Last week in the wake of Kamala Harris’ suspension of her presidential campaign, there was a great deal of well-justified consternation and apprehension at the possibility that the next Democratic debate would feature not a single Nonwhite candidate. While Cory Booker and Julian Castro are still running, based on the DNC’s debate qualification requirements, which factor in polling numbers and number of unique donors, they will almost certainly fail to qualify for the next debate.
To not field a single Nonwhite candidate would be an enormous embarrassment for the Democratic Party, especially considering how the party’s base is becoming increasingly reliant on Nonwhite voters.
Well it looks like we can all breathe a sigh of relief, a Nonwhite candidate has qualified for the next debate:
Businessman Andrew Yang has qualified for the sixth Democratic primary debate next week.
The upstart entrepreneur and nonprofit executive becomes the seventh — and likely final — candidate to make the Dec. 19 debate cut. He reached the polling threshold after a Quinnipiac University poll was released Tuesday.
Yang will join former Vice President Joe Biden, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, billionaire businessman Tom Steyer and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the PBS NewsHour/Politico debate at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
The Asian American candidate also brings some needed diversity to the debate stage amid criticism that the event could feature only white candidates after California Sen. Kamala Harris, who had already qualified, dropped out last week.
Just thought I’d mention this news because after the uproar last week over the possibility of having no Nonwhites at the debate, I figured people would be eager and thrilled to learn that, thankfully, a Nonwhite candidate has indeed made the debate. I will say that I did find it somewhat odd that I’ve seen no mention of this important development here or among others who were discussing this subject last week, even though the news of Yang qualifying for the debate came out about noon yesterday. Oh well, maybe people are just busy with Christmas shopping!
It’s also weird that an unserious and fringe candidate with no real support like Yang keeps qualifying for these debates while more serious candidates have dropped out or don’t make the debate qualifications. Somehow Yang’s managing to cleverly game the DNC’s system by having more unique donors and higher polling numbers than those more serious candidates. I mean, I never see Yang mentioned here or on MSNBC (at least not positively), so where’s he getting his support from? Must be Russian bots, right (lol)?
Anyhow, like I said I wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention since this was a topic of such great importance to people just last week, and for some strange and (I’m sure) purely coincidental reason I didn’t see this important development, of a Nonwhite candidate making the debate, get mentioned here. An honest oversight on everyone’s part I’m sure (and totally not the result of Asians being consistently forgotten in discussions of diversity, or bias against unconventional outsider candidates by Democratic normies).