On May 2nd of this year I was sitting on the toilet, playing solitaire when I got a notification from the New York Times. “Help, We Can’t Stop Writing About Andrew Yang.” Now I’m sure you had the same thought I did, “Why?” After some initial confusion and months of this headline haunting my thoughts, I finally got it.
Think back to the top of 2021. Yang is salvaging the scraps of his presidential campaign and pushing full steam ahead into the mayoral race. He posts a video of him walking into a CVS type convenience store, grabs a few Naked smoothies and a banana from the wicker stand; “New York City loves it’s bodegas!” You don’t have to be a native New Yorker to see right through that thin veil of relatability! Within a few hours his reputation had been torn to shreds by Twitter users questioning the lack of a bodega cat, his NY authenticity, and most offensively, comparing him to Michael Scott. By the end of the day Yang had responded to the criticism with possibly the best thing he could have added to the conversation; “haha I love New York :)”. Masterfully playing off the relentless bullying by claiming endearment on behalf of thousands of hecklers.
He then maneuvers his way through the lockdown, managing to publish only one deeply offensive oped asking Asian Americans to embrace their Americanness in the face of anti-asian, covid-inspired hate. Soon enough it’s June and everyone finds themselves asking how the fuck he managed to get on a democratic debate stage once again. With the mayoral race tightening up and a city demanding solutions to the increasing crime rates Yang showed up swinging. “Yes mentally ill people have rights!” he declares, pumping his fist in the air. He punches straight down and screams into the mic “but you know who else has rights? WE DO! The people of this city! We have the right to walk the street and not fear that a mentally ill person is going to lash out at us!” Initially I thought, what an odd reversion to Billy on the Street, right? Also what a bold assumption that the general populous of New York City isn’t deeply mentally disturbed! 5 months after this debate and I still cannot find a single way to reason this down to a “poorly explained” statement, but as a member of the mentally ill community I found it horrendously funny.
After losing the NYC mayoral election by an embarrassing amount, I figured that would be the last I heard from old Andrew for a while. Yet it’s like he’s always trying to personally impress me with every news article I lay my eyes on. I’ve spent the last year mentally collecting infinity stones of Andrew Yang anecdotes for my rebuttal article gauntlet, and the final piece was NFTs. How could I be so naive, OF COURSE Andrew Yang was going to jump on the crypto craze! After proposing to sell New York City as an NFT to raise money for the NYPD in April, he seems to have caught up on the Bloomberg “Masters in Business” podcast and gave it another college try. He’s currently partnering with “Bankless” to push forward his NFT, the proceeds of which will go toward his party, the Forward Party. Ever the king of bold declarations, he stated he wanted the Forward party to be “the crypto party!”. The NFT, which sold for $31K, is a drawing done by a Bankless artist that depicts Yang standing stoically behind a crowd of supporters with lasers coming out of his eyes. Upon seeing the NFT I laughed so hard I threw up on myself. I pondered what kind of person would spend 31K in support of Andrew Yang’s third party, and then threw up on myself again out of fear. I promptly shut my laptop and went to bed.
Like Thanos after the snap, collecting information and writing this article has brought me to the brink of death. I have exerted more mental energy to Andrew Yang than what was thought possible. I’ve made this sacrifice for the good of the people. I must now go nurse my wounds, and say a final goodbye to this year long endeavor. I truly do wish Mr. Yang and his fourth party luck in whatever path they may take, but I must admit, I see them moving in any direction except Forward.
Categories: addison schwarz, caroline flynn, news, nov. 9, vol 25