I’ve never been good at math

By Emma Greenberg

Today we got to see presidential nominee, Andrew Yang, at his Iowa town hall. I, like many in our class, had a lot of perceptions of Yang and his #YangGang. As a Political Science major, I have always held the strong belief that a politician, not a businessman, should be President of the United States. In fact, I think we have seen with our current administration how much can go wrong when we attempt to run our country like a business. Additionally, the only policy I really knew about Yang was his policy on giving out a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 a month, and that he claimed to be the opposite of Donald Trump, citing the biggest difference you can get from Trump is “an Asian who likes math.” 

With this in mind, when I walked into the room and saw people in “MATH” hats and sweatshirts with Yang’s face on it, I was immediately cautious. The #YangGang reminds me of the quote by Shakespear “though she be but little she is fierce.” The close knit following of the nominee is smaller than that of other candidates, however, they are all extremely excited and on board with getting the tech businessman nominated at the caucus only 21 short days away. His supporters cite that the only person the current President has not gone after is Yang. They take this as a good sign, believing that Trump is afraid of Yang, although I am not sure if I agree. To be honest, I believe that it is because the President does not see Yang as a threat.

His supporters started singing “Happy Birthday” to welcome the candidate to the stage, and were all standing and cheering aggressively. In fact, there were many times Yang would pose a question and his supporters would instantly call out the correct response, without missing a beat. Yang discussed the theme that people are tired with the government, with being promised change that they never received. The son of immigrants, Yang embodies the idea of the American Dream and his supporters see that and they believe that he will help them achieve their American Dream too. Yang was able to explain the problems that plague America in a different way than I’ve heard other candidates. He uses humor and his business background, explaining what he learned while working with his non-profit. He described the 2016 election as Americans “taking a bet” on a huge change. Yang believes, after looking at the numbers, that Donald Trump won because of the manufacturing jobs that were lost in many swing states. 

Taking hits at organizations like the DNC and Amazon, he reminded people how he is “barely a politician,” and that he too can bring major change to the county. He repeated that “he’s a numbers guy” and how that will benefit his campaign. 

Andrew Yang brought up many interesting points during his speech. He promised change and he believes that the way to do this is doing the math, examining the numbers, and providing a better life. However, I still cannot tell you much about Yang’s policies and I still believe that we need a politician in the White House. Even if Yang’s policies are something I would support I believe that he would struggle in implementing the heavily promised change. I believe we need someone who knows how to work policy through Congress, someone who can work with their peers and get bills passed. By the end of his speech, however, I really understood how people who are tired of broken promises like Yang. The #YangGang might be all in for Andrew, but for me, something still doesn’t add up.