So far, I haven’t advocated for or against any particular candidates in the Democratic Party’s presidential contest and have kept more on the analytical side. But I have no reservations in offering a firm “hell no” to the prospect of Michael Bloomberg being the nominee. If you’ve been following my arguments about the status of the Democratic Party and the challenges it faces in winning a national election, then you won’t be surprised to hear this. I want the party to be more economically populist, although not necessarily in a straightforward “socialist” kind of way. I want the party to make the concerns of small town Americans front and center by talking about market consolidation, regional inequality, antitrust enforcement, and entrepreneurship, as well as social issues like the opioid crisis and mental health care.
It should go without saying that I don’t want a big city mayor who also happens to be a billionaire media mogul to be the face of the party or the person setting its priorities. Bloomberg has some admirable qualities but he’s a terrible fit for the left on almost every metric.
I’m not so sure. I don’t like dismissing people on the basis of their wealth or lack of same, or on their place of residence. I’d like to hear what the man has to say. If he’s smart he’ll present some sort of a policy solution to inequality. If he doesn’t, OK, we’re done. But if he does, and if he walks back stop and frisk, I have no issue with his experience running a city with a larger population than 40 US states. As for his money, yes, I can see that turning off the yutes, and that is potentially a serious problem, but on the other hand it obliterates money as a GOP advantage. Let’s hear the man out. Plenty of time left to dismiss him.
Thanks for your comment. I doubt anyone has an issue with Bloomberg for having been mayor of New York City. His policies while mayor, however, are up for grabs and there’s plenty in that record that opens him to legitimate (and quite harsh) criticism from multiple factions of the party.
As for Bloomberg’s wealth, it’s been many years (decades) since I’ve fit anyone’s definition of a “yute”, but the past week has provided multiple examples of the corrupting influence of extreme wealth on even the best-intentioned of people.
*Bloomberg’s work on guns is laudable and impressive. As much as just about any individual person (certainly any non-Virginian), he can claim credit for helping Democrats there regain control of the legislature. And yet he apparently looks at the largest and deepest Democratic field in living memory and finds nobody (not Bennet, not Bullock, not Biden, not Booker, not Buttigieg, not Harris, not Klobuchar, not Yang) capable of representing his brand of center-left politics.
*Through his philanthropic ventures, Bill Gates has helped transform the lives of millions of people, creating positive structural change in dozens of countries; and yet, when asked about next year’s election he couldn’t bring himself to say he’d support Elizabeth Warren over Donald Trump.
*Tom Steyer could be spending his tens of millions of dollars to help elect hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Democratic state representatives, state senators, county commissioners, sheriffs, and district attorneys; instead he’s blowing his fortune on a (losing) vanity campaign for president.
And these are the good guys. Most of their peers aren’t. Extreme wealth (like extreme poverty) has a corrosive effect on one’s spirit, and on one’s perspective on human life and society.
“The very rich are not even remotely human.”
Meaning their money has given them such a vastly different context of reality they might as well be a different species. Yang is one of the few I see as even capable of looking at reality from different contexts.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been poor, but I have. It isn’t just wealth that corrupts, so does poverty, but I would not assume a candidate with a hardship background was corrupted. I don’t exclude data a priori based on factors which may or may not be relevant.
Except being poor leaves you with far less time to marinate in your own bullshit. I’ve been poor too. Also by definition almost any relevant candidate is going to be far less poor at the time of their run than their background. Note: Not being quite human does not translate as evil. You can be wealthy and well intentioned but still ultimately have a warped perspective.
Less time to marinate? Yes. Find yourself with no apartment one cold night in upstate NY you will need a friend, like right now.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. We agree (I think) that powerlessness (of which poverty is a form) tends to corrupt, just as power does. I think we also agree that a candidate’s background/experience doesn’t/shouldn’t necessarily exclude them from consideration. (Bloomberg grew up in a middle-class family in a modest suburban town outside of Boston. Unlike Trump and both Bushes, he didn’t inherit great wealth.)
That’s why I cited recent actions by Bloomberg, Gates, and Steyer. Again, these are the good guys: billionaires who are spending fortunes to improve health outcomes, combat gun violence, and protect the environment. And despite that, they’ve each displayed glaring moral/political blind spots that (imho) are partly, perhaps largely, the result of the insulating and distorting effects of extreme wealth.
Yeah, Bloomberg has a policy solution to inequality. Here it is: “If we can find a bunch of billionaires around the world to
move here, that would be a godsend,” then-Mayor Bloomberg told The New York Times back in 2013. “Because that’s where the revenue comes to take care of everybody else.” The problem is, this policy solution doesn’t work. In case you hadn’t noticed.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/05/why-billionaires-dont-pay-property-taxes-in-new-york/389886/
He would do the country what he did to New York. It is the exact opposite of what this country needs.
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/commentary/bloomberg-killed-new-york-citys-soul.html
I don’t see rich people as helping with the issues most Americans face, like the two most important, health care and education. They simply don’t live there. No one they know likely filed for medical bankruptcy or owes fifty thousand on a college degree. Nor does monopoly and its related corruption bother them much, their words are simply different. They don’t match up well with a progressive community looking to use the power of government to help. That’s not socialism in the sense of controlling production but helping people. That is what we need. Mr Bloomberg has a tough road to hoe if he wants my vote, like are there any progressive candidates he is now supporting?
Bloomberg’s apparent decision to skip the Iowa caucuses and NH primary struck me as a bad way to start a campaign, especially since these are still swing states. Not a good look.
My not very articulate response is, well duh. I’m not sure to whom he thinks he is going to appeal, but if this is how he goes about campaigning for president, he is a non-starter to me.
Let’s see what Bloomberg has to say before we reject him based on his wealth. Some of our great presidents came from wealth, so I don’t automatically discount him. His record as Mayor was mixed but he did some good things on gun control and the environment. I’m skeptical that he’ll catch on with the dem electorate but I’m willing to listen to his argument. I’m also concerned that the current frontrunners are not going to be able to pull this off. Biden is over the hill. Mayor Pete is too green. Warren and Sanders — I love their policies and hope they catch on with the swing state voters that matter in our screwed up system, but so far its not looking great. Would people in those states vote for Bloomberg over Trump? If so, he might — might — be our best bet.
Thanks for your comment, but I don’t see anybody rejecting Bloomberg *because* of his wealth. I see—in this thread and elsewhere—plenty of people rejecting Bloomberg for various other reasons, including: 1) parts of his record as NYC mayor, 2) some of the policy positions he’s staked out in recent years, 3) his lateness entering the race, 4) his reported strategy of ignoring the first four primary states, 5) his perceived or actual difficulties in connecting with, for example, small town and rural Midwestern voters, 6) the number of well-qualified candidates already in the race (e.g., Bennet, Biden, Bullock, Booker, Harris, Klobuchar) who are presumed to have an appeal to “centrist” Democrats.
As for the head-to-head polling of leading Democratic contenders against Trump, in the aggregate those polls show virtually all Democrats beating Trump in most or all swing states.
Sure, there’s a mathematical possibility that Bloomberg might be “our best bet”…but it’s a vanishingly small one.
“As for the head-to-head polling of leading Democratic contenders against Trump, in the aggregate those polls show virtually all Democrats beating Trump in most or all swing states.”
I think there is a misunderstanding here as to how these polls frame the question. The polls ask: “would you rather vote for trump or candidate X”, then ask “would you rather vote for trump or candidate Y”, etc. You don’t get to aggregate the results; they are not asking “would you rather vote for trump or someone from this group of dems”.
Here are the results from the recent NY times poll. Biden does OK, but Sanders and Warren, not so well. These results are concerning, given Biden’s weaknesses that I think will become more apparent over time. I hope Warren and Sanders can change minds in these important states, because we need these states to win. If another dem candidate parachutes in that can do better than this I don’t care if they are a billionaire named Bloomberg, an alien, or a cocker spaniel. They’d all be better than the currrent horror show occupying the WH.
Of course this is only one poll, and perhaps by aggregate you meant adding in other recent polls? Do you have a link to any? It would help me sleep better if the above poll were an outlier!
Biden is currently the front runner by a slim margin representing the centrist wing of the party, the same space Bloomberg would occupy. He has a tenuous grip on front runner status, because there are swaths of primary voters he’s not been able to win over, and many of these voters are supporting progressives — Warren and Sanders. How does Bloomberg, as a centrist, promoting the same wealth-friendly, first do no harm to the job creators policies over the middle class expect to address that problem? What does he bring to the table that would have more progressives leaning towards Sanders and Warren, opt for the centrist platform, that Biden, Klobuchar and Bittigieg doesn’t? His billions? Its certainly not passion or charisma.
Yes, indeed, a “Battle of the Billionaires 2020!” would be the perfect symbol for our failed democracy.
Presumably, since Bloomberg has absolutely no constituency behind him, this (actual) billionaire’s sole goal is to be another bizness “voice” against the two demonic progressives, creating dire-sounding digital “data” to be run billions of time over social media to computer-identified electorate slices to ensure another National Trumpalist win via the electoral college. Because a 1% wealth/financial transactions tax is a much greater threat to the nation than Der Trumper!