I've been wondering - and let me say, I've been beating the "Trump is a garbage person" drum since 2010 at least - to what extent Trump has actively impacted me. I'm not an immigrant and I don't know anyone detained at the border or have friends who know any detainee. I'm not a hotelier or otherwise in any type of business competition with Trump. I have one Iranian friend (his family fled and they would gladly take a dump into the ayatollah's mouth if he were hungry) and one friend who worked in helping people defect from North Korea, but ultimately those have turned out to be minor events. I have no idea what my taxes are but I assume I might have gotten a slight tax break. For all the worries about Supreme Court nominees and the sky is falling around that, abortion is still legal.

So, as much as I would dance on his grave if he were murdered, I have a hard time counting up my personal Trump harm index. And I bet 95% of blue checkers and slogerati are in the same boat as me.

OK, hold on. The “Lezzie Lads”? I’m sorry but there’s no boorishness comparison between the Bernie people and Warren’s backers. The Bros are 10x worse in every way than every other candidate’s hardcore supporters combined.

Are Bernie Bros REAL Berne Bros?
They sound like Haters or bots to me when
denigrating everyone else seems a Fool's errand...

But why on Earth would anyone try to
(horrifically) impersonate Bernie supporters?

What might possibly be in it, for them?

Yang is perhaps correct in identifying some of the working class' anxieties, but universal basic income (basically welfare) is very emphatically not what they want to hear and most would be downright offended by it. UBI might be like "objectively" a good idea in some sense but it's really bad politics, which pretty much sums up Yang and other tech-bro politicians.

(Also, honestly, the idea that automation is going to create a permanent unemployed class has been around since the spinning jenny, and it never happens because even though automation often eliminates specific jobs, all things being equal more productivity leads to more jobs not fewer. There's bumpy times ahead for certain industries for sure, but I've yet to see a particularly compelling argument as to why this time will be different.)

@deuce -- it's quite odd, schmacky -- I never see these BernieBros™ in my webberly excursions, including right here, belittling the locals/everyone in site -- perhaps they feel that task is already in good hands. Where do they lurk (in Droves, you say?), these days?

They might be entertaining, to while away a little time with...
One never knows.

@1, I think one of the great contradictions of our age is that even though politics has become near hysterical, we're entering now the second decade of pretty smooth sailing economically and geo-politically (as far as the US's direct interests are concerned at least.) I agree my personal Trump harm index is pretty low as well, but can you imagine what happens if there's another 9/11? Another 2008 market crash? Trump has been the proverbial good captain on smooth seas.

@8 I think the smooth seas are probably unrelated to Trump, I still would bet on him to make a stock market crash or terrorist attack strictly worse - he strikes me as the wrong person for any type of leadership position - he's fundamentally selfish; he has the "delegate authority, not responsibility" process backwards, he's disloyal, vain, petty. Basically an anti-leader.

@8, yeah definitely, I'm not saying smooth seas because of Trump, I'm saying that there haven't really been any particular crises that have come along that might challenge his leadership (or lack thereof) and would create consequences for people other than the vulnerable populations he delights in bullying.

@1,8,9,10,

I can relate. I'm a middle age-ish (40's), white, hetero male. Trump's policies haven't impacted me a great deal. I did see a small increase in my paychecks last year, however, I didn't get to deduct moving expenses (I did a cross country relocation for work) so the net result was that I lost roughly $500/$1,000 last year. Not terrible for me, but certainly not a stamp of approval either.

That said, I fully realize the privilege I was born into. I also realize that republicans play on short term gains for long term losses. I would gladly pay more in taxes to help those less fortunate, so long as everyone else in my position were required to do the same, and I vote accordingly. My personal trump harm index is low, but I'm not the only person on this planet.

STACKS ON TOP OF SS - PLEASE CHANGE!!! THAT IS A MAJOR MISTAKLE IN THIS OTHERWISE GREAT PIECE. Thank you.

Caps obvs intended. haha

I’m okay with President Yang. My first pick is still Bernie, but Yang would be fine by me.

Yang is still my first pick. And to say he's treat the presidency like an entry level position seems inaccurate. He went to Harvard, he was a lawyer, he worked with entrepreneurs for years, and he sees our problems today more clearly than any other candidate. He's an underdog for sure, but not writing off an entire half of the American electorate puts him in a much better position to succeed in the general election than anyone else in the primary from my perspective. What a shame that the media largely isn't covering him.

As a white cis lady dating a trans woman, Trump's policies have not directly impacted my life, but his emboldened supporters definitely have. I'm tired of hate groups rallying in my city. I'm tired of people intentionally misgendering my girlfriend. I'm tired of people in red hats making me jumpy. And after Charlottesville and the MAX attack here in Portland, I no longer feel safe peacefully protesting. So while Trump is not the source of all our problems, he has measurably made my life harder.

I am a homeless medically disabled 67-yr-old woman and I enthusiastically support Andrew Yang. The fastest growing homeless group is senior women. My monthly Social Security Retirement Benefit is not enough to live on. Yang’s $1K/mo “Freedom Dividend” (Universal Basic Income) is in ADDITION to my benefit, NOT INSTEAD of it. Until I qualified for my SS Retirement Benefit at age 66, I was living on Food Stamps and general assistance - for a combined total of about $400/mo! Again, not enough to live on. The reality for those of us who have had to rely on welfare programs, is that most of them do not provide nearly enough to live on AND are next to impossible to navigate the confusing and cumbersome system to qualify for and remain qualified. Before I became disabled and exhausted all of my resources, I was at the top of my class and worked more than full-time, for decades. Even so, like many women in my generation, I earned almost half of my male counterparts. And, since I am divorced, even though I was married for over 10 years to qualify to receive my ex-husband’s Social Security Retirement Benefit I only get half of his until he dies. Again: women are expected to live on half the amount of their ex-husband when the average amount is $1,400 meaning women get only $700 unless their earnings were more, which they weren’t for most either working full time or part time so they could care for the children or not at all because they were full time homemakers. Yang’s $1/mo would give me and many others our own bed in a room with dignity rather than being made to feel we are a burden or parasite on welfare. Even though I worked and paid taxes for decades, my value as a human being and shareholder in the largest economy the world has even known, should not depend solely upon my economic value; especially since most of my contribution has been as a mother, caregiver, volunteer, activist, etc. which is not even measured or counted. Most reporters are getting this wrong. Please do the research to know that Yang’s “Freedom Dividend” provides more relief than Sanders’ $15 hourly minimum wage; Warren’s $200/mo Social Security Benefit increase (have to qualify first - thru more inefficient bureaucracy); student loan debt forgiveness; etc. AND Yang also supports many of these other measures and more on top of “Raising the Floor” thru UBI as Andy Stern puts it. Most importantly, it puts real dollars into the hands of each of us that will stay to circulate in our communities, creating a sustainable “Trickle Up Economy” instead of the “Trickle Down” that has not worked for most of us in my 67 years. So, please don’t assume that those of us on welfare benefits will be worse off with Yang policies. Ask us. Meanwhile, watch the YouTube video of Yang Gang handing out $1K to strangers in Harlem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7crf0mzhws

Those that don’t think Trump has impacted your life just yet should be looking at the long game. We won’t lose rights all at once. It’s the proverbial frog boiling. Slowly your rights are being chipped away little bits at a time. Having someone else’s religion being used as a reason to discriminate is just one. Abortion rights have been reduced as has contraception. There is a good chance Roe will fall as will the ACA. Free speech and assembly as well as voting rights are under attack. There are dozens of lifetime judicial appointment of unqualified, political hacks that will last long after either Trump or McConnell (or many of us...) are dead. Business and environmental regs are being rewritten in the hundreds.

That minuscule tax cut you got? That’s going away in a few years. The changes in the law will remain taking away many deductions for working stiffs which will effectively will raise you taxes. The wealthy and corporate breaks remain permanent. Your employment protections are being rolled back and wages are stagnate compared to the amount of productivity of a worker. You’re working harder and more for the same amount of money.

Trump is a dangerous man. Don’t let the fact you may have a couple more bucks or that jackboots haven’t thrashed you yet allow you to lose you guard in recognizing the dangers of an authoritarian.

He is not dismantling anything only adding and giving a choice to life.....without choice to live from under the imposed dollar there is no freedom!! Thomas Paine an Early Forefather said,
"I am pleading with you it is a right not a charity to compensate every person for his natural inheritance to the system of landed property". People from the famous psychologist Erich Fromm to Martin Luther King to The conservative Milton Freeman and Richard Nixon to Stephan Hawkins have called for basic income! Contemporaries in the FB Ceo and cofounder, Remaining Apple Ceo, Andy Stern former head of the service workers union, Charles Murray a major conservative voice and author of Basic Income books, a plethora of Silicone Valley workers and executives the list goes on and on all call for basic income!! Time to wake up to what we are all owed and deserve!! So you think these legislators who get big government salaries and benefits on top of being millionaires to start and keep this imposed dollar going on the masses should tell us what we can and can not have!! Total farce!!! Really you journalists have to do a better job of speaking truth...….

Growing up in with a single disabled parent, I could tell she held her own. She had to hustle, robbing peter to pay paul just for me to grow up comfortably, making 80k working for a university with a HS diploma, to collecting disability checks at a 3rd her income, for the next 14 years of her life. I find out she had to take out loans against her house, and I'm not sure how much debt. And i think If we had UBI when I was 7, her little 26k disability would have been 38k, and she could have not put a lien on the house. and bequeathed a paid-off property on her passing. Because UBI would have been that comfort factor, so she could have paid for physical therapy, and not be partially atrophied from her stroke, went back to her job, maybe take the universities offer to pay for her degree, get a 30k raise and retired in 10 years. making 6 figures, and a really nice retirement plan. Like UBI is a game-changer, because people are closer to being homeless than they are to being a billionaire. And stacking non-poverty Benefits would allow and guide people to escape the welfare trap, and assist people with hard evidence barriers to earning stable
money.

Yang doesn't dismantle any safety nets, which aren't really working anyway but it's opt in, you can choose Ubi or keep your SSI, food stamps and housing.

@6 your index funds have flatlined since Trump? The major indexes are all up almost 50% (no thanks to Trump's crazy bullshit). What the hell are your funds indexing? Precious metals?

On another note I like Yang. He seems rational and not like an ego maniac psycho like the rest of them.

Rough story @19, your mother sounds like a great lady struggling like that to take care of you. Respect!

Your info about the Freedom Dividend is completely wrong. Please do more research than just asking questions of random people on Twitter before you spread misinformation like this. Yang2020.com has a nice page explaining everything about his Freedom Dividend proposal including which safety net programs it stacks with, and it stacks with several programs you specifically claim it does not stack with including social security disability and retirement benefits and housing assistance. No safety net programs will be dismantled. FD is opt-in only. Yang has done what upper class people like you never do: he talked to us, the people who live off the "safety net" you are all so concerned about preserving because you have no clue how inadequate and dysfunctional these programs are, but Yang listened. He is trying to fix the failed welfare system that you want to protect, and I am so mad that the people most critical of him are the ones with no skin in the game. Talk to the poor. Listen to people who live this stuff and our stress and pain will help you gain perspective on why UBI is more humane and effective and will finally let us try to improve our situation without worrying about losing everything and ending up homeless. Don't stand on the way of a man who did the hard work to truly understand the poor and the improved social safety net that people like me (disabled) desperately need. There are liberals trying to dismantle my safety net, but Yang is not one of them. The biggest threat to my future are the people who can't be bothered to even read Yang's FD policy summary page, people who dismiss his CEO experience in business and non-profit orgs by implying he is an entry level worker, and people who want to maintain the welfare status quo because they think those programs are working far better than they actually are. Yang is trying to help everyone, but for people stuck in your beloved "safety nets" he has a policy package that would literally eradicate our poverty and allow all of us room to grow and try to earn money doing whatever work we can manage. I'm fine with middle class and richer people not voting Yang but please stop using what you think is best for people like me as your reason to not support him. The FD will change my life for the better, whether y'all can understand that or not.

Yang won't win. But maybe if some of those supporting him learned about how to write in paragraphs they might be more successful and in life.

@11: "I would gladly pay more in taxes to help those less fortunate."

Then choose philanthropy. To think that paying more in tax to the general fund is going to help the less fortunate is not an accurate disposition.

I noticed the same thing too @28. Bots or low level staff volunteers combing the internet to control the discourse in comment sections.

As stated by others, one very important and big correction should be made to the article as it relates to people losing their existing disability benefits, social security with the proposed “freedom dividend” UBI by the Yang campaign:
Vets on disability would continue to receive their benefits on top of the $1,000 per month. Social Security retirement benefits stack with UBI.
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) based on earned work credits. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a means-tested program. You would be able to collect both SSDI and $1,000 a month. (Most people who are legally disabled receive both SSDI and SSI). Under the universal basic income, those who are legally disabled would have a choice between collecting SSDI and the $1,000, or collecting SSDI and SSI, whichever is more generous.
Even some people who receive more than $1,000 a month in SSI would choose to take the Freedom Dividend because it has no preconditions. Basic income removes these requirements and guarantees an income, regardless of other factors.

MukilteoYangGang! I am very excited that Yang is a choice in this election. I look forward to each American, learning about/from Yang. AndrewYangIntro.com I voted Trump16’ I’m interested in solutions, not left, not right Forward. Humanity First (Healthy Americans)

@6 Sounds like you live in California then? Or NY, NJ, IL, or CT?

Please correct the section about choosing between benefits! His proposal stacks on social security, disability, housing, medicaid, unemployment, and veteran assistance programs. He changed it to include more programs a few months back. It still does not stack with food stamps or TANF.

Katie, @30 is correct and it was really lazy of you not to take 20 seconds and look up this easily accessible information.

And I’m guessing people won’t be so keen on Yang’s UBI when they hear it comes with a 10% VAT.

Nice goes along way. I disagree with UBI. However, I would vote for Yang if he won the primary.

If it’s Biden, I’m voting Green.

@27,

@11: "I would gladly pay more in taxes to help those less fortunate."

Then choose philanthropy. To think that paying more in tax to the general fund is going to help the less fortunate is not an accurate disposition.

Actually, that's why I welcome global destruction via climate change. I want humans to be annihilated. Philanthropy? ha! what a waste of time! And taxes helping the needy? another waste of time. No, I want humans to die. Me, you, everyone. I want us all to die. that's all.

36,

You go first.

@36: But you'll never have the satisfaction of verifying that you and there rest of humankind were annihilated, because you'll never know that you existed in the first place. Hence, your fate is to be neurotic for eternity.

36,

The thing I don’t get is, here you are, posting all these calls for mass murder and genocide, and the Stranger staff do nothing about it. You’re openly cheering on murder.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve got Borderline Personality Disorder and this whole thing is just a desperate plea for attention or not, or maybe you’re serious and you’re going to gun everyone down on University Way in some delusional hope of sparking an apocalypse. If it’s the former, then rightfully everyone should call your bluff, and tell you to either get help or quit whining. If it’s the latter, we should report you to the police before you harm somebody.

The Stranger admins did close my former account after I’d posted a reply to one of these stupid rants of yours suggesting that if you’re really that suicidal you should quit whining and do whatever it is yo7 feel you need to do. It’s weird that someone standing up to you is considered offensive, but your endless rants calling for mass murder and cheering on people’s deaths are okay. Is the the Stranger or Stormfront? Because if the editors would suggest that your posts in favor of killing people are ok, but mine suggesting that it’s a bunch of bullshit are not, I gotta wonder when Tim Keck’s paper became a venue for genocidal maniacs posting calls for mass bloodshed?

Seattle is full of angst ridden attention whores. You’ve got no talent, you contribute nothing, all you post is a bunch of “me me me, everyone look at ME!” bullshit.

Fuck off. I mean that, sincerely, and from the deepest part of my soul. Please, fuck off. You and Griz.

41,

Serious. There’s nothing cute about posting rants about how you want everyone to die. I don’t care if you pretend it’s because you imagine yourself some glorious eco-hero like Urgutha or some delusional hero of the marginalized like Grizelda. If you’re calling for mass murder of any kind, it isn’t cute, it’s not some sign of how enlightened you are. It’s just a bullshit plea for attention. I know three year olds that throw more impressive tantrums than these two can come up with.

It’s yet another desperate plea for attention, like every one of their posts. It’s bullshit.

@Wandering Star. Urgurtha Forka's comment is tounge-in-cheek science fiction, like my reply @39 is.

You're overtly extrapolating his comment into "cheering on murder". Is that really what he said? No.

Urgurtha Forka is an outstanding, compassionate, hard working guy with a solid liberal disposition whose fun to tease and I wish I could give him a back rub via the internet.

Urgutha - I keep putting that in other "r"...

It’s a hard name to spell, admittedly.

Maybe I interpreted that too literally. If so, I want to apologize to the injured party.

I’m not certain the term liberal is the most appropriate in his case, however, as liberalism is the belief that the free market in conjunction with limited regulation is the best way to grow the economy, and that doesn’t seem to mirror his ideology. His is more like an extreme version of Deep Ecology.

While I strongly favor Deep Ecology, it’s the murder element that ticks me off. It’s nothing to joke about in an era where mass shootings have become a common occurrence. At best, it causes others such as myself to dismiss your arguments outright as the ratings of a kill crazed lunatic. At worst, it results in an uncomfortable visit from the authorities. Posting online that you want people to die is stupid. That’s the kind of thing the new-nazi’s do. We don’t need to imitate that kind of bullshit.

Neo not new. Spellcheck is awful.

Anyway, that’s the gist of it, I don’t like seeing people post about how they want to go all Columbine to play out their political vision. Twenty years ago, I’d have dismissed It as a joke, hyperbole, not being serious. Nowadays, when people shoot up everything from kindergartens to churches to malls to movie theatres, it’s just not a funny joke anymore. And if he’s doing it to get attention, you know, there’s good attention and then there’s bad attention. Sometimes, being an asshole in public isn’t cool, it’s just being an asshole.

@47: True. We need to be careful with our prose, especially when being provocative, tongue-in-cheek, coy, or otherwise unconventional.

48,

It’s also a matter of creativity and talent. The trope he used isn’t new, it’s overwrought, copies, derivative, worn out. Come up with something original, man. His brain is not a photocopier of ideas, it is capable of generating new concepts entirely his own. The mere recitation of cliche is beneath him, beneath all of us.

It’s like reciting the exact same joke over and over again for twenty years, and somehow expecting everyone to laugh whenever you deliver the punchline. The times have changed, and that kind of joke just isn’t funny anymore, and what’s more, even if it hadn’t, it’s not original enough to be funny anymore.

“Hey everybody, I’m hipster and edgy angst grunge puppy boy! Let’s wish death on the entire human species so I can show how ecologically woke I am!” Yeah, you know, circa 1995 that would have been an interesting thing to throw out there. Type O Negative made a song to that effect rig around that time for that reason. Now, it just makes him sound like he’s either a mass shooter or a clueless idiot who doesn’t realize that mass shootings are a problem these days.

@25 it's pretty bog-standard, we've got the same with Bernie people and the Warren-Has-a-Plan-For-That people and we had it with Hillary and Obama and Palin and w/ the women's march or Occupy.

I like Yang a lot, but he’s got one of Trump’s big flaws (one also shared by Bloomberg and Steyer and Buttigieg)—a lack of experience in the federal government.

Granted Trump pairs that lack of experience with a lack of interest in learning and inborn stupidity. Those three character traits have made him ineffective at achieving many of his policy goals (and thank goodness for that).

Still, even for an intelligent, motivated person, there’s a steep learning curve to becoming an effective president. This argument probably speaks best for Biden, but Warren and Sanders both have experience in the form of their time in the Senate (and in Warren’s case, her time setting up the CFPB under Obama).

I would be very disappointed, however, if any Democratic President failed to offer Yang a prominent place in his or her administration. I’d also strongly consider him for the position of Vice President, which would give him an opportunity to get that hands on experience and set him up as a future Presidential candidate.

Anyone who supports and understands new nuclear power technology and advocates it in a time where we've seen 60 year old designs fail (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile...) gets credibility points from me. Universal wage is also a hard concept to grasp, but one with a lot of potential.

Calling Yang unqualified due to inexperience show much more reverence for the field than I have. Compared to Biden, maybe. Bernie and Warren are leaders of causes and professional politicians who haven't had to govern a state.

Real Americans want a job not a handout. Only college educated white liberals terrified of getting a real job and having to work want free money.

I thought this was going to be about Pete Buttigieg.

For the life of me, I don't get why the Beltway Elites are all over him.

@54 Probably because I didn't study underwater basket weaving in college. That's who this $1000/month appeals to, the baristas with stupid tattoos and useless college degrees.

Working class Americans want jobs, not handouts.

@52 even given those, nuclear is still safer than extractive energy production. Coal numbers die and get sick, the ground is forever tainted, the air is ruined. Nuclear power is the air travel of energy

@51 that's a fair point and imo we need a prime minister rather then executive as our chief politician. We elect presidents based on policy ideals and personal charisma - not executive ability. That's the Senate's role! We need to reset our system so the right skills are in the right chair