Dear Andrew Yang,

Welcome to Sonoma! Sorry we couldn’t swing a visit to my math class at Creekside but the only time you had available was Tuesday morning when we are doing our “Publictransportationpalooza” to San Francisco (bus to ferry, ferry to BART, BART to mission murals, cable car to lunch in Chinatown, walk back to ferry, ferry to SMART train, train to bus, bus back to Sonoma). It’s a long day for students and staff but as you know experiential learning is key.

Another thing you know is that things have not improved much since you uttered my favorite line from the 2019 presidential debate,

“We’re up here with make-up on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines, playing roles in this reality TV show. It’s one reason why we elected a reality TV star as our president.”

“We need to be laser focused on solving the real challenges of today,” Yang said as he pivoted to his proposal of giving families a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 a month.

“It’s not left, it’s not right but forward.”

We were all in shock then as a certain bully baby rose and eventually became president riding a wave of hate, bad promises and blatant lies.

But we’re beyond that now, hopefully, and we seem more ready for solutions. If we’re not going to have a dystopian rightwing theocracy in November then we need to prioritize smart over dumb and hope over hate. Here’s my most recent fave inspirational TED talk from your pal, Scott Galloway: https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_galloway_how_the_us_is_destroying_young_people_s_future?language=en

Right? How about if instead of pushing a third party (the Forward party which I totally agree with BTW), we strengthen Democracy by getting rid of the lies and those who believe and perpetuate them. Oust everyone who does not believe in science or proven truths-all those members who believe the 2020 election was stolen-out. All those who don’t believe in climate change-out, and those who lie or believe in ridiculous ideas like Jewish Space Lasers get the same consequence as George Santos-out.

But don’t stop there, let’s do what we can to strengthen democracy-the electoral college-out, supreme court members who don’t represent the people or truth or honesty or integrity-out. Get back to the “of the people, by the people, for the people” mantra.

Because, as you know, things are a mess and getting messier. And hasn’t the lid has been off the sewer for long enough?

The other day in class, we were talking about the horrific mess in the middle east and a student asked, “Yeah, but how do you know that’s real?” I was mad at first but then realized that this is where many students are these days. Unsure of reality because when you get your news through a personal algorithm that reinforces your views on Tick Tock and when AI throws a big curveball into what is real or not (have you seen the commercial where you can instantly change pictures so you can jump higher or throw your baby higher?). Of course, reality becomes questionable.

But truth is truth, and Science is science, repeatable, provable and unchanging. And no, I don’t want everyone to think one way, the magic of America is that we appreciate and tolerate other views. But when those views lead to disfunction, we have to put on our big boy pants and say, ENOUGH.

Anyway, looking forward to Monday night at Hanna, you are one of the doers Andrew and even though you are 0 for 2 in elections (President and mayor of New York) you have grit, you get back up, learn from the experience and always move forward.