The Democratic National Committee snubbed Andrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur who made a splash in the Democrat primary race with his happy-go-lucky style and major pitch for a universal basic income, excluding him from the list of speakers for next week’s party convention.
“I’ve got to be honest I kind of expected to speak,” Yang said in a social media post on Tuesday following reports of the convention’s speaker lineup.
“Maybe I endorsed against one too many incumbents,” he mused:
I’ve got to be honest I kind of expected to speak.
— Andrew Yang🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 11, 2020
Maybe I endorsed against one too many incumbents. Ƕ
— Andrew Yang🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) August 11, 2020
Yang, who suspended his campaign in February, made waves throughout his presidential bid, making the “Freedom Dividend” central to his campaign. Under his universal basic income (UBI) proposal, every U.S. citizen over the age of 18 would receive $1,000 in “guaranteed” income per month, “no questions asked.”
Yang, who said he would support the eventual nominee, formally endorsed Biden in March and encouraged the Democrat Party to come together.
“The math says Joe is our prohibitive nominee; we need to bring the party together,” Yang stated. “We need to start working on defeating Donald Trump in the fall.”
But, according to Yang, Biden has a lot of work to do to win over voters. It is not enough to run on returning to the years of Obama’s presidency.
“So even as Joe Biden saying, ‘Hey, we need to defeat Donald Trump,’ he also has to say, ‘Look, things have not been working for millions of Americans, and after we defeat Donald Trump,’ we need to get deep into these problems, get our hands dirty and solve them,” the CNN contributor said in March.
“This can’t be a, ‘Hey, I’m better than Trump’ race. It has to be, ‘Hey. I understand how Trump became our president,'” he continued.
In recent months, Yang has struck an optimistic tone toward Biden’s campaign, stating that Biden’s administration “is going to be one of the most important administrations in decades, in terms of a need for a new New Deal.” Yang believes Biden, who has been largely pitched as a moderate candidate despite surrounding himself with radical progressives and embracing the ideas of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), will be able to make many of the left’s radical policies “mainstream,” given his “long record as a moderate.”
Other former presidential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) appear on the speaker lineup for next week’s convention. Critics, however, are slamming the Democrats’ apparent decision to exclude Yang, who built a significant following, many of whom dubbed themselves the “Yang Gang,” from the lineup:
The @DNC making a monumental mistake leaving out @AndrewYang – I don't agree with everything but he is bringing real fresh ideas to politics. I thought these folks were #woke https://t.co/O9VxM1pvBG
— Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) August 11, 2020
It’s @DNC malpractice that Andrew Yang is not speaking as part of the convention. https://t.co/a6nLAQKeLD
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) August 11, 2020
The absence of Andrew Yang from the Democratic Convention speakers' roster is a) inexplicable and b) remarkably dumb.
— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) August 11, 2020
John Kasich gets a slot in a lame bid to win over GOP voters but not @andrewyang who won over actual Trump voters in his Primary campaign. https://t.co/v7Odv8tOjS
— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) August 11, 2020
Andrew Yang endorsed Biden unprompted, was a historic candidate and has a message clearly tuned to the current moment, with millions out of work. This is an unacceptable slight…especially during a virtual convention that’s going to need to emphasize party unity. https://t.co/9x6fNos70X
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) August 11, 2020
The fact that @AndrewYang isn’t speaking at the DNC is absolutely inane. The national party treated him like an unwanted novelty and *within months* his signature campaign proposals were urgently relevant on a national level.
They NEVER learn. https://t.co/HGfcT78KZ2
— Caroline McCarthy (@caro) August 11, 2020
So did I. I'm shocked, but at the same time, I'm not shocked. The DNC has a serious problem with doing the opposite of what should be obvious.
— Scott Santens🏄♂️ (@scottsantens) August 11, 2020
The @DNC is making time for '16 GOP Presidential candidate John Kasich but not for '20 dem candidate @AndrewYang? Yang polled well enough to qualify for every democratic debate. John Kasich didn't qualify for most of the GOP debates. Anti-Trump GOP? Fine. But let Yang in. https://t.co/rALYkzz4mz
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 11, 2020
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