Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang said that Americans are “one generation away” from committing massacres against fellow citizen of Asian descent.
While Democratic politicians often use racially divisive language to garner votes and attention, Yang’s suggestion is novel because Asians are rarely cast as victims in Democratic politics.
“Personally, I said to a group at Harvard, I think we’re one generation away from falling into the same camps as the Jews who were attacked in the synagogue in Pittsburgh like just a couple months ago,” Young said at an event on Dec. 13 last year.
“Like we’re probably one generation away from Americans shooting up a bunch of Asians saying like, you know, ‘damn the Chinese’ because there’s a giant cold war even more with China.”
Democrat presidential candidate Andrew Yang: “We’re one generation away from falling into the same camps as the Jews who were attacked in the synagogue…we’re probably one generation away from Americans shooting up a bunch of Asians.” pic.twitter.com/szAJKo4UJT
— Samantha Sullivan (@SamElizabethan) March 14, 2019
Yang is running on a platform of universal basic income. Under his plan, the government would hand every American between the ages of 18 and 64 a $1,000 welfare check every month. Yang sees this as the only solution to a crisis he believes will be caused by the automation of labor practices.
Yang made the remarks about Americans massacring fellow Asian citizens at an event titled “A Glance at US Politics From Asian Americans” hosted by Yuan Media, a Maryland-based Chinese media company with ties to Beijing. Yang told the audience, without supporting evidence, that demographic shifts in the United States over the next three decades will cause the “increasingly insecure white majority” to become “more and more hostile.”
“So now that I’m running for president like I’ve learned more about the Asian-American place in society and one thing that scares the heck out of me is that this country is heading towards becoming a majority-minority by 2045, that’s 27 years from now,” Yang said. “And so there’s a very happy notion in some quarters that the country will just become more tolerant as it gets more diverse.”
“Unfortunately, that is not really the way things play out if you look at historical examples. There are very very few examples in human history of a dominant racial ethnic group giving up its dominance over time. That actually is not normal,” Yang continued.
Yang’s universal basic income proposal would cost $2 trillion per year, roughly half of the annual U.S. budget. The presidential hopeful would tax tech companies to foot the bill. But the $2 trillion price tag of his proposal is dwarfed by some of the other policies he embraces.
Similar to several more prominent Democrats, Yang supports the socialist Green New Deal and Medicare for All policies backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and Communist Party USA. Under the ambitious goal of completely ridding the United States of fossil fuels, the Green New Deal proposes taking all gas-engine cars off the road in favor of electric vehicles and retrofitting or replacing every building in America. By one estimate, the Green New Deal would cost $650,000 per household over 10 years.
Entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang speaks during a campaign stop at the train depot on February 1, 2019 in Jefferson, Iowa. (Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images)
Entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang speaks during a campaign stop at the train depot on February 1, 2019 in Jefferson, Iowa. (Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images)
Entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang speaks during a campaign stop at the train depot on February 1, 2019 in Jefferson, Iowa. (Joshua Lott/AFP/Getty Images)Yang said that Asians will become the target of mass killings by fellow Americans because of the rivalry between the United States and China.
“And so if you look at what’s happening right now in this country, you can see an increasingly insecure white majority becoming more and more hostile—truly. And who is going to be the boogeyman of the next 10 to 20 years? Who’s going to be the great rival to the United States in the eyes of Americans in society?” Yang asked the audience, apparently receiving no answer. “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?” Yang asked, again receiving no response.
“Like we’re probably one generation away from Americans shooting up a bunch of Asians saying like, you know, ‘Damn the Chinese’ because there’s a giant cold war even more with China.”
