Thanks Andrew Yang — Vieje Piauwasdy

I just read an op-ed on CNN titled Thank You, Andrew Yang by Jeff Yang and I felt the need to write about it. Andrew Yang announced today that he was suspending his Presidential campaign.

I first heard about Andrew Yang on Joe Rogan’s podcast. I read the description of the pod and instantly declared him to be a crazy socialist. I listened to the full pod with every intention of trashing him and dragging him along the mud to my friends and inner circle

I finished the podcast and not only did I like the guy, but he jumped to the top of my candidate list. Yang needed a miracle to win the Presidency and no one including myself ever thought that he would be a serious candidate.

That is not the point however. Andrew Yang represented something different.

Yes, he was Asian American and I’m not going to lie and say that did not have a minor impact. As an Asian American, I would love to see a fellow Asian American in the white house one day.

However, the thing that impressed me most about Andrew Yang was his practicality and his thought leadership on tech among his democratic candidates.

Yang was the only candidate to understand the coming of robots and automation. People will be out of jobs in 10 years. Yang was not afraid to preach that.

He understood that the issue with big tech companies is, well not the companies in itself, but the data they controlled.

I don’t know Universal Basic Income (UBI) will ever work. It tethers on socialism and I am a believer that if you give a little, it may be too much of a slippery slope for us to stop. But if Yang was running it, I would entertain it and be open to trying it.

The unfortunate reality is that Yang may have been too intelligent to appeal to the masses of America. As we saw in 2016, the uneducated unfortunately dictated the course of the election and led to our current “President.”

I’m not sure if Andrew Yang will be a candidate in 2024, but his legacy is set in stone. If he does make a run, I’ll be there to follow and support him. He paved the path. Thanks Andrew Yang.