What happened in Iowa?
Yang Gang Wisdom #22
Hey Yang Gang,
Arthur the editor here again. Ki Chong thought it’d be fitting to follow-up last week’s article with another analysis piece given everything that happened in Iowa. I think that day — and this whole week — can be summarized in one of my favorite tweets:
This past week was certainly a low point for the campaign, but I don’t want Yang Gang to fall into despair. Let’s examine the week’s events, avoid the “sky is falling” narrative, and see what’s next.
What happened in Iowa?
Man, what a shitshow. I wrote last week pundits believed “anything could happen” in Iowa, but I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted what we got.
It took a few days, but the final reports of the Iowa Caucus put Pete Buttigieg at 26.2 percent and Bernie Sanders in a close second with 26.1 percent — although Sanders received more votes in the popular vote even if he got fewer delegates. The news reported Andrew Yang received “1 percent,” which fits into the “underperform” category I laid out last week (finishing between 0 and 5 percent) but this is a deceptive number.
The Democratic Iowa Caucus requires a 15 percent threshold of “viability.” If caucus-goers’ candidate was viable, they could stick with their candidate. If their candidate had 14 percent or less, they could choose to support another candidate or simply leave. Which means there were many more people who caucused for Andrew Yang, but not enough to make him viable. In fact, roughly 5 percent of caucus-goers supported Andrew in the first round before viability winnowed the candidates. This fits the “at expectations” category and suggests the Iowa result wasn’t that bad. Andrew Yang still did better than Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, Tulsi Gabbard, and all those other candidates you forgot were running.
That said, the campaign dumped an immense amount of resources into state and that ultimately proved ineffective. Several senior-level advisors were fired after Iowa (not anyone publicly facing the Yang Gang knows). If there was any doubt these people did not have the best mindset for the campaign, consider the fact a New York Times hit piece was released a day later citing anonymous sources who had just been removed from the campaign. As a former journalist, I am honestly shocked the New York Times chose to anonymously source employees who had just been publicly fired for doing a bad job. Obviously, they have motivated reasons to talk poorly of the campaign they were just fired from. Unsurprisingly, the article does not real “reporting,” just “he said, she said,” which is a cornerstone of lazy journalism.
Even before this result, you could detect hesitation from the campaign about following the conventional wisdom. Andrew has been quoted publicly questioning if television ads were the best use of the campaign’s money — he even said as much in a campaign newsletter many months ago. I believe the line was “sometimes convention exists for a reason,” and that became their guiding ethos, but they were clearly dissatisfied with the results. Even with signs of punting conventional wisdom, many Yang Gang were disappointed with Andrew’s debate performance in New Hampshire, but before we switch states let me say one last thing about Iowa.
Distrust of Institutions
Andrew says it on the campaign trail a lot: a big problem with America is the loss of faith in institutions. A variety of cataclysmic events like 9/11, the financial crash, the housing crash, deadlocked congress, voter suppression, police brutality, etc. has led Americans to distrust institutions. One of the most important institutions to maintain is the validity of our democracy and it’s under threat. We know in 2016 Russia interfered with our elections, and we know the DNC attempted to gatekeep the process to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination (I want to throw in here: I believe there’s a compelling argument defending the DNC’s actions, but that’s not the point). The point is Americans are already beginning to distrust our elections, and democracy itself.
There was really no worse way for the Iowa Caucus to unfold. The delay in reports, the disputed results, the false victory claimed by one candidate, only to be negated by full reports showing a tie, and the fact the candidate with more of the popular vote received fewer delegates. I don’t know if canceling the caucus altogether would have been better or worse.
Loss of faith in our election is a loss for our country, but there is a silver lining for the campaign. The failed process of Iowa became the story, rather than the results. Which means Yang’s underperformance matters less than it would have otherwise. The results also greatly increased the chances of a contested convention. FiveThirtyEight’s model suggests the likelihood of a contest convention is 25 percent — which is now the second-most likely outcome behind Sanders winning the nomination (44 percent). I think a contested convention will be terrible for a lot of reasons (maybe I’ll write about it in the future), but it means Yang Gang can play the long game, and there’s more time to win over the general public while learning from our past mistakes.
New Hampshire and the debate
A lot of Yang Gang were frustrated with Andrew’s performance on Friday’s debate. He stuck to the script, roped all his answers back to universal basic income, and didn’t make much effort to interject. There have been a few explanations like Andrew’s mic was off (again), or the fact he had the flu, or speculating the campaign believed it would do well in New Hampshire and didn’t want to risk anything.
I work in strategic communications, and the most persistent issue is stepping outside your bubble. Yang Gang was very negative because of the week’s events, but outside the Yang Gang network, the campaign was receiving positive buzz and attracting more supporters. We go into every debate expecting a successive ramp-up in rhetoric or strategy, but the reality is most people do not watch every single debate. They’ll watch one — maybe two — and the campaign doesn’t want to create the image of being an outsider candidate or risk going on the aggressive and lose potential supporters. In fact, going on the aggressive has already backfired on other candidates, so why would Yang do it? Besides, we got a glimpse that Andrew’s message is catching on. There was a bizarre moment at the end of the debate where Andrew’s closing statement hit his common talking points, followed by Buttigieg who said close to the same thing. As Andrew said “either I’m going to win or the candidates are going to start to sound a lot like me.”
New Hampshire has some fundamental differences from Iowa that make it a better state for Andrew. For one, it’s an actual primary. One person gets one vote and all the votes get counted. This means voters don’t have to play political chess and back the candidate they think will win. New Hampshire voters are also liberal in a distinctly different way than Iowa voters. To give you an idea, the slogan of the state is “Live Free or Die.” New Hampshire’s whole ethos is being left alone, so you can imagine how a universal basic income would be more attractive to them rather than Iowa voters who mainly deal with the Democratic party to coordinate support for unions and farming subsidies. Finally, New Hampshire has significantly lower rates of religiosity — second to last in the country. For much of younger Yang Gang, this doesn’t mean much, but 40 percent of Americans say they would never vote for an atheist (the only category with lower support is a candidate described as a “socialist”). And yes, those people really do exist. Andrew won’t have that roadblock in New Hampshire.
There’s a decent chance Andrew will perform above expectations in New Hampshire. Even if that doesn’t work out, the campaign has stated they’re in this for the long run. It might be because they believe they’ll win eventually (a viewpoint I share), but it also might be because the campaign wants more experience on the road so they’re more prepared in 2024. Maybe that’s a bad reason, but the result is the same: we have every reason to keep supporting the campaign.
The New Propaganda
I want to make a final point in this newsletter to address a commonly misunderstood part of internet culture that is affecting this presidential run: memes. I have always had a fascination with emerging communities, strange cultures, and an interest in novelty — which is to say I’ve been looking at memes in an academic sense for a few years. Many people view internet culture as a dumb thing that adds some enjoyment into their life, but the reality is the internet lost its innocence back in 2014 when this culture was co-opted by political actors.
In 2018, a research firm called “New Knowledge” released a comprehensive report about how a Russian agency called “Internet Research Agency” infiltrated American social media networks with political propaganda memes to affect American politics. You can read the report yourself, or listen to Renee DiResta talk about it on Joe Rogan or Sam Harris (two episodes which — oddly enough — have significantly more dislikes, and fewer views, than other videos from those creators. Weird!). The report focused a lot on specific tactics, but a key takeaway is the fact that memes are a visual language that deeply impact a person’s perspective long after they’ve stopped looking at them. You cannot discount the power of a meme to direct a person’s viewpoint and actions. In fact, the day of Donald Trump’s election there was a widely circulated image that suggested his entire candidacy was a meme. It is important to note that memes can shape how people view the world.
Keep that in mind, when you see posts like this. Is this a harmless meme? Or is this free political advertising for the Bernie Sanders campaign? Not only is it free political advertising, it inherently reminds you to donate to his campaign and increases his favorability because you associate him with funny content. This is true even if the meme is far detached from its original version. Still skeptical? Maybe consider the meteoric rise of Baby Yoda memes and how it just so happened to coincide with the release on Disney Plus — only to quickly fade away once the season was over (most likely along with a marketing firm’s contract). In some strange way, you have to commend Russian intelligence agencies for being way ahead of the curve with this method of propaganda.
My point with this section is to raise awareness for how this process is being manipulated and to contrast the Yang’s advisors recommending a bus tour with new methods of campaigning that utilize the internet. Yang Gang are easily one of the most connected constituencies in this race, we should use that strength more. Not just to throw out hashtags on twitter — but think creatively about how Andrew’s message can be reinforced throughout everyday life.
We can outthink, and outsmart the other campaigns, but part of that is leaning into what makes this campaign unique. It seems like the campaign has tried to dumb itself down to get more voters, but we saw in Iowa — and we may see in New Hampshire — it doesn’t make a difference. We need to stick to the game we know how to play. It’s what got us this far. Why doubt it now?