In an enormous field of 2020 candidates, democratic hopefuls are doing whatever it takes to stand out.
Each of these candidates has chosen a persona to imbue themselves with on the campaign trail, hoping that these focused sets of characteristics will at least allow them to remain in the immediate memory of the voters they are looking to court.
For those who are polling in the low single digits, some of these tactics have been downright absurd. Beto O’Rourke, for example, has taken to a gritty, angry reboot of his entire political personality, openly cursing and then selling t-shirts emblazoned with these salacious soundbites.
For businessman Andrew Yang, the schtick has been outrageous money stunts and wild claims about climate change.
Now, as he continues to struggle in the polls, Yang is proposing that the US government begin stealthily regulating the diet of We The People.
Thursday at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service during MSNBC’s Climate Forum, presidential hopeful Andrew Yang said the government needed to tax the cattle industry to “modify Americans’ diets.”
Yang said, “Cattle is very energy-consuming and energy-expensive, and if you project forward on what we would need to do to reduce emissions, you would want to modify Americans’ diets over time.”
Americans aren’t likely to be wooed by Yang’s proposal, particularly in that it takes away a great deal of freedom regarding what we put into our sovereign bodies.
Yang’s suggestion is to punish cattle producers for the carbon footprint that the consumer diet creates, thus making beef far more expensive and, ergo, less desirable.
This is the same sort of logic that has democratic lawmakers constantly taxing and re-taxing items such as cigarettes and alcohol in an effort to combat addiction, which is itself a mental health issue and not a fiscally-specific situation.
