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Andrew Yang

New York's Failed Political Class Puzzles Over Why Voters Seem To Prefer Outsider Andrew Yang

When government doesn't deliver, voters look for unpolished candidates from outside government. Go figure.

Matt Welch | 4.22.2021 3:05 PM

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Yang | Lev Radin/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom
(Lev Radin/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the public sector union that has helped keep my daughters out of classrooms for most of the 2020–21 school year, issued its long-awaited endorsement for New York mayor on Monday: NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer.

"Educational policy is crucial, but we need a mayor who understands how the city works," the UFT explained in a tweet. To which a beleaguered resident of Gotham might counter: Or maybe we need a mayor who understands that the city doesn't.

The New York Times' news pages described the endorsement as "a much-needed boost" to Stringer's campaign, which seems oddly inflationary given the UFT's desultory record in picking Democratic primary winners. Odder still is the open hostility that many in the media are directing toward the front-runner in this race, who also happens to be the only candidate bluntly criticizing the teachers union for its role in shuttering schools: former 2020 presidential aspirant Andrew Yang.

"Yang's prominence, The New Republic's Alex Pareene confessed last week, "depresses me." Why? Because it's embarrassing for a polity that takes nuts-and-bolts governance so seriously to swoon over a celebrity candidate.

"As mayor, Yang would have to figure out how to get lead paint and mold out of the city's public housing system, how to design safer streets, how to make the buses run more efficiently, how to collect garbage, how to assign children to public schools and operate them fairly, how to manage the paramilitary known as the NYPD, and what to do with the atrocity known as Rikers Island," Pareene wrote wearily. "And, for all the talk of his ideas, he has not shown that he has thought very much about any of those parts of the job."

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, too, decried Yang's lack of relevant experience.

"We've got, like, the most important mayor's race in New York City probably in the last 50 years, maybe 100 years, I don't know….[And] I mean, you and I could do a better job running New York City than Andrew Yang," the Morning Joe host told a nodding Donny Deutsch Monday. "You want that mayor to be competent, you want them to know what they're actually doing….It's one thing running for president and putting some quirky ideas out there and getting some media attention, but man, when you're running New York City, again, I'm talking competence."

I can think of other c-words when clanging along the city's busted streets, waiting for trains that never come because we're still wiping down surfaces to prevent COVID, or trying to sort through the latest turf squabble between the Democratic mayor and the Democratic governor over a pandemic that hit the five boroughs harder than anywhere else in the United States. Crime is up, population is down, school buildings are still half-closed, subways are increasingly gross (wipedowns notwithstanding), tourism is gutted, Midtown is deserted, and public-facing businesses remain subject to arbitrary restrictions. And you're talking competence?

Seeing the political class attempt to cope with what Slate this week called "the bewildering rise of Andrew Yang" is a storyline familiar enough that even politicians and journalists hear the echoes.

"We are creating a Donald Trump with Andrew Yang," warned fellow mayoral candidate Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, earlier this month. "That's what the media did with Donald Trump. The same thing you complain about—how did he get elected?—was because you covered Donald Trump as though he was doing celebrity show and not running for the presidency. The media is doing the same thing right now."

Candidate Maya Wiley, the former MSNBC analysts who is clumped with Adams and Stringer in the second tier of candidates behind Yang, is also playing the Trump card. "Our city deserves a serious leader," Wiley spokesperson Julia Savel said earlier this month, "not a mini-Trump who thinks our city is a fun play thing in between podcasts."

You'd think by now we'd have enough practice with outsider populists upending political expectations, but the message has not yet sunk in. A polity alienated, desperate, and/or bored enough with the status quo will flock to the unpolished celebrity not despite his inability to sound and act like the political establishment, but because of it. Every departure from the normal script reinforces the notion that at least he's not one of them, especially after his competitors and the press have chewed on it.

Such a phenomenon, especially after the Trump experience, should spur journalistic examination of the political-class failure that made such a candidacy attractive in the first place. After all, Stringer, Adams, and Wiley, like the two-term mayor they aim to succeed, are each creatures of the New York political establishment who understand how the city works. And yet voters don't seem to value that experience. Sounds like an interesting topic for exploration!

Instead, you have a series of comically exasperated headlines—"Andrew Yang leads new NYC mayoral poll — despite string of gaffes," "Andrew Yang leads the New York mayoral race despite missteps," "Yang stays atop New York mayoral field – through early stumbles and rookie mistakes"—mixed with pity-inducing attempts at gotcha journalism. How dare he pose for pictures with the Trump-supporting Naked Cowboy!

As with Trump, the sheer volume and tenor of the media attacks against Yang can serve to make him more sympathetic, or at least cause one to root for the commentators' continued disappointment.

"Fundamentally," the Brooklyn freelancer Alex Yablon wrote for NBC's website, "Yang champions the same business-class neoliberalism that has reigned since the 1975 fiscal crisis. This is frustrating given that New Yorkers actually have a chance to push our political, social and economic order into the 21st century."

Yang is a piñata for people who use phrases like "bro culture," hate Bitcoin because of climate change, and believe that testing is a tool to segregate schools. In other words, he definitely will not win the Brooklyn Twitter primary.

But he may well be the next mayor of New York. If he does, that would be a splendid opportunity for journalists to examine the gap between their tastes in political manners and voters' priorities in addressing problems. Judging by the last half-decade's trajectory in media self-conception, it will likely be a road not taken.

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NEXT: Americans Can't Agree About How Often Mass Shootings Occur, Let Alone the Right Policy Response

Matt Welch is an editor at large at Reason.

Andrew YangMedia CriticismNew York CityPopulismDonald TrumpTeachers UnionsPublic schools
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  1. Don't look at me!   4 years ago

    Hasn’t got a chance against fortified elections.

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    3. NoVaNick   4 years ago

      Hasnt got a chance because the Browns, Blacks, and Jews hate Asians. So too so woke whites no matter how many tears they shed about hate crimes against Asians. So that rules out about 99.99%?of NYC voters.

      1. Claptrap   4 years ago

        Fun fact: NYC is 14% Asian. They even have a neighborhood called Chinatown, where, as I understand it, many residents are, in fact, Chinese.

        Also, the real Jews vote Republican, at least for Mayor.

    4. Brason Tay   4 years ago

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  2. Talcum X   4 years ago

    At this point, anyone will do. Lurch, his corrupt wife, and her massive staff need to go.

    1. De Oppresso Liber   4 years ago

      I like Yang.

      1. Agammamon   4 years ago

        Of course you do. You like anyone who will stand up and boldly lie to people that they have all the answers - just give them more power.

      2. JesseAz   4 years ago

        Lol. Many idiots do.

  3. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   4 years ago

    When government doesn't deliver, voters look for unpolished candidates from outside government. Go figure.

    But yet, a return to normal is always the preferred outcome.

    1. Agammamon   4 years ago

      'Wrong, but within normal parameters' is always preferred to 'hey, maybe we don't do that shit that isn't working any more'.

      1. Agammamon   4 years ago

        LIbertarians are great defenders of the status quo, doncha know.

      2. MatthewSlyfield   4 years ago

        The problem with the above comment is that shit never worked in the first place.

  4. Brian   4 years ago

    "As mayor, Yang would have to figure out how to get lead paint and mold out of the city's public housing system, how to design safer streets, how to make the buses run more efficiently, how to collect garbage, how to assign children to public schools and operate them fairly, how to manage the paramilitary known as the NYPD, and what to do with the atrocity known as Rikers Island," Pareene wrote wearily. "And, for all the talk of his ideas, he has not shown that he has thought very much about any of those parts of the job."

    It's so tedious listening to these obviously one-side complaints masquerading as analysis. As if they're rigorously evaluating every candidate's social engineering credentials and discovering that Andrew Yang is uniquely unqualified.

    1. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   4 years ago

      Uniquely unqualified at social engineering is one of my primary requirements if you're going to receive my vote.

      1. Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland   4 years ago

        Uniquely unqualified and able to recognize it in yourself would be the goal. Yang is unqualified, but thinks he's the most intelligent person that anything he demands will solve all problems

        1. RabbitHead   4 years ago

          If you have to have a lefty shit, at least let it be an incompetent one

    2. Mitch in Reno   4 years ago

      That Important Issues list begs the obvious (to me) question: What has the last mayor been doing during his two terms?

      1. Rev. Arthur L. Kuckland   4 years ago

        Banging underlings

        1. Dillinger   4 years ago

          attempted banging. failure to launch.

      2. Don't look at me!   4 years ago

        Killing seniors.

        1. Sevo   4 years ago

          And doing a damn good job of it!

        2. JeremyR   4 years ago

          That's the governor.

          1. Sevo   4 years ago

            Ooops, but has anyone ever seen them in the same room?

          2. perlhaqr   4 years ago

            Wait, you mean that there's more to New York than New York City?

            1. Minadin   4 years ago

              https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/youre-welcome-america-us-maps-courtesy-of-nyc

    3. Sevo   4 years ago

      “As mayor, Yang would have to figure out how to get lead paint and mold out of the city’s public housing system, how to design safer streets, how to make the buses run more efficiently, how to collect garbage, how to assign children to public schools and operate them fairly, how to manage the paramilitary known as the NYPD, and what to do with the atrocity known as Rikers Island,” Pareene wrote wearily. “And, for all the talk of his ideas, he has not shown that he has thought very much about any of those parts of the job.”

      Yep, all the issues just now popped up; none of the scumbags holding office until now ever had to do anything about them.
      Pareene should learn that insulting people is not a good way to get them to agree with you.

      1. Chumby   4 years ago

        Those all could have been solved at the federal level if it hadn’t been for orange man bad.

        1. Minadin   4 years ago

          Well, that's just because Trump personally drove the dump trucks that put all the trash in the streets. That sounds terrible, but he did that mostly to distract from Ivanka and Jarrod driving the busses to deliver the GITMO prisoners to Rikers personally.

          It makes sense if you don't think about it.

    4. Squirrelloid   4 years ago

      Isn't the whole point of bureaucracy building a system that has institutional memory, so the guy in charge of it doesn't have to know how to do everything?

      (I mean, there are plenty of problems with bureaucracy, but surely the mayor of New York doesn't need to know how to college garbage personally - there's a whole department that handles that for him).

    5. LarryA   4 years ago

      "As mayor, Yang would have to figure out how to get lead paint and mold out of the city’s public housing system,"
      1: Abolish rent control;
      2: Sell the city's public housing system.
      Once landlords could charge market rate for apartments developers would be encouraged to build new housing.
      Existing landlords, to compete, would have to renovate or demolish and rebuild, either of which gets rid of lead paint and mold. And they'd have the funds to do so.

      Covid is actually a very good time to get rid of the controls, given that so many people are leaving NYC rents are dropping.

      Social engineering is a bug, not a feature.

      1. ipatrol   4 years ago

        And if there are no buyers? Most public housing is located in undesirable areas. Or they may buy it, and not actually remove the lead, which then leaves having the same problem, but under different management. Proper removal and disposal of lead paint is very expensive, and organized crime is known to specialize in getting it done on the cheap, and leaving the public with the consequences. I think if a private landlord were holding these properties, they wouldn't have been solved either. It's a negative externality being imposed on people who are too poor to provide a Coasian resolution.

  5. Diane Reynolds (Paul.)   4 years ago

    "We've got, like, the most important mayor's race in New York City probably in the last 50 years, maybe 100 years, I don't know….

    Zzz...

    1. Fats of Fury   4 years ago

      I thought Joe Scarborough left the Republican party.

  6. BigGiveNotBigGov   4 years ago

    Yang is much less septic that NYC sewer rat pols like Trump and De Blasio. Simply not swimming in that sewer for decades leaves Yang smelling much better.

    1. Sevo   4 years ago

      "Yang is much less septic that NYC sewer rat pols like Trump..."

      Your head is asking for some company, TDS-addled shit; stick your TDS up your ass.

    2. Fats of Fury   4 years ago

      Damn that Trump! Getting that Wollman Rink skating rink up and running in four months and under budget! THE NERVE!

    3. Pepin the short   4 years ago

      Don’t come to my state fag.

  7. ohlookMarketthugs   4 years ago

    Matt Welch being racist film at 11. You are not entitled to anyone’s labor.

    1. Sometimes a Great Notion   4 years ago

      Is that about teachers being forced back to work? If so I agree as long as they agree I shouldn't be forced to pay them through my labor.

      1. Chumby   4 years ago

        You should be forced to (continue to) pay for them to not work.

    2. Red Rocks White Privilege   4 years ago

      Shush, baizuo.

    3. Sevo   4 years ago

      ohlookMarketthugs making a public ass of himself again - 3:39PM.

      1. ohlookMarketthugs   4 years ago

        You would know about being a public ass, sevo.

        Funny how people around here like to use force and threats against normal working folks.

        Oh, for those with limited memory, Matt welch doesn’t want minorities in his kids schools

        1. Red Rocks White Privilege   4 years ago

          Neither do white liberals, which is why they put them in private or charter schools, or move out to the suburbs where the "good schools" are.

    4. Full Of Buckminster   4 years ago

      Actually, you are entitled one’s labor when you’re paying for it. You need to think harder.

  8. Mickey Rat   4 years ago

    Given what type of politician the media usually falls in love with, 8t is cute that they claim "competence" is the overriding criteria.

  9. buckleup   4 years ago

    After deblasio and cuomo who wouldn't want a non new yorker.

  10. Agammamon   4 years ago

    As mayor, Yang would have to figure out how to get lead paint and mold out of the city's public housing system, how to design safer streets, how to make the buses run more efficiently, how to collect garbage, how to assign children to public schools and operate them fairly, how to manage the paramilitary known as the NYPD

    Why? No previous mayor has.

    1. Mitch in Reno   4 years ago

      But this is "the most important mayor’s race in New York City probably in the last 50 years, maybe 100 years." This is the race where we solve ALL those problems.

    2. Quo Usque Tandem   4 years ago

      I was thinking have not the very same things been the "front and center" problem of that metropolis for the past 60 or so years?

      Damn these people are stupid.

  11. Longtobefree   4 years ago

    NYC?
    Local news.
    Nobody cares, Matt.

    1. raspberrydinners   4 years ago

      Considering they subsidize people like you, maybe you should.

      1. Sevo   4 years ago

        This from a lefty parasite...

        1. Claptrap   4 years ago

          Experts agree: "Red States are mooches.

          That this has much to do with the result of progressive policies on taxation, medical benefits, and old age pensions is likely beyond this one's ken.

          1. Claptrap   4 years ago

            Broke ass coding: https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-Balance-of-Payments-Report-web.pdf

  12. Dillinger   4 years ago

    Joe Scarborough should never be quoted. Let everyone forget he exists.

  13. Quo Usque Tandem   4 years ago

    In latest poll, Cuomo is up +22%:

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/governor/new-york/

    1. Quo Usque Tandem   4 years ago

      And de Blasio is about the same:

      https://abc7ny.com/bill-de-blasio-mayor-approval-new-york-city/25045/

      NY gets, and deserves, exactly the government it will continue to vote for.

    2. Chumby   4 years ago

      In the latest backroom, Cuomo is up some non-consenting woman’s dress.

  14. Red Rocks White Privilege   4 years ago

    #YANGGANG2021

    1. perlhaqr   4 years ago

      NYC deserves a good hard Yangbang.

  15. John C. Randolph   4 years ago

    Yang is a moron. DeBlabbermouth is a corrupt, Jew-hating scumbag. Who can do more damage to the city?

    -jcr

  16. John C. Randolph   4 years ago

    Candidate Maya Wiley, the former MSNBC analysts

    You misspelled "lefturd propagandist".

    -jcr

  17. Sevo   4 years ago

    "...we need a mayor who understands how the city works..."

    You scratch my back....

  18. Union of Concerned Socks   4 years ago

    We’ve got, like, the most important mayor’s race in New York City probably in the last 50 years, maybe 100 years

    Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

    1. perlhaqr   4 years ago

      Rod From God. Less fallout. Get DC while we're at it.

  19. Titus PUllo   4 years ago

    Why do all Reason editors and writers seem to live in NYC, DC or some other wokedom place? I don't care about Yang or NYC mayor...don't care...as someone who grew up in Central NY I lived the social and economic destruction by NYC bolsheviks...Matt we don't care....move to America like Nashville, Cincinnati, Charleston, Ocala, Prescott...cosmo wokes are not libertarians....NYC is just one big red diaper with a pile of brown in the middle

    1. NoVaNick   4 years ago

      NYC hipsters have taken over Nashville and Charleston (SC), so you can cross those off

    2. Mencken Sense   4 years ago

      Because as much as they claim to love liberty, what they really worship is cool. They can't be cool from Park City or Fayetteville.

  20. Sevo   4 years ago

    "..."That's what the media did with Donald Trump. The same thing you complain about—how did he get elected?—was because you covered Donald Trump as though he was doing celebrity show and not running for the presidency. The media is doing the same thing right now."..."

    As much a TDS-addled asshole as WK, and as stupid.

  21. Titus PUllo   4 years ago

    Kids and knife fights..just part of growing up..no one should be killed by a cop before they are about to stab someone else..come on man

    Corn Pop

    1. Chumby   4 years ago

      Lebron James agrees.

    2. Dude24   4 years ago

      Doesn't even qualify as a "knife fight" given that only one party had a knife. More like "knife assault."

  22. dougwesterman   4 years ago

    The sad fact is that those connected with the NYC politics are regarded as so pervasively corrupt, that anyone coming from outside looks rosy, even if he isn't all that great.

  23. Mencken Sense   4 years ago

    "As mayor, Yang would have to figure out how to get lead paint and mold out of the city's public housing system, how to design safer streets, how to make the buses run more efficiently, how to collect garbage, how to assign children to public schools and operate them fairly, how to manage the paramilitary known as the NYPD, and what to do with the atrocity known as Rikers Island"

    None of the conventional candidates for mayor are going to fix any of that shit, either. But they will make sure the usual suspects get to wet their beaks. The scary thing about an outsider isn't a lack of competence, it's that they might break too many rice bowls.

  24. Liberty Lover   4 years ago

    Yang is an outsider, he will suffer the same fate as Trump if he even gets near the nomination. NeverYangers!

  25. Paul 3   4 years ago

    It would be hard to find a mayor more incompetent than De Blasio. The Commiecrats have moved so far from reality that most of them are to the left of Yang.

  26. DRM   4 years ago

    Messrs. Pareene, Scarborough, et. al.;

    If you didn't personally try to assassinate Bill De Blasio, you have no business pretending you want competence in NYC mayors, you lying pieces of shit.

  27. Jeff Mason   4 years ago

    Considering just how screwed up New York City is right now, anyone between Adolf Hitler and Chairman Mao on the political spectrum would probably get a good hard look from the electorate. Ask yourself, how much worse could an outsider make it? Can the subways get dirtier? Can a closed school be more closed? Can an empty storefront get emptier? They complain about Yang being the next Trump but they should be so lucky. With Trump, unemployment was at record lows, personal incomes were at record highs and businesses were roaring. We should have more of such disastrous policies. Maybe Rudy can change his name and run again. He’d fix it.

  28. Carlos Inconvenience   4 years ago

    Michael Bloomberg was in the office for twelve years and people are surprised NY'ers might elect a political outsider as Mayor?

  29. perlhaqr   4 years ago

    That's why I admire Stalin and Mao. No one has a better record on killing commies than other commies.

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