I reached out to Andrew Yang’s campaign manager as a writer for the Taipei Times in June 2018, a few months after Yang had launched his long-shot presidential campaign. I wanted to talk to Yang about his then-radical policies regarding universal basic income, the idea that citizens should be given a base minimum income regardless of employment that would help ensure their basic survival needs were met. I also wanted to take a look into his identity as a Taiwanese-American, and see how his racial and political identities influenced each other.
He’s still clearly figuring out his stances and positioning in this conversation. When I asked him why he wanted to serve as a representative for UBI in politics, he even told me he would have supported another candidate, if any had popped up. “It was clear to me that I was going to be the only person,” he said.
The grassroots movement around his candidacy, who called themselves the “Yang Gang,” liked that he was navigating uncharted territory. The group would grow rapidly in size and influence until Yang’s suspension of his presidential campaign in February 2020.
That’s not to say I agreed with him on all of what he said in our conversation, especially as unrehearsed as he had been at this stage of his candidacy. I felt that he had accurately identified many compelling societal problems, without providing much of a case for why UBI specifically was America’s best shot at recovery. (This was one of the first times I had felt ideological pushback to an interviewee’s positions on a personal level, and I also visibly struggle here with how aggressive I want to be.)
Yet, in retrospect, I can’t help but sympathize with Yang. He’s a classic representation of the amorphous dread and hope that has been seeping into the American political consciousness ever since the 2016 election, but not yet inured to that particular set of feelings as we are now in 2022. “I developed a real sense of anxiety as to what the future holds,” Yang said. The interview is full of intriguing defenses from a new candidate who doesn’t yet know how his views will go on to shape America.
Here’s a transcript of my Skype call with Andrew Yang on June 18, 2018, lightly edited for clarity.
May 19, 2022
Hi, Andrew. Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
I’m glad to be here. I have a busy day ahead of me, so I hope you don’t mind me finishing my bagel while we talk.
No worries at all.
I wanted to start off our conversation by talking a little about how you’ve grown to espouse the ideas you do. You’re running your presidential campaign on the concept of universal basic income, as a newcomer to politics introducing a radical idea to the Democratic party. And UBI isn’t just a economic ideology, but also an idea that, if implemented, would deeply change the way we view social and political values throughout America. What’s influenced the way you view moral values throughout your childhood, as you grew up? And how has that changed over time?
My brother is my best friend. And so, the two of us played a lot of role-playing games: Dungeons and Dragons, then eventually, video games. I internalized the narratives from comic books and role-playing games, which is that people were trying to do good, accomplish great things. You know, in the games, you’re genuinely beating the bad guy, or killing the dragon, or something like that. And so, as you grow up, you try to figure out, “What is the dragon?” Or, “What is the bad guy?”
If you grew up as an immigrant in this country, your family is always somewhat scrappy. And though my family was very firmly middle class, you develop a class consciousness that naturally aligns you with people that have a little bit less, I suppose, are still trying to prove themselves. I always related to that.
You know, when I was very young, I was one of the only Asian kids. And when you’re one of the only Asian kids, what you do is you try and fit in. There were only three TV stations. Any time there was an Asian person on TV, I’d get all excited. My brother would go outside and be like, “look, look,” even if it was a newscaster. As I got older, instead of just trying to fit in with the white people around me, I developed a different sort of identity. And in my case, when I went to prep school and college, there were many more Asians around. So that was its own exploration.
"If you had a successful business, it didn 't really matter what other people thought."
Do you think race became a bigger part of your identity during that process?
Well, I think in a way, it becomes both bigger and smaller, simultaneously, somehow, where it becomes more of a part of your everyday. But you don’t really think about it as much because your setting changes, or your comfort level changes.
I certainly do not remember attributing any failures, professionally, to my race. Though I will say I also internalized some stuff my dad where my dad would come home, from IBM complaining about his managers. I had this sense that what I did not want to do is have a career that relied upon what my white manager thought of me. That seemed like a bad career path. I definitely internalized that from my father.
What career conceptions did you have back then, and how did that lead to the paths you chose?
I thought that if you went into academia, you’d end up studying some things that not that many people cared about, you’d have this very, very small circle of people. It seemed like you were just doing it for yourself and that small group of people, while the rest of the world would just keep on moving. I know that some academics have a profound impact on society. I admire them. But it was not something that I think I could have done successfully. My brother’s an academic, my uncle’s an academic; I have many academics in the family. But eventually, I gravitated toward business.
It was after I was an attorney for a very brief time, I realized that that was a terrible use of – at least in my case – professional time. And so I gravitated towards business very quickly, after realizing the law was not a good fit all. It felt much more real and immediate and more impactful, less abstract, and also less reliant upon the opinions of others. If you had a successful business, it didn’t really matter what other people thought.
I walked into a startup office, and there was a CEO there, named Mark Jacobstein. And I thought, wow, this guy really has the kind of career I want, in terms of the immediacy of business. I first became a professional during the first dot-com bubble. And people were starting companies right and left that were touching thousands – or even hundreds of thousands, or millions – of people in relatively short time periods. So that was one of the things I saw was possible.
Can you walk me through how your different careers, and how they led you to advocating for UBI?
Well, I was a lawyer and thought, “this is a very bad use of brain power.” Then I tried to start an internet company, and it flopped. But I became much more excited about that process. Then I worked at a wireless software company that ran out of money when I was there. And then I went to work for a healthcare software company that was trying to solve a very hard problem.
During this, I kept learning at every stop. I started teaching the GMAT on the side, which ended up becoming a full-time job. Later, I also started throwing parties on the side, which was a lot of fun. I kept getting a bunch of business experiences. Certainly, the education company made me believe that people were the most important aspect of a company. And this is true, at least in certain businesses I’ve been a part of, where talent was central to the success of the business. And then that ended up lending itself naturally to non-profits. Because at non-profits, it’s also true that people are the center of organization success or failure.
When I started Venture for America, I became something of an economic figure in terms of creating jobs. I started reading books about what’s going to happen to jobs. And several of those books mentioned that we’re going to have to wind up at universal basic income at some point: books like Rise of the Robots, Second Machine Age.
What makes you believe you’re the right advocate to represent the platform in a political space?
You know what’s interesting? Before I got started on this path, I went to meet with the other universal basic income supporters. And if one of them that I liked was going to run for president on this, I believe I would have supported them. But when you say, “what makes me think I’m, like, a good person,” it was clear to me that I was going to be the only person.
But I’m a great figure for this. Because if you look at my experiences, I’ve been the CEO of a company, I’ve run a non-profit that created thousands of jobs. I understand technology, I understand the economy, much more so than any of our current political figures. I’m in my 40s, so I understand this transitional era. And I see how necessary universal basic income is to improve the lives of millions of people. So I do have a great perspective on this, I believe.
"Before I got started on this path, I went to meet with the other universal basic income supporters. And if one of them that I liked was going to run for president on this, I believe I would have supported them."
Why do you think nobody has considered advocating for UBI politically before?
Well, the U.S. has been overrun by market thinking. And so even Democrats are fearful of being painted with a brush as a socialist, and that they don’t understand the economy and understand business. They’re too timid. They don’t see it. Also, if you’re overly simplistic about it, you think that oh, “this is a very big addition to the government budget,” not realizing that all the money is gonna go straight to the hands of Americans, so it’s not actually an increase in the government budget.
I met a single mom in New Orleans while I was traveling. And she has two little boys, one of whom has special needs. And she started tearing up when she was talking about trying to find a special school for him. One of my boys also is neurologically atypical. So it really impacted me thinking, wow, the situation that this woman is in is so difficult and she’s scrambling and do whatever she can to make ends meet.
And that there really has to be a better way. Having two young boys myself, it just made me like want to do more to help her, and there are millions of Americans who are in the exact same situation.
I’d like to touch on your non-UBI positions a little. In February, you were quoted in the New York Times as saying “I believe what you probably think I believe” with regard to your social platforms.
Yeah, if you look at my website, now, I’ve got positions on most every major social issue. And, and truthfully, that journalist, when they quoted me – I was just being a little bit funny. Because I have points of view on just about everything.
Where do they originate from?
This may sound kind of nerdy, but I’ve thought about all these issues for a long time. I’ve been educated and mindful and policy oriented. And so, you don’t need to do a lot of research to know that our system of incarceration is ridiculously inhumane and moving against our own goals. You don’t need to do a ton of research to know that that there are major racial injustice issues in this country that go beyond people’s day to day experiences, and more into the way that the government enforces certain laws against some people much more than others. So, I had a point of view. I had a point of view going in.
Like, I think climate change is real, and it’s a massive problem. I didn’t need to really look into most of these things. I’ve been a registered Democrat since the 90s. And where my policy disagrees with the Democratic Party – I think the Democratic Party needs bold new ideas. Because right now, the party has the party is figuring out a new direction. I think one of my goals is to help infuse the Democratic Party with some new policies and energy.
When I talk to people, they’re excited. The challenge of politics is that no one thinks it’s going to make a difference in their lives. People see that if I win, their lives will improve.
Your book, The War on Normal People, touches on a few of the issues your platform most strongly advocates for. What inspired you to write it?
I developed a real sense of anxiety as to what the future holds for the US. And I went to try and track down the data and information, to see whether I was right. It turns out that the data is much more negative than even I’d imagine. And that’s what inspired me to write the book; to share what’s going on in this country with others, so that we can try and fix it and solve these problems.
What’s the most meaningful way your politics have shifted over time?
I’ve become concerned that many of our institutions are just not working as well as I thought they were. When you’re young, you think that – for example – college is universally a good idea. Now when I see that underemployment of college graduates is 44%, and people are loading up on record loans, and having trouble discharging the debt for years afterwards, now I’m more concerned about it Unfortunately, those views are shared by many Americans, where Americans are now seeing our institutions fail us.
Thank you for the conversation, Andrew.
Thank you, Shereen.