On November 6, 2017, businessman and philanthropist Andrew Yang announced his run for the presidency with a plan for universal basic income (UBI), a policy that would give every adult in the United States $1,000 a month with no strings attached. At first, he was a caricature, parading his identity as an Asian-American math nerd in lieu of a personality. His policy announcements read like an internet stream of consciousness, from an opposition to circumcision to cryptocurrency asset regulation. But over the last year and a half, he has built a movement preaching the gospel of UBI.

With his UBI-centric platform, he has garnered a cult internet following: the “Yang Gang,” a grassroots fundraising operation that has netted nearly $2.5 million to date, and a prized podium placement next to Joe Biden at tonight’s Democratic primary debate.

Yang’s campaign pitch is that he will make capitalism work for the 70 million “normal people” who will lose their jobs to automation in the next ten years. Yang considers this an existential crisis that can only be solved with UBI. The monthly stipend, which Yang dubs the “Freedom Dividend,” is intended to ameliorate economic insecurity, wealth inequality, and the other symptoms of social malaise stemming from capitalism.