Recently on an episode of the Ben Shapiro Sunday Special, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang sat down with Shapiro to discuss his campaign’s messages ranging from automation to his most controversial policy stance of Universal Basic Income.
Yang has made inroads with many former Trump supporters and working-class Democrats who fear that automation, corporate special interests, and outsourcing will remove them from the workforce and make them irrelevant.
In 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump spoke directly to this segment of the American populace who felt they were cannon fodder for the future political landscape, and through tax deals and tariffs, Trump ensured them they would get to keep their job in his economy whereas Hillary and many beltway academics snidely told miners in West Virginia to “learn to code.”
Understanding the pain of the American worker was key to Trump’s victory in working-class blue states, but this is also why outsider candidate and businessman Andrew Yang has been able to go from obscure, fringe candidate to one of the most interesting candidates of this cycle.
Yang’s respect for the capitalist system combined with his dystopian outlook of the automated future is what is creating a similar coalition to what we saw mobilize the effort to strike against establishment politics in both parties and take him to the White House. While Trump, Yang, and dare I say even Bernie Sanders may identify the issue Americans fear of the future, they often ignore the sensible solutions right before them.
Instead of tariffs, protectionist policies, or new and/or bigger government programs, the answer is more freedom in every sense of the word. Eliminating many of the burdensome and confiscatory income taxes placed on the middle and working class would return a sense of pride and economic freedom to millions of Americans.
Secondly, eliminating barriers to earn an income are key to individual free enterprise since most occupational licensures and certifications are less about occupational safety and more of a way to keep competition out of the market.
America didn’t become the richest and most industrious country in the world simply because of good opportunities and resources, it did because of the unfettered and unrestricted nature of its number one resource and export; the ingenuity of its people who see what others deem as nothing and turn it into profit and a way to change all our lives for the better. As cliche as it sounds, the answer is simply more freedom, less government.
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