The Pessimism of Andrew Yang’s Post-pandemic Politics
The former tech executive made a mark on the presidential campaign with his less-than-rosy view of the country’s future, and he still thinks it’s exactly what Americans need to hear.
We’re going to get through this, the politicians say. We’ll be stronger than ever, better than ever.
Except maybe we won’t. More than 50,000 Americans are already dead of the coronavirus. That sinking feeling you’ve probably had at some point during the past few weeks? Andrew Yang’s had that feeling for a while. He still sees the world through his cut-the-crap fatalism. (“We have to deal,” he told me last summer, when the world didn’t look this bad). His main mode is a sad but, to him, honest sense that the world isn’t getting better right now, and that everyone needs to start dealing with the consequences. This belief was at the core of his weirdly successful presidential campaign.
