Presidential candidate Andrew Yang is worried that if impeachment dominates the 24-hour news cycle, it will hurt Democrats who are trying to win over swing voters who have been impacted by automation associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
“I think the Trump-centered media narrative is generally not helpful because there’s a real Democratic tendency to say that Trump is the embodiment of all of our problems. And if we just get him out, the problems go away,” Yang told CNBC’s John Harwood in a podcast interview released on Wednesday.
Harwood asked if it will be a “negative thing” if impeachment dominates the “the political discussion for quite a long time” and drowns out voices discussing “the future of work and problems associated with it.”
Yang added that “Trump’s leaving office will not restore the 30 percent of stores and malls that are closing,” emphasizing that “a mall could go from being a pillar of the community to the source of blight if you empty it out.” Yang also said that 3.5 million truckers losing jobs to automation will not get their jobs back just because Trump leaves office.
“The real problems of the fourth industrial revolution, the greatest economic transformation in our history, brought Donald Trump into office and they do not disappear if he leaves office,” Yang said.
He said Democrats must “dig into” what got Trump elected and address those “root causes” to have a chance of beating Trump.
“If we treat the symptom like it’s the source of the problem in Donald trump then unfortunately things are going to get worse underneath our feet,” Yang said.
Yang, whose campaign is getting momentum and who hauled in $10 million in the last fundraising quarter (with nearly $6million cash on hand), has called himself Trump’s kryptonite. The entrepreneur, who has been drawing thousands of people across the country at his rallies, has been making the case that he is actually the best Democrat to take on Trump because he can win over plenty of disaffected Trump voters who have been showing up to his rallies and temporarily changing their party identification to vote for him in the primaries.
Oddsmakers agree, as Yang is predicted to have the best chance of beating Trump in a one-on-one matchup in the general election if the entrepreneur somehow makes it there.
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