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No_Recommendation929 t1_j267iy2 wrote

Unpopular opinion in this sub: Yang was the best candidate. But the media had the knives out for him and some people swallowed the xenophobic lies hook line and sinker.

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mowotlarx t1_j26mhf3 wrote

Yang came in 4th place. Despite beginning the race with the most name recognition. He was a bad candidate. The first time he ever voted in a NYC mayoral primary and election was for himself despite living here almost two decades. He never once participated in local politics or elections. I don't know how anyone could take him seriously.

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No_Recommendation929 t1_j26nabp wrote

To my immigrant ears, this somewhat translates to “Yang did not pay his dues to the establishment”…which is not necessarily a bad thing? It doesn’t help all the attacks calling him “not a real New Yorker” when he’s lived here for more than twenty years.

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mowotlarx t1_j26ng3q wrote

>To my immigrant ears,

Oh give me a fucking break with this. There are immigrant politicians in this city who have always voted and participated in elections. And they went on to get elected and fight like hell for their community. Yang has no excuse. He never showed any interest in this city or in his own neighborhood. That's the reason many people didn't even know he lived here - he was a non entity in local politics and policy. It's embarrassing you can't see him for the phony he is.

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No_Recommendation929 t1_j26o05c wrote

And how’s that status quo working out given that we are on a thread about…more blatant corruption from the Adams administration? The De Blasio—Adams years have been a disaster.

I care a lot more about whether someone votes than whether they would be a competent administrator and effective leader. I think there’s a valid argument against Yang as a CEO and campaign leader, where he gave multiple competing executive titles to different people ( MLK III, Neha Sasha Ahuja, some other political consultant whose name I forgot). But the voting argument appealed only to a small amount of activists who were distraught that their political machine could be disrupted by someone who launched his political career from a podcast. Ross Barkan explained Yang’s threat clearly:

“First, let’s pause for a moment and reflect on what it would mean if, indeed, Yang wins the June 22nd Democratic primary and coasts in the general election against nominal Republican opposition. He will have demonstrated the hollowness of most political institutions in the five boroughs. An entrepreneur who got famous running for president and hardly bothered to vote in New York at all, Yang was able to capture, in a matter of months, constituencies that ladder-climbing political lifers could not, despite their many attempts. It only took four months or so for Yang to completely lock up the Hasidic vote in Borough Park, Brooklyn, for example, despite the fact that Adams and Stringer have been pandering to this community for years, and Stringer once cheered on rocket attacks on Gaza. That work, clearly, was for naught. Yang gave ground on all their issues to a distressing degree, particularly on BDS and Palestine, but most Democrats have been doing that for a while. The Hasidic leaders are a pragmatic bunch and they clearly see the writing on the wall. This Yang guy, who they had barely heard of before January, might be going places.”

And yes, the xenophobia against Asian-American candidates from the white establishment is real. Look at how NPR received Wu’s win in the much better run Boston: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/16/1055972179/boston-first-black-mayor

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mowotlarx t1_j270lwh wrote

I can't take anyone's political opinion seriously when they don't think it's important whether their candidate of choice has ever voted.

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permtemp t1_j26rtbj wrote

That's an unpopular opinion because Andrew Yang is a moron. His entire platform is UBI, which he has no idea how to scale, and Venture for America, which is a total failure and has less total participants over the life of the program than he promised would be the annual participation numbers.

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DifficultyNext7666 t1_j285fkd wrote

I'm not sure how being a moron disqualifies anyone from being NYC mayor unfortunately

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sutisuc t1_j26jdiz wrote

No he was not

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No_Recommendation929 t1_j26jk5j wrote

I said it was an unpopular opinion lol

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sutisuc t1_j26jpzy wrote

That’s true but it’s both unpopular and incorrect.

Jesus he blocked me over that?

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lilleff512 t1_j27i47w wrote

I like Yang, I supported him very hard for his presidential run, but he absolutely was not the best candidate for mayor. Was he a better candidate than Adams? Sure, I can probably agree with that. Better than the rest of the field? No, definitely not. I definitely agree with your point about the media though, and I would say that their intense focus on Yang let Adams skate through the entire primary without being properly scrutinized.

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Grass8989 t1_j26bgml wrote

He was, but progressives “cancelled” him for making the “radical” comment that mentally ill men shouldn’t be allowed to wander the streets assaulting Asian women.

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Maximum_Pianist5733 t1_j26dmrw wrote

Kathryn Garcia would have gotten the job done

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Grass8989 t1_j26dw0k wrote

Possibly, but the fact that she pretty much only resonated with wealthy NYers was a bit concerning. Adams had the poor/working class PoC vote which gave him the edge, as seen by the primary breakdown: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-nyc-mayoral-analysis/

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srpokemon t1_j26vmn9 wrote

dont read this guys post submission history

edit: why are you a four year old account who has only started commenting less than a year ago with more than 10 comments a day, with every comment being related to biking, crime, or political candidates?

and almost every comment is in nyc or newyorkcity

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No_Recommendation929 t1_j2789nv wrote

Do you run your HOA board? https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/planet-of-cops

“The woke world is a world of snitches, informants, rats. Go to any space concerned with social justice and what will you find? Endless surveillance. Everybody is to be judged. Everyone is under suspicion. Everything you say is to be scoured, picked over, analyzed for any possible offense. Everyone’s a detective in the Division of Problematics, and they walk the beat 24/7. You search and search for someone Bad doing Bad Things, finding ways to indict writers and artists and ordinary people for something, anything. That movie that got popular? Give me a few hours and 800 words. I’ll get you your indictments. That’s what liberalism is, now — the search for baddies doing bad things, like little offense archaeologists, digging deeper and deeper to find out who’s Good and who’s Bad. I wonder why people run away from establishment progressivism in droves.”

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Grass8989 t1_j270fre wrote

Who are you stalking me? What relevance does that have to this conversation?

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No_Recommendation929 t1_j26dkdj wrote

The progressives cancelled him for condemning Hamas. The classic 2-for-1 xenophobia and antisemitism special. Don’t forget both AOC and Wiley refused to meet with Jewish organizations.

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permtemp t1_j26rkl2 wrote

Serious question, but why does anyone need to meet with Jewish organizations? Does anyone meet with Mongolian, Indian, Guatemalan, or Cambodian organizations?

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lilleff512 t1_j27hze3 wrote

There are 1.6 million Jewish people in NYC which has a total population somewhere between 8 and 9 million people in total.

Technically speaking, nobody ever needs to meet with any minority groups. But if you're trying to win an election for public office, it's probably a good idea to do so if that minority group is significant enough in size. Like looking at your list, I would say that someone should meet with an Indian organization (200,000+ in NYC), but probably not a Guatemalan (70k in the whole state), Mongolian, or Cambodian (can't find population figures for those groups) organization. In lieu of a Guatemalan, Mongolian, or Cambodian organization, they should meet with a Hispanic/Latino or Asian organization.

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No_Recommendation929 t1_j26sw1q wrote

From a civics point of view, no, there is no obligation to meet with these organizations. I do think that candidates should meet with all of them. I’ve also recently heard a good argument that to some extent, Native American tribes get better representation because they actually have elected leaders who are politically accountable ( through the elections) to the communities they claim to represent—-as opposed to a patchwork of self-appointed “leaders”

Nevertheless, public snubs determine whose concerns are to be taken seriously and who should be shunned or scapegoated. Jews have been kicked out of practically every European and middle eastern country—-and many of us are sensitive to pogroms coming to America ( we’ve already seen pogroms in Newark and South Boston, where the Jewish communities were ethnically cleansed in the late 60s)

For example of how snubbing Jewish leaders contributes to anti-semitism, you have the example of CUNY which is a hotbed of harassment for Jewish students and faculty. When the city council called the CUNY president for a meeting, he just snubbed them ( https://nypost.com/2022/06/30/cuny-boss-a-no-show-as-jewish-students-decry-anti-semitism/ ) tacitly allowing harassment of Jewish students at cuny.

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permtemp t1_j26tm09 wrote

I'm not trying to say that the Jewish community doesn't have legitimate concerns (as does every community), but the idea that if a candidate doesn't kow-tow to a minority community means that they're all of a sudden "anti" said community just doesn't sit right with me. I don't think Andrew Yang is anti-Jewish (the same way I don't think he's anti Cambodian or anti Indian or anti Nepalese)....I just think he's a buffoon with half-baked ideas.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_j27hu64 wrote

Meeting Jewish organizations would be going above and beyond.

If AOC and the likes just stopped with the antisemitism, that would be a great start. Not a very high bar, but it’s a start.

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