Here’s a preview of the oncoming “Bloomberg Solution” to all of this shameful grandstanding and gallivanting around that we are seeing in the primaries.
From The Washingtoon Post:
Without jumping in, Bloomberg criticizes tenor of presidential race
By Paul Schwartzman February 18 at 11:19 PMFormer New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that the candidates leading the 2016 presidential race are capitalizing on Americans’ outrage over a political system that is “corrupt, gridlocked and broken.”
Offering new insights into his thinking as he contemplates a third party bid for the White House, Bloomberg described the campaign as “a race to the extremes” with candidates who are exploiting voters who “have lost faith” in the country’s institutions.
“The list of supposed villains we hear about is long,” Bloomberg, a billionaire who served three terms as mayor of New York, said at a celebration for conservative author Peggy Noonan’s new book. “But the actual solutions that Americans seek have been in short supply.”
Saying that “the problems we face are very real,” Bloomberg cited “wage stagnation,” the country’s “retreat around the world,” and a “two party system that answers to lobbyists and special interests instead of the American people.”
As a result, he said, “You see the current candidates out there doing well, and not the conventional ones” — an apparent reference to the anti-establishment campaigns of Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt).
—snip—
Yawn.
Translation?
Sure.
Read on.
The salient sentences are these:
“The list of supposed villains we hear about is long…but the actual solutions that Americans seek have been in short supply.”
Saying that “the problems we face are very real,” Bloomberg cited “wage stagnation,” the country’s “retreat around the world,” and a “two party system that answers to lobbyists and special interests instead of the American people.”
So what he is saying is that our problems have not been caused by the “supposed villains”…read “Wall Street and its bought-and-sold-politicians’…they have been caused by a two party system that is controlled by lobbyists and special interests. Doublespeak up the yin-yang!!!
His solution?
Start a third party. The Bloomberg Party, one that will eliminate the need for lobbyists because he represents the people who hire those lobbyists. Eliminate the middleman. He is casting himself as a sort of a super-lobbyist (Like a Super PAC without all of the subterfuge)…and since he knows best (As evidenced by his ability to single-handedly turn much of NYC into sort of a high-end mall. The “New York Magazine/Sex In The City” solution.), he will solve all of our problems by buying them out. Solve the problem of a “corrupt, gridlocked and broken” system by moving the very people who are doing the corrupting directly into the driver’s seat. Eliminate the very necessity for “corruption.”
But…the question that remains is this…where will those “problems” go?
Oh…away somewhere. Humph, humph, harrumph!!!
Like the problem people who were basically bought out/forced out of their own NYC neighborhoods in his three-term gentrification process and exported to be “problems” in smaller cities and towns in the NYC area. Places that of course no one who really matters…like the NY Times and Wall Street Journal…cares much about.
Eminent domain raised to a level never before seen in history.
It used to be “We need to build a highway here. You have to go away. It’s our way and the highway.” Now it’s “We have to build a fake city here. One where no one ever gets dirty. You can’t be involved. You bring down property values. Go away.”
Only…this is simply another kind of bubble. If you cannot totally eliminate those “undesirables,” you need to find a place to put them. UH oh!!! This is relatively easy to do if you are the mayor of a powerful city; you simply ship them upriver, out to the failed Long Island suburbs or New Jersey. But…if you are the president of an entire nation? As the great comic philosopher Stephen Wright once asked, “If you had everything…where would you put it?”
Wage stagnation? Print more money. Duh. It’s the banky way.
The country’s “retreat around the world?” Kill two birds with one stone. Alla them undesirables that are undercutting wages by working at whatever pay they need to be able to at least survive? Draft ’em!!! Then send them overseas to stop that awful world-wide retreat. That’lll teach ’em!!!
I’ll tell you this…if he tries to run on that bubbled-up platform he is going to crash and burn before he spends 1/3rd of that several billion dollars he threatens to use to Super PAC the actual political party system.
It won’t fly.
Watch.
AG
Y’know who he’s always reminded me of?
Scrooge McDuck. You know…Donald Duck’s fabulously wealthy uncle?
All nicey-nice until you disagree with him. Then he slams you upside the head with a bag of money.
Watch.
I await his failure with ‘bated breath.
AG
Hey now! That’s an very insulting thing. Scrooge McDuck is a tightwad and a spendthrift, but he did always favor playing by the rules shaping the rules instead of shaping the rules to play by the rules. He is also the anti-thesis to just throwing money at the problem. Not to mention when it actually came down to it, he was always willing to do the right thing and actually had a heart, empathy, and compassion.
Saying that Bloomberg is anywhere near Scrooge McDuck in terms of class and morality is a huge insult to Mr. McDuck and I’m sure his lawyers will have something to say about your egregious libel! /s
Scrooge was a Disney character. No good ever came of any Disney character. Not really. Not even fucking Bambi!!!
Bloomberg Disneyfied Times Square.
I liked it better the other way.
So it goes.
No funk anymore, all artifice.
Now he wants to do it to the rest of the U.S.
Life needs funk!!!
I’m betting Bloomberg fails.
So’s James…wherever he is.
Bet on it.
AG
Where did these all go?
Digitized.
AG
And thus…defunkt,
AG
Probably my favorite funk performance:
The audio’s much better on this one, recorded on another night of the J.B.’s engagement at the Olympia. Catfish is particularly amazing here:
Question: How is it that Bloomberg got to serve THREE terms? Wasn’t the city charter amended to allow that?
He bought the third one.
AG
Out here in the provinces, meaning Portland, Oregon, we have our own gentrification, too, pushing much of the small African American community out of relatively close-in neighborhoods to the suburbs. Redevelopment projects with subsidies to developers were sold as job creators–never really panned out. And so on. At least the public has consistently refused to get behind stupid schemes like publicly financed sports stadiums. My main hope for this city is that lots of citizens truly support local businesses and small-scale livability initiatives.
Is this an offering of an America for Bloomberg Party that resembles the old Connecticut for Lieberman Party and the Universe for Trump Party that Donald gave up to run as a Republican?
Nahhhhh…those two were just ego trippin’.
This one is tactical!!!
But…equally stupid, I think.
We shall see.
AG
It’s too bad that june 16 is a little late to launch a presidential bid…
He’s not in it to win, just to screw Bernie sanders if Sanders wins. New York money sticks together.
I disagree. He’s in it…if he gets in…to make sure that an outlier doesn’t win the presidency. If HRC is the Dem nominee and Trump the RatPub, he will run to take votes away from Trump. If Sanders is the nominee and an obedient centrist…say Rubio…is the RatPub, he’ll run to take votes away from Sanders. If both Sanders and Trump (Or…shudder…Cruz.) are nominated, he’ll run to win. If it’s two PermaGov servants…say HRC and Rubio…he won’t run.
AG
P.S. It’s going to be a complicated fix, I think. With all the talk about a brokered convention that is now going on in official RatPub circles, I strongly expect a veiled re-threat from Trump about running as an independent. That’ll shut them up!!!
I alternate between fearing a Bloomberg run that could fuck up New Jersey and maybe some New England States for the democrats, and feeling that it wouldn’t break 2% and basically not do anything except provide masturbatory material for Very Serius Pundits
Bloomberg/Chaffee?
Bloomberg/Webb?