Very good article, and I agree that throwing out the "white supremacy!" smear anytime they don't agree with Yang on something is a terrible strategy for any of the other candidates. However, you're making it seem that there's something sinister in that "Yang’s strategy has been to identify the most high-salience, emotionally charged issue within a particular segment of the electorate and pledge to champion the most common opinion on it" because those opinions are united by "Yang’s desire to be the mayor." But while both those things may be true, a different analysis could be that there's nothing sinister about that, and that he's surveying the city and listening to its people, without molding all of his stances to fit into some underlying ideology. In my opinion, this is what sets him apart from other candidates and is responsible for his popularity.
As a New Yorker, I'm not a huge Yang fan, but the crowd of identity-politics fetishists and career political cronies running against him are the scum of the earth. If you can't understand why normal people want nothing to do with "progressives" like Deblaso who have destroyed New York you are seriously out of touch with average New Yorkers.
I'm so confused. Allowing unfettered free enterprise is a right-libertarian position. Why would progressives support it? Is it merely because the street vendors tend to be nonwhite? If street vendors tended to be domestic white folks, should I presume the progressives would want to regulate them out of existence?
So it's fine when Wall Street donated overwhelmingly to Obama, and it's great when Biden attracted support from Republicans who didn't like Trump, but God forbid if some Chinese-American business owners support Yang! And how dare Yang has some policies based on common sense rather than left or right orthodoxy!
Thank you for this article. If I need a push to donate to Yang's campaign, this certainly does it.
Glenn, I've been supporting your new publishing effort from day one. I know, it's only at the basic subscription price, and all I want is the basic i.e. your writing. I'm inundated with news and opinions as it is, and seriously behind with my reading on this front. Is there a way to limit on the number of posts I receive in my mailbox to your own writing?
I opened this email and this piece is so tedious, slanted, and a....Captrap, that I would rather avoid getting more of such in my mailbox. There's no inherent value in diversity per se, or a multitude of opinions: everybody's got one. Iwante to redead your reporting, and Im interested in your opinion,
because its grounded in Reporting.
Let's focus on the quality of reporting and opinions! I don't have to agree with them but I should be able to appreciate the quality and relevancy.
One day in 1997 or so, when I lived in San Diego, I opened the CNN Headline News. The channel served me a Breaking News from Houston: firemen were trying to rescue a cat stuck on a tree, there was a dearth of crises to fill 24/7 format. This piece reminds me of that when it comes to relevancy for me and most of the readers outside of NYC. I question whether it has any relevancy outside of Mr. Mathews' cafeteria compatriots.
As to the piece itself:
"They were more concerned with what his comment revealed about his character - lack of empathy for the downtrodden, or perhaps even latent racism against Black and brown street vendors.",
he doesn't just describe the criticism but identifies with it i.e. "latent racism" of Andrew Young. This the Claptrap that should be below your publishing standards.
Then again, maybe it's not a Claptrap but a calculated opportunistic political attack.
After all, Mr. Mathews has been not just reporting on NYC politics, and he doesn't just have an opinion: he has been a professional operative for various candidates.
But, maybe, let's not put Mr. Mathews in a box: it's both a Claptrap and a calculated opportunistic political attack.
This writer is a socialist. A hardcore one, he states he is an organizer for the NYC Democratic Socialists of America. He is obviously out to damage Andrew Yang as a candidate with this article. Sly innuendo's of connections to horror of horrors "Republicans" (Insert soundtrack from Nightmare on Elm Street.)!!!!
Glenn, the reason I subscribed to your substack is because despite the fact that (very) occasionally your personal leftist bias occasionally rears it's (ugly) head, when it does, its very clear it's a personal opinion and it's rarely in your articles. When I've seen it it's usually on twitter. All your actual reporting is, from my view, unbiased and as full of actual facts as you can make it.
I am sorry, you would not have written this article. You don't write articles purposely intended to leave a bad taste in the mouth about a person by carefully worded tidbits. You write articles that are sometimes brutal with the harsh reality of hard cold FACTS. That's why you are great. IMO.
Here is my take-away from this article by Matthew Thomas: He is just another wannabe slime-bag journo, trying to get some traction on a few articles so he can slime it into a position with Politico, HuffPost, Mediaite, or some other far left slimebag rag. This guy does not deserve your shared news airspace. This is how I see it.
I'm happy to see Glenn give the kid a shot on this forum. Gee whiz... you'd think socialism ran in his family! LOL
Sadly, junior is clueless. He's invoking woke identity metrics to deal with a genuine real world problem of economics. This article's bias got boring halfway through. I'd prefer it if Dr Wolfe and not some kid weighed in here in this space.
Thanks! I’m not familiar with NYC politics, so this was interesting...
I would say that I can absolutely relate to business owners who “follow the rules” and end up with an unlicensed street vendor outside their door competing with virtually no overhead. Business is hard enough without the City turning a blind eye to the free use of a public sidewalk and an unregulated business...
P.S. I do find that the “racism” angle is starting to wear very thin.....it’s like: yea, yea, yea...whatever...
Great (though very localized and therefore for many of little interest) example of how the liberal-left’s obsession with making everything about race/gender identity above all else is actually alienating voters and likely losing them/us otherwise winnable elections.
You just have to ask -- if a brick and mortar restaurant can't compete with a hot dog cart parked across the street, in terms of cuisine, then maybe that restaurant simply isn't that good in the first place. Or charges unrealistic prices.
A similar battle took place in Los Angeles in the early 00's where food trucks (many of them selling incredible food) were being targeted by the B&M's who were losing business. City officials, never ones to shirk their duty to a well funded lobby, began harassing the food trucks with junk laws like can't park on the street for more than one hour. The resistance coined the tag line "Carne asada is not a crime".
“You know what I hear over and over again - that NYC is not enforcing rules against unlicensed street vendors,” tweeted Andrew Yang one Sunday, apparently exorcised of the spirit of entrepreneurialism that previously animated his campaign. “I’m for increasing licenses, but we should do more for the retailers who are paying rent and trying to survive.” As with many progressives, the author seems to have a problem with democracy. Laws passed by the people's representatives should be enforced by the executive branch. There is nothing wrong with advocating for changes in laws and lawmakers, but attitudes about non-enforcement of laws have a far greater negative impact on the rule-of-law than the buffoon Trump.
Soo... what I'm reading here is that Yang is a populist who tries to build broad coalitions spanning from the poor and working class to the upper-middle class, using a nonsensical and patchwork economic policy vaguely evoking the "American Dream". The only people he leaves out are the Ivy League elite and Twitterati, who predictably attack him as a "racist" because that's the only move in their playbook. Gosh this sounds familiar.
Minor note to the author: I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't characterize politicians as "far right". Regardless of whether you use the term narrowly and responsibly, I have no idea what it means anymore. It's been applied to everything from actual neo-nazis to liberal moderates. It's about as useless as "racist". Try substituting with a meaningful term like "pro-big-business" or "anti-immigration" or whatever it is you're actually trying to assert or imply about them. I don't think I'm alone in just rolling my eyes when I see the words "far right" on a page.
The knee jerk assumption, without evidence, that Yang is racist because so many street vendors are black or brown is highly corrosive to both civil discourse and truth. I'm not a New Yorker, and won't pretend to understand all issues concerning street vendors there. But there is a quite reasonable argument that street vendors have an unfair competitive advantage over brick and mortar businesses. On the one hand b and m businesses have sizable fixed costs, especially rent in a city like NY. On the other street vendors use publicly owner streets and sidewalks at no cost (I assume). While the ladies selling jade trinkets may not be so much of a problem, food vendors directly competing with restaurants likely is. Yang's position is amply supported on these grounds, and evidence free racism chargers are just wrong.
The mayorship of NYC is a strange animal. On the one hand most people elsewhere aren't looking for political ideology in a mayor as much as efficient administration. I suspect many in NY share this point of view, but I'm just guessing. While Yangs tendency you describe to tailor a solution for every neighborhood and constituency may be cynical, it may equally be likely that it is pragmatic. After the current mayor I suspect there are a lot of folks looking for some pragmatism, and not woke ideology.
Again, I don't have any basis to fully understand the street vendor issues in NY. But I have to think there must be a limit on the numbers. Maybe the current license number is too low. But if it's a free for all in some places excessive street vending could overcrowd the sidewalks, and make it near impossible for b and m business to survive, let alone thrive.
The issue of these vendors really highlights the hypocrisy of the left, especially assuming that Mr. Thomas is a socialist of some sort. Many of these vendors can and will become larger businesses providing jobs and better products and service to the community. These are all win-win. They only way they can do this in NYC is to break the laws that most left-wing politicians support. According to the orthodoxy of Bernie supporters these vendors should be considered criminals. Do they pay a living wage? No. Do they provide sick pay and health insurance? No. These vendors are just as anti-Bernie as any other business. At the same time, if these vendors followed the law (by closing) they would be stuck being poor and wage slaves. I often suspect that key and highly influential leftists understand this very well. They WANT people to stay poor, so they advocate policies that hold people back. This maintains their status and power.
This isn’t an anti-establishment viewpoint, it’s an anti-Yang viewpoint. Yang was as anti-establishment as you could get during the Presidential campaign. Yes, he learned how to temper that – he’s intelligent. Surprised and disappointed that Greenwald would allow a muckraking article of this low caliber be attached to his name.
Very good article, and I agree that throwing out the "white supremacy!" smear anytime they don't agree with Yang on something is a terrible strategy for any of the other candidates. However, you're making it seem that there's something sinister in that "Yang’s strategy has been to identify the most high-salience, emotionally charged issue within a particular segment of the electorate and pledge to champion the most common opinion on it" because those opinions are united by "Yang’s desire to be the mayor." But while both those things may be true, a different analysis could be that there's nothing sinister about that, and that he's surveying the city and listening to its people, without molding all of his stances to fit into some underlying ideology. In my opinion, this is what sets him apart from other candidates and is responsible for his popularity.
As a New Yorker, I'm not a huge Yang fan, but the crowd of identity-politics fetishists and career political cronies running against him are the scum of the earth. If you can't understand why normal people want nothing to do with "progressives" like Deblaso who have destroyed New York you are seriously out of touch with average New Yorkers.
I'm so confused. Allowing unfettered free enterprise is a right-libertarian position. Why would progressives support it? Is it merely because the street vendors tend to be nonwhite? If street vendors tended to be domestic white folks, should I presume the progressives would want to regulate them out of existence?
So it's fine when Wall Street donated overwhelmingly to Obama, and it's great when Biden attracted support from Republicans who didn't like Trump, but God forbid if some Chinese-American business owners support Yang! And how dare Yang has some policies based on common sense rather than left or right orthodoxy!
Thank you for this article. If I need a push to donate to Yang's campaign, this certainly does it.
Glenn, I've been supporting your new publishing effort from day one. I know, it's only at the basic subscription price, and all I want is the basic i.e. your writing. I'm inundated with news and opinions as it is, and seriously behind with my reading on this front. Is there a way to limit on the number of posts I receive in my mailbox to your own writing?
I opened this email and this piece is so tedious, slanted, and a....Captrap, that I would rather avoid getting more of such in my mailbox. There's no inherent value in diversity per se, or a multitude of opinions: everybody's got one. Iwante to redead your reporting, and Im interested in your opinion,
because its grounded in Reporting.
Let's focus on the quality of reporting and opinions! I don't have to agree with them but I should be able to appreciate the quality and relevancy.
One day in 1997 or so, when I lived in San Diego, I opened the CNN Headline News. The channel served me a Breaking News from Houston: firemen were trying to rescue a cat stuck on a tree, there was a dearth of crises to fill 24/7 format. This piece reminds me of that when it comes to relevancy for me and most of the readers outside of NYC. I question whether it has any relevancy outside of Mr. Mathews' cafeteria compatriots.
As to the piece itself:
"They were more concerned with what his comment revealed about his character - lack of empathy for the downtrodden, or perhaps even latent racism against Black and brown street vendors.",
he doesn't just describe the criticism but identifies with it i.e. "latent racism" of Andrew Young. This the Claptrap that should be below your publishing standards.
Then again, maybe it's not a Claptrap but a calculated opportunistic political attack.
After all, Mr. Mathews has been not just reporting on NYC politics, and he doesn't just have an opinion: he has been a professional operative for various candidates.
But, maybe, let's not put Mr. Mathews in a box: it's both a Claptrap and a calculated opportunistic political attack.
This writer is a socialist. A hardcore one, he states he is an organizer for the NYC Democratic Socialists of America. He is obviously out to damage Andrew Yang as a candidate with this article. Sly innuendo's of connections to horror of horrors "Republicans" (Insert soundtrack from Nightmare on Elm Street.)!!!!
Glenn, the reason I subscribed to your substack is because despite the fact that (very) occasionally your personal leftist bias occasionally rears it's (ugly) head, when it does, its very clear it's a personal opinion and it's rarely in your articles. When I've seen it it's usually on twitter. All your actual reporting is, from my view, unbiased and as full of actual facts as you can make it.
I am sorry, you would not have written this article. You don't write articles purposely intended to leave a bad taste in the mouth about a person by carefully worded tidbits. You write articles that are sometimes brutal with the harsh reality of hard cold FACTS. That's why you are great. IMO.
Here is my take-away from this article by Matthew Thomas: He is just another wannabe slime-bag journo, trying to get some traction on a few articles so he can slime it into a position with Politico, HuffPost, Mediaite, or some other far left slimebag rag. This guy does not deserve your shared news airspace. This is how I see it.
I love this new addition to Glenn Greenwald's substack account, Outside Voices. The second article is just as interesting and nuanced as the first.
I'm happy to see Glenn give the kid a shot on this forum. Gee whiz... you'd think socialism ran in his family! LOL
Sadly, junior is clueless. He's invoking woke identity metrics to deal with a genuine real world problem of economics. This article's bias got boring halfway through. I'd prefer it if Dr Wolfe and not some kid weighed in here in this space.
Mr. Greenwald:
Thanks! I’m not familiar with NYC politics, so this was interesting...
I would say that I can absolutely relate to business owners who “follow the rules” and end up with an unlicensed street vendor outside their door competing with virtually no overhead. Business is hard enough without the City turning a blind eye to the free use of a public sidewalk and an unregulated business...
P.S. I do find that the “racism” angle is starting to wear very thin.....it’s like: yea, yea, yea...whatever...
Great (though very localized and therefore for many of little interest) example of how the liberal-left’s obsession with making everything about race/gender identity above all else is actually alienating voters and likely losing them/us otherwise winnable elections.
You just have to ask -- if a brick and mortar restaurant can't compete with a hot dog cart parked across the street, in terms of cuisine, then maybe that restaurant simply isn't that good in the first place. Or charges unrealistic prices.
A similar battle took place in Los Angeles in the early 00's where food trucks (many of them selling incredible food) were being targeted by the B&M's who were losing business. City officials, never ones to shirk their duty to a well funded lobby, began harassing the food trucks with junk laws like can't park on the street for more than one hour. The resistance coined the tag line "Carne asada is not a crime".
“You know what I hear over and over again - that NYC is not enforcing rules against unlicensed street vendors,” tweeted Andrew Yang one Sunday, apparently exorcised of the spirit of entrepreneurialism that previously animated his campaign. “I’m for increasing licenses, but we should do more for the retailers who are paying rent and trying to survive.” As with many progressives, the author seems to have a problem with democracy. Laws passed by the people's representatives should be enforced by the executive branch. There is nothing wrong with advocating for changes in laws and lawmakers, but attitudes about non-enforcement of laws have a far greater negative impact on the rule-of-law than the buffoon Trump.
Soo... what I'm reading here is that Yang is a populist who tries to build broad coalitions spanning from the poor and working class to the upper-middle class, using a nonsensical and patchwork economic policy vaguely evoking the "American Dream". The only people he leaves out are the Ivy League elite and Twitterati, who predictably attack him as a "racist" because that's the only move in their playbook. Gosh this sounds familiar.
Minor note to the author: I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't characterize politicians as "far right". Regardless of whether you use the term narrowly and responsibly, I have no idea what it means anymore. It's been applied to everything from actual neo-nazis to liberal moderates. It's about as useless as "racist". Try substituting with a meaningful term like "pro-big-business" or "anti-immigration" or whatever it is you're actually trying to assert or imply about them. I don't think I'm alone in just rolling my eyes when I see the words "far right" on a page.
In no particular order:
The knee jerk assumption, without evidence, that Yang is racist because so many street vendors are black or brown is highly corrosive to both civil discourse and truth. I'm not a New Yorker, and won't pretend to understand all issues concerning street vendors there. But there is a quite reasonable argument that street vendors have an unfair competitive advantage over brick and mortar businesses. On the one hand b and m businesses have sizable fixed costs, especially rent in a city like NY. On the other street vendors use publicly owner streets and sidewalks at no cost (I assume). While the ladies selling jade trinkets may not be so much of a problem, food vendors directly competing with restaurants likely is. Yang's position is amply supported on these grounds, and evidence free racism chargers are just wrong.
The mayorship of NYC is a strange animal. On the one hand most people elsewhere aren't looking for political ideology in a mayor as much as efficient administration. I suspect many in NY share this point of view, but I'm just guessing. While Yangs tendency you describe to tailor a solution for every neighborhood and constituency may be cynical, it may equally be likely that it is pragmatic. After the current mayor I suspect there are a lot of folks looking for some pragmatism, and not woke ideology.
Again, I don't have any basis to fully understand the street vendor issues in NY. But I have to think there must be a limit on the numbers. Maybe the current license number is too low. But if it's a free for all in some places excessive street vending could overcrowd the sidewalks, and make it near impossible for b and m business to survive, let alone thrive.
The issue of these vendors really highlights the hypocrisy of the left, especially assuming that Mr. Thomas is a socialist of some sort. Many of these vendors can and will become larger businesses providing jobs and better products and service to the community. These are all win-win. They only way they can do this in NYC is to break the laws that most left-wing politicians support. According to the orthodoxy of Bernie supporters these vendors should be considered criminals. Do they pay a living wage? No. Do they provide sick pay and health insurance? No. These vendors are just as anti-Bernie as any other business. At the same time, if these vendors followed the law (by closing) they would be stuck being poor and wage slaves. I often suspect that key and highly influential leftists understand this very well. They WANT people to stay poor, so they advocate policies that hold people back. This maintains their status and power.
This isn’t an anti-establishment viewpoint, it’s an anti-Yang viewpoint. Yang was as anti-establishment as you could get during the Presidential campaign. Yes, he learned how to temper that – he’s intelligent. Surprised and disappointed that Greenwald would allow a muckraking article of this low caliber be attached to his name.