In Alabama, you are usually one of two things: a Republican, or an outsider. There are pro-Trump Facebook posts from your friends and relatives constantly, sometimes dozens per hour. However, when you’re one of the handful of people, especially women, who stop and think about the atrocious rhetoric Donald Trump spews from his mouth, or the implications of what seems to be back alley political deals falling from the skies constantly, and you speak up about it-you’re shunned, called names, and then there you are--the outsider. The one who doesn’t toe the line. The one who is "unfriended" by lifelong friends and even family members.

I was lost. I had asked questions, and so I was a political nomad. So, I joined Twitter. I turned the channel from Fox news more often. I paid closer attention when those few Democratic women I knew posted and conversed about their political views. I got more curious. Surely there were more people out there who could think critically, who could form their own opinion, and call out horrendous behavior when they recognized it, even if it was from "the chosen one."

I came across a town hall one day, I think it was on CNN. Andrew Yang was speaking. He was talking about the Freedom Dividend. I listened…I mulled it over…and I thought, yeah right! Socialism! As we in my little corner of the world are sometimes programmed to do.

On Twitter, though, something in the back of my mind made me quietly search him out. I read his tweets, and those replying to him. I found the Yang Gang.

All of this was going on around the same time that Alabama passed HB314. Knowing my views on this wouldn’t be accepted in my literal world or on Facebook, where those I knew had obviously also grown up southern, I turned, again, to Twitter. I voiced my fear, and my objections. I lamented the women of Alabama and how this would affect us for decades to come. Not just the law itself, but the absolute egregious cost of fighting this law legally, because I can’t fathom any way it stands.

You know what happened? The Yang Gang, they didn’t demean me for my upbringing, and the fact I was beside myself that last fall I had actually voted for one of the men who helped pass HB314. They were kind, and they were inclusive. They made me feel like my voice mattered.

All of this led me to Yang2020.com. I started reading Andrew Yang’s policies, and one by one, they made so much sense to me. I read about how he planned to pay for the Freedom Dividend. I read about his plan for absolving the cost of the penny and how much the United States actually pays to mint that coin each year (um, hello ridiculous!). I read about his plan to pardon non-violent offenders for marijuana use, and to decriminalize opioid addiction. His plans to help people, rather than to hinder their ability to make a life for themselves and their families.

Everything Andrew Yang stands for is legitimately advantageous to the American people, to helping us boost ourselves and our communities. He wants to Make America Think Harder. He wants to move us past this dismal time in our collective history, when we are divided, bitter, and aching for someone to inspire hope within us.

He is the candidate that can not only rebuild us from the doldrums Donald Trump has put us in, he can keep us from going further over the cliff. If we choose a more establishment candidate for the Democratic nominee, the edge of that cliff, I think, will be very, very close.

Andrew Yang is the candidate for the south. For the north. For the east and west. He is the candidate for women and men and children. For African Americans, for Caucasians, for Latinx, for Asians. He is the candidate that most reflects the cure for the problems in our country, and the dreams of our country as a whole.

Andrew Yang is the candidate of the future.