Who is Andrew Yang?
Sacha Lecca.
Andrew Yang is the unlikely insurgent of the 2020 Democratic presidential field.
A former test-prep executive and nonprofit leader, Yang in many ways couldn’t be more different from the rest of the pack. From his flagship policy of giving every American adult $1,000 a month — a “Freedom Dividend,” he calls it — and his warnings that robots and AI will render millions of jobs obsolete, from his internet-first campaign and knack for creating viral moments like crowdsurfing at a candidate forum, Yang has created a small but growing movement, the Yang Gang, that has propelled him past senators, governors, and members of Congress.
I spent a few weeks on the road with Yang this summer to see what this viral Democrat was all about. That story is below. More recently, I wrote a sequel to my Yang profile, titled “Inside the Making of Andrew Yang 2.0,” after his campaign raised an impressive $10 million in late summer. You can read that follow-up here.
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‘I Came From the Internet’: Inside Andrew Yang’s Wild Ride
Embedded with the rogue Democratic presidential contender and his rabid online following
Rolling Stone | July 19, 2019
Ah, the smell of democracy. The sour tang of fish and human sweat fills the air on a heat-stroke-hot Friday night in June. The 2020 presidential circus has pulled into Columbia, South Carolina, for Congressman Jim Clyburn’s “World Famous Fish Fry.” Up onstage, the candidates appear one by one like pageant contestants, donning royal blue Clyburn T-shirts, no exceptions (except Bernie Sanders, apparently). Each is allotted a “generous minute” to kiss Clyburn’s ring and abase themselves before several thousand fish-eating voters in this crucial primary state.
Clyburn, the third-highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives and party boss of South Carolina politics, introduces the candidates. When Andrew Yang, the anti-politician of the 2020 race with a cult online following known as the Yang Gang, bounds onstage well after 10 o’clock, the crowd erupts before Clyburn says a word.
AN-DREW YANG! AN-DREW YANG!
Many of the 20-plus other candidates have come and gone with barely a cheer. The sum total of applause for the representatives and governors on hand pales in comparison to Yang’s welcome. Even stone-faced Jim Clyburn can’t resist a smile.
Yang pumps a fist into the air and takes the microphone.
“HELLO, SOUTH CAROLINAAAAAAA!” he yells.
Yang is here, he tells the crowd, “to solve the biggest challenge of our time.”