NEW YORK – Andrew Yang, a New York businessman who unsuccessfully ran for president and mayor of New York City, announced Monday that he will leave the Democratic Party and changed his voter registration to “independent.”
“It was a strangely emotional experience,” Yang said in a post on his website. Yang registered as a Democrat in 1995 and says he remained a “staunch Democrat” throughout his 20 years and has made many friends and confidants in the party since then.
“I’m sure stopping being a Democrat is the right thing to do,” said Yang, who dropped out of the New York City mayoral race this year after being one of the first candidates.
Before the mayoral race, Yang launched his candidacy for the presidency in late 2017. A lawyer who worked as a businessman and is the author of a book called “The War Against Normal People,” Yang appealed to voters warning about the evils of technology, including automation and artificial intelligence.
Yang’s plan for a universal basic income, a check for $ 1,000 a month that he called the “Freedom Dividend,” served as the foundation for his broader vision of fixing a society that he says is deeply ill by the capitalism.
The goal of being independent is “to do everything I can to advance our society,” said Yang, who did not say if he would run again in 2024.
“There are phenomenal public servants who do a great job every day, but our system is stuck. It’s stuck in part because polarization is getting worse than ever,” he adds. “Now that I am not a member of one party or another, I feel like I can be even more honest about the system and the people that comprise it.”
You can read this article in Spanish, here.
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