With my view on his economics out of the way, I am as certain as I can be that Andrew Yang is no fascist, no white nationalist. For why, it might be best to look at him talk about "Why Asian Americans Need to get involved in Politics."
"And one thing that scares the heck out of me, is that this country is heading towards becoming majority minority by 2045. There's a very happy notion in some quarters that the country will just get more tolerant as it gets more diverse. They just figure the math will take care of it. If you have enough diversity, people will just have to get along. UNFORTUNATELY, that is not the way things play out if you look at historical examples. There are very very few examples in human history of a dominant racial or ethnic group giving up its dominance over time. That actually is not normal. So what you can see in this country is an increasingly insecure white majority becoming more and more hostile. Truly.
And who do you think is going to be the boogy man of the next 10 to 20 years? Who is going to be the great rival to the United States in the eyes of American society?
...China, that's right. And so what do you think the attitude is going to be over time for the shrinking insecure white majority that's losing their jobs for... let's say Chinese Americans or Asian Americans? I think we are one generation away from falling into the same camp as the Jews who were attacked in Pittsburg.
We are probably one generation away from Americans shooting up a bunch of Asians saying damn the Chinese because we'll be in a new Cold War with China. That is the great fear I have for my two sons, 6 and 3, as they grow up in this country."
...I'm pretty sure Andrew Yang is not a white nationalist. I am sure he is a very concerned minority American father with no patience for skirting political correctness to avoid talking about the real dynamics of tribal behavior that we see in our observable reality.
One of my favorite friends to talk politics with is a Trump Supporter (friends from college, neither of us had strong political views at the time). He is also a Chinese/Japanese American man like me, and he's recently moved here to Japan without speaking a lick of Japanese because he believes that a rise of white nationalism is unavoidable, and he doesn't want to make his future in the United States-- he wants to be "with people who look like him.” He likes Steve Bannon, I like Thomas Frank and Noam Chomsky... but it’s always surprising on how much we find ourselves agreeing on.
If we talk politics though, every time I want to argue economics, he always wants to bring it back to tribalism, and he always challenges me about whether it's actually possible for a diverse multi-cultural state to work for the people and work for democracy.
"Dude, all the socialist ideas you love-- how many of them ALREADY actually exist right here, in Japan? Single payer healthcare, robust infrastructure everywhere, representation on corporate boards of directors for workers? Even the right wing LDP's tax policy is massively pro-worker. Why do you think that is?
And would you say Japan is better described as a Socialist country? Or an ethno-nationalist one?"
...and his point is difficult to argue. The Japanese people are much less engaged in politics, much less active in holding their government to task... and yet we have single payer healthcare, we have great infrastructure, estate taxes start at 100k not 5 million, inequality is pitiful compared to the US, and there's strong unions and representation on boards of directors for labor everywhere. But why? Why doesn't Abe's right wing nationalist party not have to be held to political account on domestic issues? (He’s a freakin’ neocon on foreign policy though...)
...the simple fact of the matter is it's because they're radical nationalists. They're racists, but's because they believe the Japanese are a chosen people of the sun god or whatever that crap is... but because they believe in that tribal vision, they do work for the people even when the people aren't paying attention. And my friend says I am insane for teaching my daughters English or thinking about moving back to the US.
My friend chose to run away, he decided that humans could not overcome tribalism or be held to a higher standard. Andrew Yang is choosing to go the other way.
"If we want people to be more logical, to be more reasonable, we have to get the boot of economic insecurity off of their throats."
He often says if we want to win over tribalism, if we want to win over division, we have to get people out of a mindset of austerity, and into a mindset of abundance. And that's why he's pushing UBI, Medicare for All, and other policies-- to give the people a shot of anti-austerity.
Yang may have appeared on Sam Harris, but his views of the world look a lot more like two other members of the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW)... specifically,
he sounds like the the 2 most progressive IDW members, the Weinstein Brothers, Bret and Eric Weinstein.
His views on tribalism, race, and their connection to economics sounds like the younger brother, evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein:
(Here Bret Weinstein describes the memetic layer in human evolution, how evolutionary triggers to austerity are connected to re-emergence of fascism, and why evolutionary forces in free markets always leads to the demise of benevolent firms— whatever your thoughts on the IDW, this vid is ABSOLUTELY worth the 30 mins)
Weinstein posits that humans are creatures addicted to growth-- growth comes from frontiers of 3 types: 1) Frontiers of land (new resources) (2) Frontiers of technology (better utilization of resources) (3) Frontiers of other tribes... seizing the resources of the other.
Weinstein says that humans can be incredibly moral a collaborative creatures... we have that programming for generosity because it's advantageous in times of plenty, where frontiers of types 1 and 2 create abundance best utilized through cooperation instead of tribalism.
But humans can be incredibly evil and terrible creatures as well... we have programming for tribalism and war, and it almost always has to do with pursuing frontier 3, and is most strongly activated by a sense of austerity. Andrew Yang is looking at the age of Trump, and yes he's looking at those suicide rates increasing most rapidly in middle-aged white men, he's looking at the social deterioration-- and yes, he's looking at how austerity is making it easier and easier for white nationalists and even just populist nationalists to stoke that tribalism.
He is trying to fix that-- and in the process of doing so, I have no issue with him talking about the soaring rates of drug overdose and suicide amongst middle age white men with empathy, and how it's connected to economic insecurity-- what happened to the manufacturing workers in the era of Reganomics, and what is about to happen to the Truck Drivers.
Andrew Yang is a candidate on the right side of history here. While Bernie and his socialist revolution mission is the best cure in the medicine cabinet, I would say that if you are trying to expunge facism, Yang is a much much better remedy than a neoliberal like Biden or Beto O'Rourke. At least he sees the problems accurately.
On a side note, if you want to better understand Andrew Yang's "Human Centered Capitalism," the place to start would be reading with the elder Weinstein brother (who Andrew constantly quotes), Eric Weinstein.
"Why Capitalism Won't Survive without Socialism" -- Eric Weinstein
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...ric-weinstein-capitalism-socialism-revolution
As for my buddy here in Japan, he pushes me to sight any majority-minority country that has achieved for the people what the ethno-nationalist state Japan has achieved. To be honest, there are no examples. BUT... I tell him that the model of our future in America does need to be less like Japan, and more like my home town of Hawaii which IS majority minority and has been for a long time.
Martin Luther King Jr. speech during his first visit to the 50th state:
"I come to you with a great deal of appreciation and great feeling of appreciation, I should say, for what has been accomplished in this beautiful setting and in this beautiful state of our Union. As I think of the struggle that we are engaged in in the South land, we look to you for inspiration and as a noble example, where you have already accomplished in the area of racial harmony and racial justice, what we are struggling to accomplish in other sections of the country, and you can never know what it means to those of us caught for the moment in the tragic and often dark midnight of man’s inhumanity to man, to come to a place where we see the glowing daybreak of freedom and dignity and racial justice."
^Which presidential candidate understands what a Majority minority state looks like and quoted this MLK speech in her presidential campaign kick off? Tulsi Gabbard.