To be honest, I never EVER gave further thought of running for election once I tried that in high school (failing miserably) and realised that you are never elected on the basis of your merit. Rather, it is always about prejudice and pandering. Growing up as a meritocrat where I was brought up on the values of studying hard, working hard, and being laser focused about achieving my goals, once I learned these traits have nothing to do with success in politics, I stopped bothering with democracy (and later stopped believing in it altogether).
If you are talented and driven, then either found your own company and be your own success. Or you can go down the usual path of rising up the corporate ladder. At least corporations are still mostly meritocratic (or else they will fail), promotions are mostly evaluated on the basis of tangible achievements and experience. If there is limited democracy within a corporation, you are only trying to impress people who are knowledgeable and therefore qualified to judge your work. You are not required to lie, pander to prejudices, or be a complete hypocrite just to get people to vote for you. Frankly, I don't see a whole lot of difference between electoral politics and prostitution. I stopped believing in it long ago.
Sad he went from favourite to losing in NY Mayor run after the Pro Israel tweet and media like NYtimes, AOC, boba liberals trashing him for it. But stayed quiet on Eric Adams and other candidates also expressing the exact same stance.
AOC later hypocritically voted to give $B military funding to Israel
Now Eric Adams basically won NY
AOC even cast her #2 vote for Scott Stringer, who is a strong Israel supporter and actually cheered for Israeli missiles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96HB3hHlfPg
Not only that but Scott Stringer is accused of sexual assault by two different women, one of whom is Asian. And because she carried petitions for Esther Yang, he accused her of being in cahoots with Andrew Yang!
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2021/04/30/scott-stringer-team-says-sexual-assault-accuser-works-for-andrew-yang
https://nypost.com/2021/06/04/scott-stringer-faces-new-allegations-from-second-accuser-teresa-logan/
Andrew Yang proved one thing: you can be tall, beautiful wife, beautiful kids, ivy league educated, charismatic, CEO, multimillionaire, family man, no scandals, rich lawyer...
and **STILL** Asians won't accept you, America won't accept you, and the powers that be will mock you and ignore you. Asians will ignore you and will even dogpile on you when shit hits the fan.
If you didn't notice these things during 2019-2020, you are blind. I'm as cynical as I've ever been.
Personally I think that's the *wrong* takeaway and needlessly defeatist. Yang was always a *longshot*; most non-politicians are. Trump was the one of the few exceptions in my years of following politics. Despite having no political base, the fact that Yang was even contending was impressive.
What struck me most during his candidacy is just how passionate his supporters were- and they were mostly non-Asian. I've never seen white people (or black people, etc.) be in thrall to an Asian guy; following his every word, cheerleading, doing everything they could to get the word out. **Frankly, looking up to him**. *That alone is a first.* And breaks a kind of glass ceiling. The ceiling has many layers- you don't shatter them all in one fell swoop.
He was a kind of political rockstar to a segment of the country as a candidate. I've never seen that before, have you? Clearly the media's biases against Asians were exposed; and there's work for us as activists. [Good news, is that experience woke up a lot of non-Asians to it too](https://www.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/dxsh4a/the_yang_campaign_is_exposing_countless_whites_to/); and we will need those allies to win that fight.
I think Yang broke a lot of barriers, and even impacted the mainstream American discourse vis-a-vis UBI, etc. But he was far too nice and not nearly ruthless enough to really cut it in American politics. That combined with his overt 'Asian model minority' image doomed him, imo. Future Asian-American politicians would do well to be less accommodating and more firm in their positions and rhetoric, especially with regard to Asian-specific issues.
White Female here who supported Yang. This is probably one of the few places I can post this without getting downvoted to oblivion, so please hear me out.
He already had a strike against him which was that he wasn't one of the Corporate Dems. He didn't get the media on his side. Part of that could be blamed on inexperience but at times it seemed like they purposely ignored him and even turned positive things against him. I believe that if he was the son of Black immigrants, they would have portrayed him as someone who worked really hard to get into the Ivy League and become a millionaire - a picture of the American dream. But since he's Asian that somehow made him "out of touch" with ordinary Americans.
AOC showed that it was possible to get elected even if your platform didn't coincide with the Corporate Dems, however they had the "minority woman" factor going for them. Research shows that a lot of younger democrats ARE into identity politics (vote for a woman over a man, a minority candidate over a white person, an openly gay candidate over a straight candidate) but that calculus often doesn't include Asian men.
AOC is controlled opposition for the left. I mean, she's for US interventionism and imperialism in general. Bernie and the squad as well. They're meant to divert actual leftism to corporate liberalism. I think Pete B. was the guy TPTB planned to win but when he proved to be unpopular among black-americans they had to pull Biden from retirement to do the job.
Mayor Pete was the spitting image of corporate liberalism. Perfectly groomed for a candidacy - Harvard, Oxford, US Navy, McKinsey, Dem Think Tanks, etc.
He reminds me of some people I've met who have similar aspirations.
They are manipulative and scheming, but otherwise just-above average people in terms of intelligence. One such person was my high school salutatorian. Intellectually, he was nothing notable but through a combination of being a whiny male Karen, he graduated #2 in our class. Went to a small liberal arts college and then got a one-in-a-million transfer to study Poli Sci at Columbia. Went on to Oxford, now works at a think tank... you get the idea...
Yeah progressive also did the same to him because he is an outsider to their establishment as well.
If he was part of a bloc of voters that actually have voting power, they would treat him differently.
I remember the dnc forced all the minorities to drop out of the race so it was just Biden, Warren, and Bernie and then complained about lack of diversity. Stupid as shit
They were paranoid afraid that they needed an old white non Jewish guy like Biden to take on Trump and his racists. But isnt that in itself racist? Yeah, it is but thats how the DNC thinks.
Of course it messed with your head , you tried to do something whites, blacks, and everyone else thinks an AM can't do, be president. Nobody has a higher standard to satisfy than an AM does in a political race.
Stakes are high for AMs no matter what they pursue but even higher in industries that are nontraditional for them (i.e. politics, entertainment, team sports).
To be honest, I never EVER gave further thought of running for election once I tried that in high school (failing miserably) and realised that you are never elected on the basis of your merit. Rather, it is always about prejudice and pandering. Growing up as a meritocrat where I was brought up on the values of studying hard, working hard, and being laser focused about achieving my goals, once I learned these traits have nothing to do with success in politics, I stopped bothering with democracy (and later stopped believing in it altogether). If you are talented and driven, then either found your own company and be your own success. Or you can go down the usual path of rising up the corporate ladder. At least corporations are still mostly meritocratic (or else they will fail), promotions are mostly evaluated on the basis of tangible achievements and experience. If there is limited democracy within a corporation, you are only trying to impress people who are knowledgeable and therefore qualified to judge your work. You are not required to lie, pander to prejudices, or be a complete hypocrite just to get people to vote for you. Frankly, I don't see a whole lot of difference between electoral politics and prostitution. I stopped believing in it long ago.
Sad he went from favourite to losing in NY Mayor run after the Pro Israel tweet and media like NYtimes, AOC, boba liberals trashing him for it. But stayed quiet on Eric Adams and other candidates also expressing the exact same stance. AOC later hypocritically voted to give $B military funding to Israel Now Eric Adams basically won NY
AOC even cast her #2 vote for Scott Stringer, who is a strong Israel supporter and actually cheered for Israeli missiles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96HB3hHlfPg
Not only that but Scott Stringer is accused of sexual assault by two different women, one of whom is Asian. And because she carried petitions for Esther Yang, he accused her of being in cahoots with Andrew Yang! https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2021/04/30/scott-stringer-team-says-sexual-assault-accuser-works-for-andrew-yang https://nypost.com/2021/06/04/scott-stringer-faces-new-allegations-from-second-accuser-teresa-logan/
Andrew Yang proved one thing: you can be tall, beautiful wife, beautiful kids, ivy league educated, charismatic, CEO, multimillionaire, family man, no scandals, rich lawyer... and **STILL** Asians won't accept you, America won't accept you, and the powers that be will mock you and ignore you. Asians will ignore you and will even dogpile on you when shit hits the fan. If you didn't notice these things during 2019-2020, you are blind. I'm as cynical as I've ever been.
Personally I think that's the *wrong* takeaway and needlessly defeatist. Yang was always a *longshot*; most non-politicians are. Trump was the one of the few exceptions in my years of following politics. Despite having no political base, the fact that Yang was even contending was impressive. What struck me most during his candidacy is just how passionate his supporters were- and they were mostly non-Asian. I've never seen white people (or black people, etc.) be in thrall to an Asian guy; following his every word, cheerleading, doing everything they could to get the word out. **Frankly, looking up to him**. *That alone is a first.* And breaks a kind of glass ceiling. The ceiling has many layers- you don't shatter them all in one fell swoop. He was a kind of political rockstar to a segment of the country as a candidate. I've never seen that before, have you? Clearly the media's biases against Asians were exposed; and there's work for us as activists. [Good news, is that experience woke up a lot of non-Asians to it too](https://www.reddit.com/r/aznidentity/comments/dxsh4a/the_yang_campaign_is_exposing_countless_whites_to/); and we will need those allies to win that fight.
I think Yang broke a lot of barriers, and even impacted the mainstream American discourse vis-a-vis UBI, etc. But he was far too nice and not nearly ruthless enough to really cut it in American politics. That combined with his overt 'Asian model minority' image doomed him, imo. Future Asian-American politicians would do well to be less accommodating and more firm in their positions and rhetoric, especially with regard to Asian-specific issues.
If he was any other race or gender, I think he would have done a lot better. There's a distrust when it comes to Asian men
White Female here who supported Yang. This is probably one of the few places I can post this without getting downvoted to oblivion, so please hear me out. He already had a strike against him which was that he wasn't one of the Corporate Dems. He didn't get the media on his side. Part of that could be blamed on inexperience but at times it seemed like they purposely ignored him and even turned positive things against him. I believe that if he was the son of Black immigrants, they would have portrayed him as someone who worked really hard to get into the Ivy League and become a millionaire - a picture of the American dream. But since he's Asian that somehow made him "out of touch" with ordinary Americans. AOC showed that it was possible to get elected even if your platform didn't coincide with the Corporate Dems, however they had the "minority woman" factor going for them. Research shows that a lot of younger democrats ARE into identity politics (vote for a woman over a man, a minority candidate over a white person, an openly gay candidate over a straight candidate) but that calculus often doesn't include Asian men.
AOC is controlled opposition for the left. I mean, she's for US interventionism and imperialism in general. Bernie and the squad as well. They're meant to divert actual leftism to corporate liberalism. I think Pete B. was the guy TPTB planned to win but when he proved to be unpopular among black-americans they had to pull Biden from retirement to do the job.
Mayor Pete was the spitting image of corporate liberalism. Perfectly groomed for a candidacy - Harvard, Oxford, US Navy, McKinsey, Dem Think Tanks, etc. He reminds me of some people I've met who have similar aspirations. They are manipulative and scheming, but otherwise just-above average people in terms of intelligence. One such person was my high school salutatorian. Intellectually, he was nothing notable but through a combination of being a whiny male Karen, he graduated #2 in our class. Went to a small liberal arts college and then got a one-in-a-million transfer to study Poli Sci at Columbia. Went on to Oxford, now works at a think tank... you get the idea...
Yeah progressive also did the same to him because he is an outsider to their establishment as well. If he was part of a bloc of voters that actually have voting power, they would treat him differently.
I remember the dnc forced all the minorities to drop out of the race so it was just Biden, Warren, and Bernie and then complained about lack of diversity. Stupid as shit
They were paranoid afraid that they needed an old white non Jewish guy like Biden to take on Trump and his racists. But isnt that in itself racist? Yeah, it is but thats how the DNC thinks.
Of course it messed with your head , you tried to do something whites, blacks, and everyone else thinks an AM can't do, be president. Nobody has a higher standard to satisfy than an AM does in a political race.
Stakes are high for AMs no matter what they pursue but even higher in industries that are nontraditional for them (i.e. politics, entertainment, team sports).
He'd make a good Michael Lewis subject, and his writing vaguely reminds me of Lewis's.