long. Apparently he left after

(04:53):
only five months because he did not feel that was
the right path for him. It's interesting, that's a real
quick after putting in all that time and money and
then immediately and that's fine, that's fine. I kind of
respect that a lot. It's hard, especially when you put
in like it's hard to quit a job. But like
when you've when you've really put the time in on

(05:13):
the back end, and you realize that should I hate this? No,
I mean, like I say, it's interesting, but you're right.
It's also like, who wants to be a corporate attorney?
A lot of people? Yeah, even like I've got friends
who went to law school because they were like told
they should or like there was a lot of pressure.
I guess I'll go to law school. And now they
don't do anything with it because we're like, I don't

(05:34):
care for it. So, after leaving his law job, he
started a nonprofit called Star Giving, which was a website
which connected people to celebrity charities, making small donations. Each
time the visitor clicked a button. The site would enter
visitors into raffles to meet early two thousand stars like Mike,
Magic Johnson and Hoodie and the Blowfish. But despite the

(05:56):
draw of those magnetic personalities, the company only lasted a
couple of years. Uh, like two thousand. That's good, that's
towards the end of there. There's a correlation here to
why his company last. And I don't think it's just
the dot com bubble bursting. Probably well, that's what they
would point to. I think it's it's who he blew

(06:16):
all his fish. Um, hey, yes, that's the late two
thousand's reboot of Hoodie and the Blowfish. He blew all
of it perfect U. He briefly sold cut Co knives
to make ends meet before. I was hoping that would

(06:37):
get a little should we should we give our listeners
the heads up as to what I'm going to guess
about fifty percent of them have gotten slightly conned by
cut Co in the past. I'm getting saying, why did
Roberts just burst out laughing? Do you want to give
us some background on cut Do you have like a
personal relationship with cut Knives? I have a little bit
of one. I have a little bit of one. When
I was nineteen years old and looking for a job,

(07:01):
I saw an ad up in my college for a
fifteen dollar an hour, which is pretty good wage back
in the two thousand seven um job as a I
think it advertised it is like working as a secretary
for cut Co Knives endeavor And I had to like
come to They wanted me to come to this orientation

(07:21):
seminar to see if I could. And I called them
and stuff and like, oh yeah, you sound perfect for
the job, come to this orientation seminar and like we'll
get everything started. And so I was like really excited
because I needed money, and I like told my dad
and he like looked at it and said, do you
know what cut co knives are? And I was like no,
and he says, Okay, well, it's a pyramid scheme based
around selling kitchen knives for a way too much money,

(07:44):
and there's no job for you. They're going to try
to get you to buy a bunch of kitchen knives.
And then I looked it up online and I found
like dozens and dozens more than that of like people's reports.
It is like they they get you into a room
and they try to sell you a bunch of overpriced
knives that you can go do knife demonstrations about how
we'll see that might have been a good job for you, though, Robert,
you love knives, no because they're bad. Nine. I would

(08:06):
love to sell good knives when I get tired of
being heartbroken that my friends in Syria are being betrayed
by the US government. UM, I will absolutely sell quality
handmade knives to people by hacking through pieces of wood
and old state grizzle that sounds like a great way
to spend my life. Feels like a cut Co knives
are bad. It feels like a good time to put

(08:27):
out there to anybody that's selling nice knives, that we're
looking for knives sponsors. You're looking very knife sponsor. Uh, Gerber,
hit us up. You know, worst, your clever worst, your
clever terrence. Anyway, it was sharpens pieces of metal on
the side of a trash can in my alley near
my house. We're you know, we're taking all comers all right.

(08:52):
After his brief stint as a cut Co knives salesman, Uh,
he became a part time tutor from Manhattan Prep, a
tutoring company in New York. He had been began tutoring
full time and actually writing college the questions for the
tests uh and was appointed CEO in two thousand and
six after the CEO left UM. The company's hook was
that it paid tutors a hundred dollars an hour, which

(09:13):
is like four times at the market rate, and they
were very selective about which tutors they accepted. UM. But
then in two thousand and eight, when the recession was peaking,
Yang started to get worried that his company would be
hit hard. But it turned out the opposite was true.
With the loss of all these jobs. Uh, they actually
saw a dramatic spike both in people going back to
business school and enrolling in GMAC courses as well as
tutors looking for employment. Employment, and the company became very

(09:34):
profitable very quickly. Um, and it seems that he was
a very affable, unlikable boss. I included this little quote
to give some perspective. Quote. After joining the company, Yang's
former employees say they found a chill start up vibe
and a boss with a whimsical presence in the office.
Yang constantly saying musical narrations of what he was doing,
like sending emails and which and would strike a gone

(10:00):
long on Friday evenings to tell everyone to go home.
That's from Slate us Michael Scott a little bit, Michael, Yeah, yeah, yes,
people liked that. People seem to like it, I guess
or just noted it. I don't know, right, and start
to read like it could be like it's like, oh yeah,

(10:21):
they found like a chill startup vibe and a boss
with like a whimsical presence in the office. He hit
a gong every like the tone can shift. I chose
to read it as yeah, you know, aditive, but you know,
a little insight into the kind of boss that he is. Um. Interestingly,
you does have mixed feelings about standardized testing. That's probably

(10:41):
because of his time in the standardized test world. Um.
But he believes that it contributes to the myth of meritocracy,
criticizes it in his book The World on Normal People.
Most of success today is about how good you are
at certain tests and what kind of family background you have. Intellect,
as narrowly divined by academics and test scores, is now
the proxy for human worth. Yeah. I agree with him.

(11:03):
He's right on the money with that one. Yeah. He
also told Slate that the fact that so many kids
have their ambition shaped by their performance on these tests
is unfortunate. Right. Oh yeah, it sticks with you. Um,
I'm on board with all that. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway,
Manhattan Prep was sold to Kaplan, the tutoring behemoth and
two thousand nine, which earned Yang millions of dollars. Uh.

(11:25):
He went on the Freakonomics podcast earlier this year, after
you know running for office, and said that we were
acquired for low tens of millions so I walked away
with some number in the millions. Um. And I'm bringing
that up because obviously that was probably very exciting sale
for him and it made him a wealthy man. But
it's very different than the picture that I had of
him as like a tech billionaire. I don't know where

(11:47):
I got that idea from him, but everyone's like, you know,
as tech billionaire guy, but you know he's actually it's
a much more modest sum than that. Um and Stan, Yeah,
like what he's done. And then like the company, that's
a lot of gongs, Katie, it's a lot of gongs.
You can buy a lot more gongs for millions of dollars,

(12:08):
or you can buy one nice. I was gonna say,
a big one, but a nice one, sure. I mean
the size doesn't necesarily matter with gongs. It's like you know,
the residents, the type of metal. I would say, a
big one resonates your right size is not the possibility
of him being our first gong president really actually does
make me consider voting for him just at the at
five o'clock Eastern standard time every day presidential gong. Yeah,

(12:35):
we could just we could replace I don't know what's
one of the states. We don't need um Oklahoma with
a gong, uh like a giant or No, it needs
to be more central Kansas. Kansas will make Kansas one
big gong and we can just ring out the day
every night. It sounds lovely, sorry Kansas. Yeah. Um. After
the sale of Manhattan Prep, Yang briefly worked as a

(12:58):
health tech entrepreneur. Could find the name of that company,
but that was very brief before starting Venture for America
and twenty eleven. The company's stated goal is to find
the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing a two year
fellowship to recent college graduates and pairing them with startups UM.
According to their website quote, fellows learn important startup skills

(13:20):
at our month long training camp, apply for jobs within
our vetted company network, and work for two years as
full time salaried employees in one of fourteen cities. When
fellows are ready to start a company, be it two
years after college or ten, v f A has the
resources UM to help make that dream a reality. And
I actually think that's kind of interesting, um, an interesting idea, uh.
Circling back to what I was just saying about his

(13:42):
money and income even there, UM, he isn't earning it
astronomical amount of money. In sixteen as CEO, he earned
two thousand dollars uh, when the company's revenue was almost
at seven million. So again wealthy and successful, but by
means like hoarding his wealth billionaire. It seems like also

(14:06):
fair compensation for CEO of a company of that size.
It does like Musk style tech billionaire. And ain't all
that just to say like it seems like a generally
okay dude, you know. Um. And while he was there
at Venture for America, that's when Yang's metamorphosis from regular
old entrepreneur to tech savvy politician started to take root.

(14:31):
It is kind of like his origin story, if you will. Uh.
While running v f A, Yang traveled across the Midwest
and saw the problems that automation has caused, and he
realized that automation was changing how people function in the economy.
So you started thinking about the benefits of universal basic income. Now,
obviously u b I is not a new idea. There

(14:51):
have been experiments with it all over the world. Um,
but it certainly is a new concept for many Americans. Uh.
And this is kind of the central tenants of his candidacy.
He believes that automation will eliminate jobs and make basic
income necessary. Um. That in economic inequality can be addressed
with more entrepreneurship, and that universal basic income will help

(15:13):
people to become entrepreneurs. And we're going to talk more
about that in just a minute. We're going to circle
back because there's a lot to unpack here. I'm just
getting through his backstory first. Um. But then after that,
Yang stepped down as CEO of Venture for America and
filed with the FEC to run for president as a
Democrat and also unnowingly added his name to our list

(15:37):
of people that are helping make this the worst year ever.
Uh yeah, okay, can't wait? Cool? Uh yeah, So Yan
the politician, like I mentioned up top, he's different than
all of our other candidates because Yang has never held
in the elected office. He's never even run for office. Hum,

(15:58):
candidate but the president? But of our events sure sure, well,
except that at this point he has run and one
well also at that point when Trump was running, he
had he had run before, um, not successfully, But so
this is this guy's a little different. Um. But he
qualified for the debates by getting one percent in the polls,

(16:19):
he's now at three percent UH and getting a minimum
of sixty donors. Yang believes that the reason Trump is
president is, quote, we automated away four million manufacturing jobs
in Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, and all the swing states he
needed to win. I'm not sure where he got that
four million number. Predictions about how many jobs will be
lost to automation are kind of all over the place, UH,

(16:40):
but Oxford studies suggest that pent of all U S
jobs are at risk of being automated in the coming
decades UM. So that brings us back to universal Basic
income UM. Yang's plan is a proposed UBI of a
thousand dollars in month for every American UM and it's

(17:01):
also known as his Freedom Dividend, so a thousand dollars
a month or twelve thous dollars a year to all
US citizens over the age of eighteen. His website claims
that will be paid for by value added tacks of
ten percent and by consolidating it with existing welfare programs.
So basically, people would need to choose between keeping their

(17:22):
welfare their food stamps or what have you, or getting
U B I not both, and that's a problem to me.
And I know that you have thoughts about that. Well,
he's talked about it on Reuben Reports specifically. I know
like sort of like that's kind of the end goal
of like get rid of these welfare programs and just
have this one thing. My issue with it is a

(17:44):
it's called a freedom dividend, and I've I think we
need to sort of collectively reevaluate what freedom means to
us and how like what is living free? How do
you live free? Um? And we know that like there
are these basic needs that everybody has to survive and
it's shelter and it's food. Um. Community is important. But

(18:07):
like the idea that you have this freedom dividend and
it's meant to sort of free people up to live
in the society where jobs are disappearing, Like truck driving
is the number one job in America and that will
eventually be gone. But if you have a thousand dollars
a month and you're calling it a freedom dividend and
it's for people, it's for everybody, then you need to

(18:28):
pair that with you are able to survive on a
thousand dollars a month. You can have a you can
have you can get shelter, you can get food, and
you can get clean water and get all these things.
If you have a thousand dollars a month, right, Like
thousand dollars a month as is doesn't really help people,
especially if you're taking away there are other benefits, So

(18:49):
it would be helpful to people if they were able
to get like if we had functioning food stamps, if
we had a like if we had um a universal
health care system, if his plan didn't involve like kind
of the gutting and reduction of like food stamps for Medica. Yeah,
he has for Medicare for all. He's yeah, he's on
board with that now. But like it doesn't work just

(19:10):
on its own, and it doesn't work if you're also
cutting these other social services that people need, because like, um,
you know, a thousand dollars a month isn't nothing. It
could significantly help people, but if you're also cutting their
access to other benefits, than like you're kind of just
robbing Peter to pay also Peter, Yeah, Peter and Peter

(19:32):
Peters still fucked. It just doesn't go very far. And
then you're getting people and and he says it's to
encourage entrepreneurship, Like that's what we need in America more entrepreneurship,
And like, I understand the idea of wanting to promote
and encourage growth and progress and all of that, but
really that does to me is that it continues to

(19:52):
um uh exacerbate the income inequality gap. So like people
that have more money, uh will be getting this a thousand,
like maybe they will have more money to play with
to encourage entrepreneurship. People that need money are still going
to be needing to spend that on their food in
their basic living expenses. Right, and then two or three
weeks go by and they're like, well, that freedom dividend
is gone, and I still he did the map on

(20:13):
the way over here that comes out to like six
dollars an hour or like four hours a week. It's
like something like that, which again it's like I don't know.
If you're giving people thousand dollars a month and you're like,
now this is good, then make sure that it can
It can help people survive even if they like if
they're on disability or like they have they just lost
their job, or they have a medical emergency or something. Well,

(20:34):
at least I can pay rent and food with this
freedom dividend, Right, Um. I think one of the just
one of the like most insidious things I think and
clever things that the Founding Fathers did was not give
us a U B. I. Well. The phrase life liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness was
not the original phrasing. It was life, liberty and property.

(20:55):
But they were like, oh, yeah, you can't guarantee property,
and we're gonna change it to pursuit of happiness and
this sort of vague idea. UM. And I don't know.
I just think it's yeah, and it's just I don't here.
I don't think that U B. I is. I think
it's an important conversation and I'm glad that some that
we're having it. I just think this specifically is the

(21:19):
wrong plan and um and I don't want that to
detract from people's acceptance of the idea that we might
need to keep having this conversation in the future as
this is increasing. Do you know what I mean? UM,
that's kind of my perspective on your freedom dividend. It's
not a terrible idea, but when you're not using it

(21:39):
to screw over people on food stamps or uh do
it's collaterally doing that. And then Yang made waves in
September with a stunt that he did at the Democratic
Debate when he announced that he will give away of
Freedom dividend to ten families thousand dollars a month for
a year for each family. UM, the funds are coming
from his campaign and we'll pay out even Fiang does

(22:00):
not become president UM or the nominee. But he's been
accused of bribing voters by this, uh doing something illegal.
But PolitiFact reach out to the FC FEC spokesman, spokeswoman
excuse me, Judith Ingram uh and they said it's not
covered by the FEC commissioned rules for the Federal Election

(22:21):
Campaign Actum. It's kind of a legal gray area, uh,
you know, and it's kind of a shaky legal reasoning
that they have against him because it can be argued
that it's a campaign promotion. UM, but it is definitely
a stunt. Yeah. I don't really see it as any
different though than um spending money on an advertisement or whatever.
That's essentially what he's doing. That's what this is for,
is to make political ads. Like I don't yeah, anyone

(22:44):
making a big deal about that, Like it seems Um,
pretty like a pretty reasonable thing to do. Now, I
don't think it would actually makes an argument in favor
of U b I, because what I would judge the
success or failure of a UBI program on is its
ability to help people who are in trouble. Um. Reaching
out to the Yank campaign for some probably not there

(23:06):
you probably not a lot of people who are on disability,
who are on Medicare, who are on who require food stamps, um, Like,
those are the people I'm curious to see, Like, does
this really help them? Does There's a lot of data
that U b I could help people in those positions,
But like, I don't. We're not gonna learn anything from this.
But I think it's a reasonably intelligent marketing strategy absolutely.

(23:28):
I I just you know, I call it a stunt.
I bring this up to transition after the ad break,
we're about to take UH to talk about the fact
that he is a social media savvy candidate. He is
using the Internet in a different way than other candidates
are or have in the past. UH. And that's kind
of an example of it. But we're gonna get to
that in a minute because we've got to talk about

(23:49):
products and services, because yeah, I am so. I mean
when you said, uh, social media, uh that that that
that got my pants exploding, you said ads make double exploding. Um,
it's more like a friction burn. But the yeah, lots

(24:12):
of friction burns. You guys can cut wonderful friction burns.
This is terrible. These ads have made us together everything,
So don't don't. We're back and I now have headphones

(24:37):
on M and am competently recording this podcast again willing
we realized he had a TV on in the background.
Oh no, yeah, it's terrible. It's all fine. You guys
maybe won't even notice because Dan was going to edit
that out, but now that we but now we've mentioned it,
so maybe he was gonna happen. I feel like it's
important to mention daniel sacrifices for this podcast. Thank you, Dan,

(25:00):
Like like a seventeen year old boy from Kentucky going
ashore on Omaha Beach on d day nine, Daniel is
going to have to scrub the sounds of the TV
in the background out of my podcast recording. That's the
comparison I was going to make too. Thank you. Okay,
back to how Yang is helping make this the worst

(25:21):
year ever like a seventeen year old boy from Canada.
Yang's supporters are known online as the Yang Gang. Andrew Andrews. God,
that's our None of it works. Go back to the
time machine noises Yang Gang, don't Yang Gang in and

(25:43):
of itself is enough to make this the worst year.
I just think it's so dumb um rhymes, unlike the
Trump train. You know, you're right, that is out of
it was weird. Andrew andrew all of it all right,
just keep doing it, oh Trump train. I understand. As

(26:05):
I mentioned, it is undeniable that Andrew Yang has done
an excellent job harnessing social media to gain traction and
appeal to a wide swath of voters. He's made himself
into the meme king, which again is a really great
skill to have as an entrepreneur. Uh, there's something about
it as from a presidential candidate that I don't love. Um.

(26:27):
Sometimes his campaign feels gamified, you know, like that corporate
term for applying game design to have the situation to
make them more appealing. And UM, well it feels that
way because it is that way. That's what he's doing.
He comes from the corporate tech world and he's taking
that into this presidential campaign U. Surprisingly, his supporters seem

(26:48):
to be drawn from all across the political spectrum, with
crazy memes showing up all over the internet, especially on Reddit.
I've got this one here, Cody. Do you want to
describe it for us? Oh? Yeah, it's some. It's a
meme bunch of people's swords, you know, meeting the swords
in the middle. One of the people's Bernie Bros x
Mega Bros Zoomers that are turning eighteen and they're all

(27:09):
joining swords together to equal the Yang Gangang Gang. So
that's a nice example of the memes sloating around. UM.
To be fair, there are there are also like a
lot of racist anti Yang memes coming out and that's
very ugly. UM. But he's very good at branding, which
is why he's garnered as much support as he has UM.
According to The Daily Beast, Yang saw a surge of

(27:31):
new supporters after an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience
in February. He's also been on Tucker Carlson's show. Uh.
He's even appeared at a Turning Point USA event. Interesting
U and according to The Virtue, white nationalist supporters have
begun selectively choosing statements from Yang uh to support the
idea that he wants to to stop the decline of

(27:54):
the white race. UH, something that which Yang, the kid
of Taiwanese immigrants, grew up being vicious bullied. You know,
he's emphatically disavowing that support. He says, I'd announced and
disavow hatred, bigotry, racism, white nationalism, anti semitism, and the
alt right in all its many forms, full stop for
anyone with his agenda. We do not want your support,
we do not want your votes. You're not welcome in

(28:14):
this campaign. Cool, but it is unclear why so many
all right UH types are attracted to Yang. It might
come from his focus on automation in the opioid crisis, um,
which you know can be seen as helping Middle America.
I can answer that, Um yeah, they talk about it
a lot. So there's there's a chunk of the sort

(28:35):
of fascist right that, like a lot of them, were
very excited after Trump won and then have kind of
been increasingly dejected in the years since when he didn't,
you know, kill all the Jews or any of the
other things they hope wasn't explicitly doing their Yeah. Um
so they've they've been I don't know that there's a
bunch of different terms they'd use for it, but like

(28:57):
some of them have kind of gotten come to the
understanding like there's no saving the world by their standards,
which means ending the white genocide that they think is
going on, and there's no political solution, so the best
thing they can do is get a thousand dollars a
month into house with some friends and play video games
until it all collapses. Like that really is a big

(29:19):
chunk of it. Um is these people who are just like, well,
I might as well get some money. It's not it's
not quite like black pilling, but it is in that
I'm just like, well, we didn't do it. Yeah, And
that's it's upsetting. I mean, it's like, okay, so we
have this interesting conversation about UBI and all this stuff,

(29:39):
and in the people that it's getting the most traction
with or the worst, the very worst of us. Um,
it's probably like some slightly related even of just like
because one of his main slogans is not right, not
left forward, and I think them it's like, all right,
well let's just like funk at all and do whatever
crazy thing, just sort of like destabilize stuff and sort

(30:00):
of hoping that shaking things up will either lead to
that collapse or just yeah, be all right, Well we're
gonna be gamers for a thousand bucks a month from
now on, we'll form our own ethnic state and it
will be a big house. It was video games, and
everyone will be white. Uh. Other than universal basic income,

(30:25):
Yang is for medicare for all. Like we talked about
dealing with climate change very vaguely though, that's the thing.
So that's the thing when you're looking at it. It's
a lot of stuff that he's just generally in alignment
with liberal policies, but dealing with climate change, it's like
rejoining the Pairs Climate Agreement. But okay, what else? Yeah,

(30:47):
you know, um, And he talks a lot about human
centered capitalism, the basic ideas that the base unit in
society should be people in human welfare, not money. Um.
But there's nothing more specific. I don't know because really
what that means, you know, it's it's I'd like to see,
you know, it's just stuff that's like your I mean,

(31:07):
I think there's a way of looking at ubi where
you can be putting people in the center, and there's
a way of looking at UBI where you're putting money
in the center, and Yang's plan strikes me as putting
money in the center, especially since it's kind of paired
with with cuts to the social programs that people can
use UM and benefit from UM. So the focus is
just that like, oh, these people's problems can be solved

(31:29):
with money, and it's like, no, there's actually other resources
that we need that our society does provide, although it
doesn't provide enough of them, and like UBI could be
part of a reformation of society that puts people at
the center. But just giving them the money isn't isn't
the answer, yo, Right, like you were saying earlier, like okay,
but how about access to a plan about affordable housing,

(31:52):
a plan for if you're not having a mental healthcare
all of it healthcare? Yeah, if you're not providing these
basic needs, Like if you have these basic needs met,
then you are more likely to aspire to greater things
and like work to you know, you are these needs
are taken care of. Now I have these other emotional needs,
now have these spiritual needs, and you sort of like

(32:12):
build yourself up when he's talking about it, like he
doesn't want to, like you said, center money. But one
of the solutions is like money, well, money equals anything.
It's not food necessarily, it's not housing necessarily. Is just
like you can spend this money on anything, because money
is a thing that we made up, you know, to
like people anything. Um. So that's that's why his approach

(32:34):
sort of rubs me the wrong way to where it's like,
but what are we actually doing if you're saying that
you want to focus on human beings, but you're just
giving them a thing that can pay for like literally anything.
Um yeah, it just doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It
doesn't speak to what he what he wants saying that

(32:54):
he wanted to speak to you. He's also very vague
on foreign policy, which isn't surprising given his literal zero
years of experience. Uh. He says that America has made mistakes,
but that we've been a positive force in world history,
leading to the spread of peace, prosperity, and democracy. Um.

(33:15):
I know, it's just peace we spread to Cambodia. It's
like it's like it's attempt at being a just diplomatic
politicians speak, but it's not very good politicians, right, is
super vague and also, I mean it doesn't speak to
our current moment at all. No, it doesn't. I mean
regarding the border, he says that there are issues that

(33:37):
need to be fixed to provide security for Americans and
equity in our immigration system. Okay, elaborate, you know, yeah,
you know. And as I've said, you know, he does
support the obvious liberal policies l g B, t Q rights,
abortion rights, campaign finance reform, common sense gun reform, all
of that. But then there's other things that just kind

(33:59):
of seems silly or not well thought out, or just
kind of pandering to our social media addled brains. Uh.
For example, this one's fun making taxes fun. Currently paying
taxes as a slog, let's make it a celebration. That's
from his website. Uh. This is basically like a tax
day rebrand, which is okay, that's there's something to that.

(34:20):
But there there are added perks of citizens could direct
one percent of their taxes to a specific project. You know,
it's fine, but okay, Uh, modern time banking, which would
give you points for doing things like volunteering, working at fairs,
even fixing a neighbor's appliance. Uh, that sounds not at
all like China's social current. Yeah, and then you can

(34:44):
exchange those points for prices, I guess, like the website
suggests trading in your points for tickets to a local
ball game or a chance to talk to your elected officials.
Aren't we supposed to be able to talk to them anyway?
You how to fix? You got to fix seven lawnmowers
to talk to you? Like, wait, what is this? What

(35:07):
is that's? Because that's that's also that speaks to what
we've been talking about of like you're saying that you
get like human community points for these acts of things
and then for that. The example of the tickets for
a baseball game is weird because it's like you get
universal basic income, which is money which could buy you
baseball tickets, or you can get your human points and

(35:29):
then use those to buy baseball tickets too. It's weird food,
like do you get food if you fix a lawnmowers? World,
we all get baseball tickets. And that's beautiful, beautiful, it's
just so interesting, Like there's elements of it that feel
like some weird socialist thing, but also he's very much

(35:52):
a capitalist and human centered capitalism, and so it's unclear.
It's like he's reaching out for the things that might
appeal to people on like an instinctual like, oh that
sounds kind of cool way, but it's not substantive, it's
not well thought out. Yeah, it's still yeah, Still I
get what he's trying to go for of like human

(36:14):
centered capitalism, like that sounds like, oh, well that's better
than the other kind, but it still seems to center
on money, right, Yeah, But it's like still trying to
appeal to people that were maybe Bernie supporters while being
very different from what Bernie is offering, you know what
I mean? UM, And it's it's it's still denying I

(36:36):
think at a fundamental level the value that UM social
programs aimed at actually helping people can have, like like
giving people something besides UM that that aren't treated as
a commodity. So when you have uh, like like state
sponsored daycare, which many nations in the West half for kids,
when you have paternity leave for fathers, UM in addition

(37:00):
into maternity leave which many states that's not a monetize
herbal thing. I guess you could say that like, oh,
but if you're getting a thousand dollars a month, you
don't have to work. But like that doesn't go super
far with the baby. Um, having those things, having those
things which are not easily um priced, having like access
to mental health care and stuff that you don't have

(37:20):
to budget for because you know people you could again,
you could say you could spend you know, six d
dollars a month from your thousand dollars a month on
seeing a therapist four times a month. But how many
people are going to do that when they have rent
in food bills do? Yeah, it's it's just this, It's
not that U b I is a bad idea. I
think you b I might be part of a solution

(37:41):
to many of the social ills we have. But treating
it as the center of the solution, I think mistakes
the center of many of the problems. Yeah. I agree
with you completely to take Yeah, I mean you have to. Yeah,
when you're not pairing it with giving people the things
they need. Um the text thing sounds nice, sounds There's

(38:05):
one more that Vice reported about. I mean, there's lots more.
This is another weird one. Reduce harm to children caused
by smartphones a plan UH by creating a Department of
the Attention Economy, which would regulate smartphones, social media gaming
and chat apps. I don't know, man, um it's all

(38:26):
that time is interesting. It's the kind of thing that
like you want, uh, people to be out there talking
about like even Yeah, but I don't necessarily need it
to be a presidential platform. Um. But maybe it's good.
Maybe that's good that we have these conversations and we're
having you know, he's putting forth these things that we're
having these conversations. But yeah, I I actually don't like I.

(38:47):
I don't think Andrew Yang has a real chance of
winning the presidency just looking at his poll numbers, and
I don't think he has a very comprehensive attitude for
what's needed in the country. I do think it's good
that people are talking about you be I at least
some people as as a thing that might actually work
as opposed to just um it being a thing. I
read about zines that are printed by my friends and

(39:09):
handed out a protests. So UM, I'm on board with
with what he's done in regards to that. UM. I
just I hope that we can arrive at kind of
a more approach, like a more realistic way to institute
it totally. Uh, We're gonna have to take a quick
break for you know, products and services and zone and

(39:31):
so forth, and then yep, but then we're gonna come back.
And then finished talking about the Yang Gang Andrew Andrews
well together everything, So don't don't then we're back from
those ads. There were great, weren't things loved? I know

(39:55):
and I know you the listeners love ads too. Yeah,
who doesn't buy up some product and stuff? It's my
favorite part of uh when I'm streaming, Like, I hope
an ad comes up. I sure, hope I have a
commercial break right now. Um. So, yeah, we left off
talking about some of his policies. There's one more policy
I wanted to bring up, and that was his policy

(40:16):
to closely monitor the mental health of White House staff. Uh.
And this is clearly a direct response to our current president.
And it does make sense to have mental health support
for people that work on a high stress situation and whatnot.
But there's a world where that's a little bit dangerous.
I don't know if you're like, you know, what if

(40:39):
if it's the wrong pair of hands that are in
the White White House that are you know, rooting people out,
like is there are people gonna get fired for having
anxiety and depressions. And you know, it's like it's very
easy to pin mental health on people who are just

(41:00):
bad actors. Also like and that seems unfair to right
blaming Yeah, we especially now and obviously the president does
this too, but like blaming terrible behavior on mental earliest
and then also like blaming, yeah, blaming mental eliss on
like a lot of problems that we have and sort
of conflating things that don't necessarily pair together. Um, and

(41:22):
just everyone should have it everybody for everybody, exactly everybody.
And even there's a reaction because he had talked about
um couples counseling, um where everyone can have yeah, and
I know, like Megan McCain was freaking out about it,

(41:44):
like my marriage is fine. We if we if we
are hunting in trouble, we like get drunk, we go
shoot guns in the woods and or whatever. And um,
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna with the government like
make me go to uh go to couple's counseling and
all like all the stuff we're talking about. It's so
weird because like it's not it's not mandatory. Everything we're
talking about. It's like, no, you have if you were

(42:05):
a human being in this country, you have access to
this thing that benefits you. If you do it. If
you don't need it, you don't have to do it.
Do you can and it will help you help all
of us. And framing it like it's all these things
are mandatory is just so it's so disingenuous and weird.
It's it's like me getting piste off that elementary schools exist,

(42:25):
because what are they going to make me go? I
don't want to go learnt to ten? Trying to educational
destroy the schools, turn them down, coding. Oh hey hey,
now hey, I'm I'm I've been radicalized. You got de radicalized,
and now I'm radicalized. I'm an anti school crusader. Now

(42:45):
what I can do for you, Robert real quick to
de radicalize you? No, I gotta I can take out
my headphones. You are using a subscribers left and right.
I'm kind of thinking, though, Hillary, there were headlines about that,
people wanting under run um. I think that might take

(43:09):
away With Andrew Yang. It seems like a nice guy.
He's got some good um. When I like that he's
not billionaire, I'm glad he's talking about him, he seems
to have people's best interests at heart. Um, I don't
think he's qualified for the job. I don't even think
you can point to his history as an entrepreneur to

(43:30):
suggest that he is a successful leader. Like, he's had
companies that didn't work out. He became the CEO of
a company that already existed. It coincided with the recession,
and his company happened to take off and he made
a good amount of money from it. And then he
created a tech startup that's doing fine, you know, which
encapsulates a lot of the ideas that things that he believes.

(43:53):
And yeah, I mean like to encourage entrepreneurship and people
to like, you know, innovate, and that's cool. But it's
not like he's a wildly successful leader. He seems again
affable but maybe annoying in the workplace with his gong. Yeah,

(44:14):
I did not know that. I've seen I've seen him both.
He's better, okay, well more confident. I would love to
see that skate off between him. No, Sophie says, no, no, no, no,
never mind. I would not love to see that. I
love to see um. And I don't even know if
I think I would suggest him a cabinet position, you know, like, yeah,

(44:39):
you know, I I hope. I don't know if i'd
suggest a coubnet position either. I like his attitude towards
standardized tests. Yes, for Chary with that opinion talks to
a president at some point. But I don't think he
would be the most certainly not the most qualified person
in the country to be the Secretary of Education, although
apparently that doesn't really matter. I mean, yeah, comparably like

(45:00):
I think, I I mean, but if you decide that
we're going to like try to comprehensively reform our social
safety net, I can think the worst people to have
a seat at the table. He could be one person
who could. Yeah, you know, he's contribute, give him some credit. Yeah,
but no, I I think he's not someone who I
think is desperately deserves to be have a cabinet position.

(45:22):
That does not strike me as a thing. But maybe
he will run for other offices after this, so he
obviously will have gained a lot from mayor, shoot, from mayor,
maybe even governor. We don't care about governors like Funckt.
Why not give it a shot, Arnold Schwartzenegger go become
the governor of California. You can't do worse than Arnold did. Like, like,

(45:43):
it's totally reasonable thing to to go for it. And again,
I appreciate a lot a lot of these conversations are
being had. Um, he is not the worst offender of
contributing to the worst year ever is I guess may
take away. I don't even know that like I would.
I think some a lot of his fans have contributed
to that. I don't. I haven't seen him do anything

(46:05):
I think is wrong. He's a guy. I don't think
he's the best pick for president, with a couple of
good ideas and some bad ones saying what he believes
and that's fine. The only thing I'd say that he
did wrong was suggesting he sit down with Shane Gillis.
But yeah, that was a bad call. That was a
bad call. That was a bad call. But I understand
where it came from. Yeah, I mean, he's got a

(46:25):
lot of drive for for the unity. It's the it's
it's an offshoot of his not right, not left forward,
the whole thing. I'm just like, no, we all can
do it together. Um. And that's said Andrew Yang. If
you're listening and aren't turned off by this conversation and
would love to have a chat with you. And uh,

(46:46):
you know, you can even bring your gong. You can
you can bang a gong. Cody can make his horrible
time travel noises um, and together we can give Daniel
an aneurysm. Wouldn't that be an You can do it.
We can do it. We can do it. And you, guys,
but only with you, Mr Daniearism, Danielism, that's all good, Sophie.

(47:09):
Is he happy with that he's doing? I don't want
to talk. He's happy. He's Daniels the head banging and
joy and yeah, fist raised in celebration. Andrew Yang, he
exists and is running for president grabbed. You know what

(47:31):
I'll say about Andrew Yang, one last positive thing. I
didn't grab a baby by the dick, and he didn't
grab a woman by the pussy. Nope, as as far
as I know, has never grabbed anybody without consent, as
far as we know. And that's great. That's the low benchmark.
We now have, really slipping by that extremely low bar

(47:55):
and crawling under a chiant Andrew consensual grabbing Yang, that's there.
We gods, very catchy. Yeah, he's getting all sorts of
good stuff from us today. Alright, cool, you guys, Could
I just say that his families a really cute, is it? Yeah?
Precious though they are color cornated outfits and like unlike Beto,

(48:18):
I'm like, oh, you know, just like wonderful. I would
love to sit down and have dinner with him. Yeah,
he seems great. There's one other thing I wanted to
get to, which is my suspicion that or more of
why the Internet got behind him so far, is that
yang gang rhymes for sure. For sure. I think that's

(48:40):
a lot of it, Like it's a low bar to
get somebody to just do that retweet um, which is
a lot of the the activism you've seen, And I
think people just think it's funny. Um. Yeah, it's fairly,
it's yeah, it's way better than Bernie bro way better. Yeah. No,

(49:00):
nobody wants to identify as a Bernie Broke. People want
to be on the Trump train, which I don't understand,
and they also want to be on the Yang Gang
and we don't have h Bernie doesn't have. He never
came with a good good He's not a nickname guy
Bernie Sanders. He never came up with a good, pithy
nickname for his fans. Neither has Elizabeth Warren Sanders Fanders.

(49:21):
Oh Sanders fans is noted for this shop. Get on
the phone with Bernie. I would love to Warren's quorumzars, right,
they those those angry massogynist Liz lads and everybody's mentions
fucking Liz lets. Uh that does sound like an insulting lad.

(49:45):
We'll hear that by the end of the year. Um
quorum shouldn't be in a nickname. It was that that
I was hoping we would just gloss right over it.
But no, you got to bring it background warrens for
him more informed. It's not working. Biden Baby Biden, Sweet

(50:08):
little Babies. No, keep babies away from Joe Biden. Yeah,
that's a that's a good, solid, rememberable nickname. Keep babies
away from Joe Biden. I would I gotta say it
would be the end of the world, but I would
kind of love it if the hat based competition that
occurs in is make America great Again versus Keith Babies

(50:29):
away from Joe Biden Jr. Wait, I have one more thing,
one more thing that's going to make you take Young
down just a notch. His answer to Maga is math,
make America think hugging. Here's here's the thing. Is he

(50:49):
just using two letters way to second? Wait a second,
wait a second? Is he making an acronym? Were the
last two letters of the acronym are the first two
letters of the I believe that's true. You are clearly
a smart man. You know that's not how acronyms work, right,
That's that's just not how it works. Yeah, that's really

(51:14):
you just make All you gotta do is say, make
America think hard. Yeah, Like, that's an acronym. That's an acronym.
That's at least something right. It's not good, but it's better.
Sophie's really making us. Look at this photo of Andrew
Young just devouring a turkey leg, and that's all right,

(51:37):
turkeys are a vegetable. One second, I gotta come up
with a good acronym. Here, make America think for the
first time, finally, would Youth's here's the thing about this,
all right, And here's the thing about the worst year
ever that we're all going to experience. Don't nobody, nobody,

(52:03):
no matter who you are, if you're running for president.
Do not do an acronym that plays off of maga.
Just don't do it. Don't try to make America it
was already great, make America, think, make America good, good back.
You know, like, whatever it is, do not do it.
We don't like it, Nobody likes it. It doesn't work.
It's really cringe e. It makes you seem simple and ineffective,

(52:27):
and it's just basically basic basic. You're crazy, you're desperate.
No maga pons, no maga, no maga puns. Don't try
to do what Trump does, just without being a racist
piece of ship, Like, don't don't just be like, Okay, well,
they want somebody who's got a catchy acronym and hats

(52:48):
with slogans on him, and he yells at people and
he gives people nicknames. So what if I do that
but I don't hate Mexicans? Is that is that going
to get me be president? It's like no, no, no,
those aren't of things, especially the nickname thing. Please don't
do that. And I don't like do the bar back
and forth thing with him. Yeah, that's what I keep

(53:10):
seeing more and more and more of, like the candidates
like tweeting him and being like you're there's something people
see a spike in numbers went Trump bullies, and so
there is a thing where people start like, I'm going
to pick at him and then I'm going to get
those likes and I'm going to get him to give
me a nick kname. You stop engaging with that creep

(53:33):
in that especially Um. There are ways to engage with
him in ways, obviously because you're gonna have to because
you're gonna you're trying to be the president, so he's not.
But don't do it like that. Please. There's there's one
way I want people to engage with Trump on Twitter
if their presidential candidates, and I will give my vote
to whoever does this first, even if it's Joseph Robinette

(53:57):
Biden and that is slide into the press, it's d
ms and send him a picture your dick. Just just
send him your send the president your dick presidential candidates.
That is what Robert is sexist. What should listen Laurrant,
I'm just kidding, well, what should Elizabeth her husband's dick? Yeah, absolutely,

(54:18):
any dick. It doesn't have to be your dick, president's
d M. Send him a dick and I will vote
for you. Prove it by posting the exchange on Twitter,
and I'll vote for you. You You will have my vote,
Kamala Harris, you'll have my vote. Biden, You'll have my vote.
But still in he still do it? Yeah, send the president,

(54:41):
Dick picks all the heroes, Michael Michael, Michael Bennett. Yeah, Bennett,
get your dick in. There is he out? Here's here's
a picture of my my my penis, Mr President. It's
too bad he's probably out. I believe he's out. That's
what a wonderful sup question than I would be happy

(55:03):
to vote for him. If we've got to be more
unifying everybody. Here's my idea. So here's my duke. All right,
this has been real fun. You can check us out
online all the social media places at Worst Year pod,
that's the Instagram's, the Twitters, what have you. Eventually we'll

(55:23):
have a website Worst Year Ever dot com. I love websites.
And then we're online too. You can find us on twitters,
you know what. That's true with our names. I would
search our names and then uh Twitter, they'll probably be
linked to this tweet. So you'll find us easy. There's
no excuses. You'll find us easy, and you can keep

(55:44):
track of our campaign to sexually harass a sitting president,
which I think is really going to set us apart
from the other podcasts about the election. There aren't any
other podcasts. There are no other podcasts, and if there were,
they definitely wouldn't support just like grabbing them grabbing the
president tush hashtag grabbed the President's tush Honk Honko, Mr

(56:10):
President Honka Honk. Indeed, everything so dull, Everything so dull.
I tried. Daniel Lovely. Worst Year Ever is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

(56:31):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.