Thank you Yang Gang
Going from being politically inactive and politically unaware, to being politically active and politically hyper-aware has been a somewhat burdensome, but ultimately rewarding transition. My nights are prolonged by turbulent thoughts fixated on the corruption of our democracy and some nights I go to sleep relatively early because I’m comforted by the knowledge of knowing there are people fighting alongside of me in this battle for our democracy. It was Andrew Yang and his gang of loyal and sometimes quirky followers that led me to become the democracy reform and universal basic income advocate that I am today.
I discovered Yang during a particularly difficult time in my life. Not only was I struggling financially, but my mental health was particularly fragile. I was going to therapy through a state-run program in a mildew-ridden, brick building across the street from a towering factory. Some days, I found myself sitting next to a middle-aged man who was missing part of his jaw due to oral cancer, and other days I sat next to a man who was always applying duct tape to the cast around his leg.
No matter who I was sitting next to, I was always on Twitter, either staring at the vapor-wave Yang memes, or talking to someone about Griselda Records or Backwoodz Studioz. The vapor-wave memes grew petulant to me over time, but I started seeing comments from the regular Yang followers and couldn’t help, but relate to them.
I missed a decent chunk of school due to the onslaught of anxiety attacks I had been experiencing, so I tried writing to cope with my situation and this experiment led to my first Andrew Yang opinion piece on here. I tepidly posted it and got over 500 likes on the original post and had at least 30 positive comments on there, with half of the people saying that I could get paid to write. Eleven political pieces and a couple personal essays later and I got my first writing gig for a startup called The Trickle Up, which of course is a site for all Yang Gang affiliated material, and I’ll be the weekly columnist.
Over the course of that time, I have had my article retweeted by Andrew Yang, I met Andrew Yang, one of my articles has been featured on the Daily Kos main page, been followed by several journalists and political figures, and I’ve been followed by some of my favorite Yang Gang members. Yang Gang has instilled an indomitable amount of confidence in me and has given me a sense of self-worth that I haven’t had in a long time.
The people of Yang Gang are completely impossible to peg ideologically, but the one thing they all have in common is a sense of humanity. I won’t be on Medium all that much anymore, unless if I’m writing something that is completely self-indulgent, so I hope to grown The Trickle Up, and eventually make it a house-hold name.
Know that I’ll ceaselessly be fighting for democracy that’s solely powered by the people and for an universal basic income so food insecurity and poverty can be eradicated. I know all too well, how poverty can wreak havoc on your mental health. I remember being suicidal, twenty pounds underweight, and I couldn’t be in a public place without having a panic attack. I want to prevent everyone from experiencing the same thing I went through and I’ll fight ceaselessly to let people know that they’re loved, they are worth empowering, and they deserve Medicare For All, UBI, and more power to pick their candidate over the corporation’s candidate.
