Andrew Yang warned Stanford students about Trump’s “dark” return to power and criticized the Democratic Party’s resistance to internal reform during his Monday address to the Stanford Political Union, where he defended third-party politics and highlighted Silicon Valley’s pivotal role in shaping America’s political future.
Yang, who spoke virtually, said he was saddened by Trump’s return, stating that it “augurs a real dark period in American life” and that Trump is “an accelerant” to the disintegration of American institutions.
He pointed to the widespread opposition from former Trump administration officials as particularly troubling, noting that such universal criticism from past employees was unprecedented in his experience as a business leader.
Yang specifically said that tech industries backed Trump due to the perceived economic benefits and bureaucratic efficiency that his administration was promising. This is in contrast to the Biden administration, who he described as being “quite adversarial towards many tech investors and companies, particularly in the crypto realm.”
Yang reflected on his experience as a tech entrepreneur, claiming that the technology sector as the quintessential driver of American change, pointing to its substantial influence on culture and politics.
“The tech industry has been transformative in various ways in terms of our culture, our political environment,” he said.
He highlighted how social media platforms have created isolated information ecosystems, a trend he noted had intensified following Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly Twitter). Yang emphasized Stanford’s role as “pivotal in technological development,” “the wellspring of the tech industry” and, perhaps most pertinently, “the place where the future is formed.”
Yang made particular references to Reid Hoffman ’90 and Peter Thiel ’87, two Stanford alumni on opposite sides of the political spectrum, both of whom have had a sizable hand in developing America’s political landscape, saying that they were “the first people I thought of” when he pondered Stanford’s role.
“Peter Thiel launched the political careers of two of his mentees, one named Blake Masters and the other named J. D. Vance,” he said. “He gave each of them $10 million to run for Senate.”
The conversation, moderated by the Stanford Political Union’s Ziyad Broker ’27, then turned to Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and the current state of the Democratic Party.
Yang sharply criticized the Democratic Party’s unwavering support for Biden, despite his “disastrous debate” in June and refusal to consider alternate candidates. He pointed to the party’s hostile treatment of Representative Dean Phillips’ primary challenge as evidence of its resistance to internal reform, describing the choice to “excommunicate” Phillips while propping up Biden as “stunning”. Yang, who had endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, expressed regret over Biden’s choice to run again, having initially believed the president would step aside in 2024.
After dissecting past weaknesses in the Democratic Party, Yang turned to its future.
“If you ask me, ‘Hey, is the Democratic Party going to magically get its act together and then magically win?” he said, “It’s not.”
Yang cited “corporate interest” as the main reason for this inaction. To Yang, these interests prevented both major parties from pursuing meaningful reform, citing California’s failed attempt at single-payer healthcare as an example. Despite Democratic supermajority control and Governor Newsom’s campaign promises, Yang said the initiative was quietly abandoned after pressure from health insurance companies without even coming to a vote.
Yang emphasized the importance of economic policies centered around working Americans, pointing to his advocacy for universal basic income and enhanced child tax credits. He highlighted how his organization, Humanity Forward, successfully lobbied for policies that cut child poverty in half in 2021, though these gains were later reversed. Yang criticized how pandemic-era financial policies primarily benefited shareholders while providing minuscule direct support to average Americans, arguing that “the poor don’t matter in the system.”
During the Q&A session, students pressed Yang on several disputed issues, from third-party vote splitting to the viability of proportional representation. When asked about the criticism that third-party candidates contributed to Trump’s win, Yang rebuked this narrative, citing vote margins in swing states and arguing that third-party votes weren’t sufficient to affect the outcome in most contested states.
“I definitely appreciated a lot of the labor perspective and thinking through centering a lot of policy decisions around the experiences of actual Americans as opposed to siloed institutional questions,” said Nathan Hamzey M.A. ’26, who attended the event.
YuQing Jiang ’25, president of the Stanford Political Union and former opinions editor of The Stanford Daily, said SPU is trying to “frame politics in a way that’s approachable.” He characterized Stanford as ”very politically disengaged.”
Jiang outlines the key mission of SPU to serve as a hub where students can discuss politics with “people they know, don’t know, disagree with” as a means of encouraging understanding opposing viewpoints rather than viewing these discussions as a means of “winning or losing arguments.”