Andrew Yang abandons progressives, sides with corporatist oligarchs

Andrew Yang has garnered the support of many voters who consider themselves politically progressive during his current bid to win the 2020 presidential election. Much of this has stemmed from his supposed embrace of several key progressive values: Medicare For All, rejecting Big Money and progressive taxation. However, it turns out that Yang has recently backtracked on all three of these fronts, putting his alleged progressive credentials into question.

Yang rejects Medicare For All, supports private insurance corporations

Yang, after claiming to support Medicare For All throughout his campaign is now stepping away from the two progressive Medicare For All bills currently in the House and the Senate which eliminates the private insurance industry’s ability to control the market for vital and basic medical services everyday Americans need to live a truly free life. He made this clear when he was asked if he supports the Medicare For All bill proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, also running for President, in the Senate. Yang responded by saying, “I support the spirit of what Bernie’s trying to accomplish. I do think that outlawing private insurance in a very short period of time is a bit too disruptive and I would not do it.”

This statement finally clarifies whether Yang sides with progressives, such as Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal or with the centrists, such as Presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden when it comes to reforming the American healthcare system. Rather than taking the progressive position of Medicare for All, Yang seems to be tilting more towards centrism. This means that Yang favors retaining the influence private insurance corporations have over the healthcare market by advocating for a less comprehensive and less ambitious healthcare plan.

These centrist plans, such as Beto O’Rourke’s preference, Medicare for America, or Buttigieg’s “Medicare for all who want it” will continue to allow the private insurance corporations to offer coverage to compete with a public option. This leaves the door wide open for the insurance corporations to later sabotage healthcare gains through the courts as well as through lobbying lawmakers. Also, these centrist-leaning plans would likely result in private insurance corporations pushing less healthy individuals onto the public option while keeping all of the profits from premiums paid by healthy individuals who require less healthcare services, essentially pushing the bulk of costs onto the American taxpayer. In a Jacobin opinion piece, Adam Gaffney described this as “essentially subsidizing the private insurance industry by socializing larger health risks.”

Yang denounces Big Money in politics, except for his own campaign

In another betrayal of the progressive agenda, Yang is now reversing his position on rejecting Big Money in politics by accepting support for his presidential campaign from a new Super PAC. Will Hailer, a former DNC operative, is now managing Math PAC, a super PAC dedicated solely to promoting Yang’s presidential campaign. This flies in the face of what most progressives consider to be an essential value to pledge to not accept super PAC money for electoral campaigns. This became a pillar of progressive politics and oftentimes a litmus test for progressives following the Sanders presidential campaign in 2016.

Now, some Yang apologists may counter that Sanders himself also benefits from the actions of super PACs. However, this argument is disingenuous and lacks nuance. The PACs which support Sanders, Our Revolution and National Nurses United for Patient Protection, are issues-based PACs which do not support only one candidate, unlike Math PAC. This is a key distinction for most progressive activists, including President of End Citizen’s United, Tiffany Muller who said, “The first day a candidate accepts the help of a single-candidate super PAC in the Democratic primary is the last day their campaign is truly a grassroots movement.” Additionally, the PACs which support Sanders are made up almost entirely of small individual donations, maintaining consistency with the Sanders campaign theme of being powered by the people and not the powerful elite.

On the other hand, many Yang supporters continue to make excuses for their candidate by saying that Yang cannot control those who unilaterally decide to start super PACs in order to promote Yang’s campaign agenda. Although it may be technically true that Yang has no direct control over the actions of these supporters, he does have the option of denouncing these actions and requesting they stop as Sanders did during his 2016 presidential campaign. However, instead of rejecting Big Money, Yang decided to embrace it when he said, “If it’s the case that we have the rules that we have, and people want to support my message and my campaign, given the system we have right now, they’re free to do so.” The problem is this will likely lead the way to the billionaires who had supported Yang during his venture capital career to influence his politics through unlimited contributions to Math PAC.

Yang’s UBI uses regressive taxation scheme

Although many progressives may be attracted to Yang’s UBI proposal due to its allegedly progressive redistributive intentions, the actual result of Yang’s plan would be detrimental to the most vulnerable in society due to the plan’s regressive taxation scheme. The Value Added Tax (VAT), the funding mechanism for Yang’s UBI program would be wide open to corporate avoidance, while the costs would be disproportionately felt by impoverished communities. Additionally, Yang’s proposal to not allow inmates to receive the UBI benefit would result in further racial inequality, due to an unequal criminal justice system that disproportionately targets people of color.

Yang exposed as corporatist oligarch

Not only does Yang’s reversal on these three key progressive pillars show that he is not a genuine progressive, it also betrays his allegiance to oligarchical and corporate powers. Backing tracking on Medicare For All benefits the private insurance corporations. Reversing on his no Big Money position opens Yang up to the influence of large corporate-linked billionaire donors. Regressive taxation policies, such as Yang’s UBI proposal, will exacerbate wealth inequality, ensuring the continued rule of oligarchy in America. For true progressives, there is no way supporting Yang for President can be an option.