In 2020, Congress may have its first YouTuber in office.

Joseph Saladino, better known by his YouTube persona Joey Salads, is a 26-year old New Yorker running for office in New York’s 11^th district.

Saladino started YouTubing in 2008 and has branched off into other side businesses. His current channel has over 2.5 million subscribers.

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All About the Business

Saladino’s experience as an entrepreneur has shaped his overall campaign platform. The main focus of his campaign is small business. Specifically, he wants to make it easier for people to set up and run their own businesses. Saladino’s vision is for people to be their own bosses, just like he has done so during his time as a YouTuber and entrepreneur.

MAGA All the Way

Saladino is a staunch Donald Trump supporter. Ever since he heard Donald Trump speak for the first time, Saladino said that “he fell in love with the way he talks”. Saladino believes that Trump “embodies the New York attitude for the most part” and that got him motivated to enter the political scene.

His experience in small business also woke him up to how dysfunctional the government has become. According to Saladino, all the regulations and taxes became “frustrating”, which gave him no choice but to run for office.

Viability as a Political Candidate

Saladino believes that the following he has built on social media can help him transition smoothly into politics.

In his view, his YouTube subscriber base categorically rejects political correctness culture and tunes into social media specifically to get an alternative perspective to what is seen on the mainstream media. Despite trying to keep his YouTube persona separate from his public office aspirations, Saladino says that he’s received positive reception from “99 percent” of his followers..

When asked about other YouTubers following in his footsteps, Saladino declared that other YouTubers will likely throw their hats in the political ring in the near future. He sees social media as the “wave of the future” and “TV is no longer the standard medium.”

Policy Criticisms

Saladino was highly critical of the $15 minimum wage, which he believes would disproportionately hurt small businesses and create unemployment for low-skilled workers trying to get into the workforce. Instead, he thinks that wages should be determined by the market and that bureaucratic red tape on small business should be relaxed so that there could be more employment opportunities.

How to Grow the GOP in New York

On the prospects of growing the GOP in a solidly blue state like New York, Saladino sees the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a unique opportunity to exploit. Ocasio-Cortez has become one of the most controversial figures in politics thanks to her Green New Deal and her desire to levy 70% income taxes on America’s richest.

Saladino alludes to her economically controversial remarks and her efforts to “scare away” Amazon from her district as key points that Republicans can exploit to win back the support of small business owners. The aspiring candidate argues that when New Yorkers start “to realize that Democrats are anti-business, they’ll then start to wake up.”

He also points to the vast network of small business owners present in New York. According to Saladino, these business owners are well-connected and when word gets out that Democrats’ policies make it next to impossible to run a small business. In sum, Saladino believes that exploiting the Democratic Party’s anti-small business policies will create a notable shift in favor of Republicans in the area.

Since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, anything is now possible in American politics.

With how distant D.C.’s political class has become, a YouTuber like Saladino provides a more relatable image for the average voter in America.

It’s definitely time for some new blood in Washington D.C.