Yang Gang Wisdom #2
Welcome back to Yang Gang Wisdom where we try to crowdsource ideas, strategies, and general information from the Yang Gang. The general idea is that more people means more experience and more brains to help Andrew Yang become President of the United States.
In this issue, we find out what the Yang Gang thinks are the best ways to grow. As always you can see the full, unedited results here and anyone may use the data from the results freely.
The New Climate Candidate?
Jay Inslee, who dropped out of the race a few days ago, was almost singularly focused on climate change. Along with the CNN climate crisis town hall, which Andrew will be appearing in and the fact that the Amazon is on fire means that this this is a good time to share Yang’s Policy on the Environment and perhaps even frame him as the new climate candidate.
As we learned from last time’s results, the Yang Gang believes in sending good vibes as a general campaign strategy and welcoming supporters from other campaigns is no different. We believe that victory lies in speaking to people with “kindness and empathy without condescension.” Most of us also believe that sharing Andrew’s policies is crucial to converting new voters. As one person put it:
“Find similar policies that Yang shares with any candidate who has dropped out. Common ground first, then show them YangGang’s Humanity First values!”
#HumanityFirstDays
There were some great ideas submitted for the Yang Gang to take action on, but most of them fall under the category of initiatives already being undertaken by the official campaign such as phonebanking, raising money for advertisements, and online or in-person outreach.
I found the most interesting ideas were about “Humanity First Days” or days in which Yang Gang members go out in their community and volunteer doing good deeds while wearing Yang Gang gear. This truly shows the grassroots and distributed nature of the Humanity First movement. The most interesting thing to me about the results was that several people mentioned specifically helping two groups: the elderly and the homeless.
“I think it would be wonderful if we could reach out to the people Andrew has a huge empathy for, such as helping the homeless register to vote, who might have even wound up that way due to automation. We could even volunteer to help at nursing homes. I think if we sweep the nation with that yang gang love, it’ll get noticed and we’ll be the campaign actually caring about people instead of just trying to convince.”
This weekend Humanity First Days events are being organized all around the country so please join in if you can.
Andrew Yang Hotline
More than half of the people who responded to this survey said they were interested in doing reverse phonebanking or answering and return calls on an Andrew Yang hotline. I reached out to Boomers for Yang who already has a list of volunteers ready to take calls on a “Boomer Hotline” and they are also currently in talks with the official Yang Campaingn to make it happen. They are now just waiting to see if they can get a number listed on the website for people to call and as soon as they get news from the campaign, they will let us know and I will e-mail all those who said they were interested.
Why Not Phonebank?
If reverse phonebanking or the Yang hotline does happen, I think it helps address many of the reservations that people have about normal phonebanking. Specifically, more than 60% of respondents don’t want to intrude, find phonebanking too intimidating, or would rather do something else.
“I hate receiving these calls/texts — Do unto others so to speak.”
“I don’t need another source of guilt and anxiety.”
Many people also noted that they have a language or communication difficulty preventing them from phonebanking.
“I have an anxiety disorder and have panic attacks.”
“Mild speech impediment which can make it tough for some to understand.”
I truly believe this campaign can succeed when we all do our part in our own way to move this country forward.
Best Strategy Going Forward
Big name celebrities and influencers seem to be what many of the Yang Gang believe we need to get to that next level. Elon Musk is already in, but can we also get people like Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres on board?
Money Donated
Considering that the average donation to the Yang campaign is about $27, the Yang Gang Wisdom community seems to be on the more generous side of life.
Volunteering Opinions
People who are not volunteering say they are too busy or want to volunteer in other ways. I believe that answering questions is a quick and easy way that all Yang Gang members can contribute to the cause.
Optimism
Finally, I leave you with some Yang Gang optimism. Most of us think we can go all the way or at least have a very good chance. Combined with the fact that our odds of winning the whole thing improve practically every month, there is a lot to be hopeful about.
Raw Responses
For clarity, I have edited some of the responses before publishing, but you can see the complete unedited responses and data here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sbib1j-ZrfzQl0L7HjcpHK-GbvBPevTP5InoI06Bo6w/edit?usp=sharing
I tried my best to keep the original intent of the answer and no answers were edited in order to manipulate the final results.
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This project is not affiliated with the official Yang2020 campaign, which can be found at yang2020.com.
