Andrew Yang: Democrats need to ‘gravitate away from identity politics’

Presidential hopeful and entrepreneur Andrew Yang said the Democratic Party must move away from identity politics to win the White House in 2020.

“I think it’s a kind of stupid way to try to win elections. I think the Democratic Party needs to try to gravitate away from identity politics towards things that would actually bridge the gap,” Yang said in a Friday interview on the Rubin Report, a YouTube Talk Show.

Yang said he understands the “sentiment” motivating people to incorporate their identities into their political views, but he doesn’t think it’s “a great way to try and build consensus.”

“I understand people have different experiences. I’ve had different experiences, but if we’re going to solve some of these problems, we have to emphasize the things that will bring us together and not the things that are going to make us seem like we’re living different lives,” Yang said.

Host Dave Rubin asked Yang whether people who would make assumptions about Yang’s politics or life because he is an Asian American bother him.  

“My parents came here to have a better life for me and my brother and it’s worked, and now I’m trying to give back,” Yang said. “I want to try and make this country stronger so that my kids and other people’s kids grow up in a country that we’re all still excited about, and we do not have that much time to make that happen because things are coming apart very quickly.”

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, another 2020 hopeful, also drew criticism when speaking at an LGBT gala in Las Vegas last month for saying identity politics as contributed to a “crisis of belonging” in the United States and that it has “divided and carved” Americans.