That's unfortunate. Yang himself isn't very dogmatic / ideological. But his supporters are very passionate about his candidacy. So i can see your bad experiences happening. I support Yang; not sure if i would call myself Yang Gang...
For me personally, Yang is the first political candidate who sees and reasons about the world in a similar way to myself. He's a systems thinker. Everything in society is connected and to correctly address issues you have to understand how one component will influence another. That is very exciting for me!
He has a lot of policies, i don't agree with all of them but i'm a lot more aligned with him than any other candidate. Left or right.
I've seen so many ...."Bernie's people are horrible" posts on the Yang subreddit which has turned me off the yang gang. Yang is still my 2nd though, because unlike Yang Gang folks, I don't base my support on the followers of a candidate cause that's just lunacy. I've chimed in on a few to set the record
A. we're not all that bad.
B. You can't blame us for what gets banned by mods of a reddit when they use bots to do so.
C. Many of us would support Yang if he were on top or higher than Bernie in polls. But we want a chance at winning, and Bernie has a strong grassroots.
D. Whether the online real/fake people on reddit/twitter are 'toxic' in your opinion doesn't even matter isn't relative because THEY aren't Bernie. They could even be bots or trolls. Listen to the candidate and make your decision from that, whether they're a good or bad person.
> I've seen so many ...."Bernie's people are horrible" posts on the Yang subreddit which has turned me off the yang gang.
Do please remember that the subreddit is not a full expression of Yang's support, as in it is biased towards people who are active on Reddit. The number of anti-bernie posts on there are indeed very annoying, and the quality has indeed gone downhill as the number of subscribers has increased (which is a very common, often repeated pattern, e.g. eternal september)
> C. Many of us would support Yang if he were on top or higher than Bernie in polls. But we want a chance at winning, and Bernie has a strong grassroots.
This is exactly why we need Ranked Choice Voting (or another similar non-FPTP system like Approval Voting), so you can actually vote your true preference. An alternative voting system is a concept that I've personally supported for many years and is one of Andrew Yang's policies: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/rankedchoice/ which is one of the reason's that I support him.
>I've seen so many ...."Bernie's people are horrible" posts on the Yang subreddit which has turned me off the yang gang
Well, Bernie's subreddit literally bans every single person who makes a post containing the word "Yang". They even remove him from the poll results. Certainly doesn't give any socialist dictatorship vibes (that, and his support of Venezuela).
Come on. People will get upset at you for speaking like this on the Yang subreddit, expect the same here. It doesn't matter if another group is more toxic or not. It isn't a competition about who can be more toxic. We say "Humanity First". If you really do support Yang, stand by that. You're talking to another human and you're also representing Yang. Be kind. We're running a campaign about unification, so expect to be called out if you're causing division.
I'm not American so I don't really support any candidate. I have my own preferences, and neither is Yang my preferred candidate, nor is Bernie my most disliked candidate.
And I had the same experience with Hillary, yet I still voted for her (not as enthusiastically as I'd have liked) because I don't want to let a bunch of jerks make my mind up for me.
If nobody existed but a Yang Gang member and Bernie - could they really admit he wasn't authentic and wanted to make the world better?
Is he corrupt?
Is he in this for himself?
To enrich his businesses per se?
Sell more books?
Has he changed his message to win? Or is he consistent?
I mean look at the candidate. Sure the community can get toxic like a rivalry highscool football game with pranks and shit, but in the end. Are the players really evil, or do their fans just go way out of proportions and get way too overly excited and/or angry when things don't go their way?
> Has he changed his message to win? Or is he consistent?
Serious question, why is this a metric?
Changing your mind should be a good thing. I find this odd coming from a tech and more science oriented website. I'm not saying that we should just encourage people to change on a whim but changing positions because 1) you're presented with new evidence and/or 2) the people you are representing have changed positions, this should be respected. There's a difference between changing positions and feigning belief. It is especially bad if you feign a position and work against that position (I can respect you if you even if disagree with a position but work for it because your constituents hold said belief). #1 is obvious why it is good (because we're human and fuck up). #2 is good because you're adapting to what those that you represent believe.
I for one DO NOT want a president that is going to double down on bad beliefs and not change beliefs as either culture changes (e.g. Obama changed positions with gay marriage as the US culture changed) or because they are presented with new evidence. These things should be regarded as a good trait.
tldr: why is consistency such a highly regarded metric?
> Serious question, why is this a metric? Changing your mind should be a good thing. ... why is consistency such a highly regarded metric?
It's not about consistency, it's about being right consistently. Unfortunately, most decisions whether made by an individual, CEO, or politician have to be made with imperfect information. The data just isn't there to do a full analysis. In data's absence, when you need to make a decision, you rely on instinct and foundational principles.
Of course, when the data becomes available you can adjust, as anyone should. But when you have good enough instincts or principles, you can operate effectively without good data, and that makes for a good leader.
Does that even exist? We're not talking about something that can be scientifically modeled here. There's always going to be a "better" answer post hoc. Like you're suggesting. So it seems like a weird metric still. I think you're agreeing too. But it takes more critical thinking to judge someone on the decisions they made given the data available to them vs judging them based on decisions made from a post hoc analysis. The latter is always easier, you have (at least partially) the answer in front of you.
I think it’s a balancing act of adjusting your position based on new information without straying from your core principles. This is most definitely an art more than a science and requires extremely effective communication to explain why you’re making a better decision vs. flip flopping or poll chasing.
After a couple very negative experiences with the Yang Gang, where anything less than instant adulation must mean you're anti-Yang, I'm anti-Yang.