This has been building for a while but yesterday former presidential candidate Andrew Yang officially announced he is running to be the next Mayor of New York City. With the biggest name recogniation in the field and a national following already in place, Yang is considered by most to be the favorite in this race.
This is exciting news for me personally as Yang was my favorite candidate in the primaries next to Bernie Sanders and I am excited to see him already jumping back into the political scene. I think New Yorkers should be excited as well. Yang is bringing a similarly bold and outside the box approach to his mayoral campaign that he brought to his presidency, most notably including a revised basic income program for New York City.
UBI is the policy that drew me to Yang in the first place so being able to roll it out and have an example of it in an economy as big as New York City would be massive. I strongly believe in UBI and think implementing it nationwide would be life changing for so many people so I am rooting for Yang to win, be able to roll out basic income in New York City and have it be successful as I know it can be so we can further the case for it.
I know a good portion of the left has issues with Yang, and I don’t necessarily disagree with all of their points, but I think he is very smart, reasonable and a valuable voice to have on our side. He is prone to saying some dumb things but he is quick to admitting his mistakes and learn from them, and someone I truly believe cares and is fighting for the regular citizen. Anyone who I feel actually cares automatically gets respect from me, sadly that is something that is rare among politicians today.
I plan on getting involved in his campaign in any way I can and helping him win and I encourage everyone to go check out his campaign, as I said before I think he is a valuable voice and brings a lot of good ideas to the table.
Green Buddhist 