In their never-ending fear of Bernie Sanders and his whole “maybe less people should die and maybe have less debt” approach, and with Joe Biden pulling a Joe Biden and spiraling out of contention for the nomination, establishment Democrats have leeched on to the nearest alternative to Bernie they think makes sense; former New York City mayor and mediocre white man incarnate Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg qualified for Wednesday’s Nevada debate’s after coming in second place in a new poll, which probably won’t matter, but we have to pretend Bloomberg is a big deal out of misplaced fear of a solid candidate.
This is what happens when Democrats run from the actual, literal will of Democratic voters. Bernie hasn’t exactly blown out the competition, but his dogged commitment to his message has helped him standing out from an increasingly embarrassing crowd of centrist trying to be an alternative to him. Bernie ranks at the top of the field in terms of favorability. The Democratic establishment is tripping all over their dicks to shove what they feel is a more palatable option into the public consciousness, no matter what the cost is. If Bernie is winning, it’s because they like what Bernie is selling more than the 5 centrists stepping on each other’s faces trying to get into second.
The funny thing is, if the party would’ve pushed the more diverse options in the field (Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julian Castro) instead of simply hoping Joe Biden would enter the race and that they’d coast to a victory based slowly on his proximately to a popular former President, they probably would have an alternate to Bernie. Instead, those options were chased out of the race, leaving us with a deluge of white people who’s only policy positions seem to be “I’d be more electable than the guy that everyone seems to like”.
Bloomberg, as it stands right now, is basically Joe Biden, but with more money. He comes with his fair share of good ol’ fashioned racist baggage. Bloomberg is infamously irritable and hates answering hard questions. He’s a billionaire in an age where people are increasingly and bitterly tired of billionaires. He’s just as guilty of leaning on “I know the black President you liked!” as Biden is. That Bloomberg is being positioned as a challenger to Sanders says less about Bloomberg’s actual prospects and more about the fact that centrism, like conservatism, is in it’s last, fleeting gasps of relevancy, and that the Democrats who want to maintain the status quo are so fucking desperate they will shove literally any-goddamn-body out into the field as long as their won’t fuck up the old proverbial gravy train.
Joe Biden’s run as the frontrunner was only going to last as long as it took for Biden to actually open his mouth in front of people. As soon as he did, the self-proclaimed gaffe machine kept stepping on rakes and walking into controversies, both old and new. His charm was not in his policies, but in his goofy, down home delivery. Asked to actually speak to his policies and what he believe in, he either faltered, or got bodied by Bernie or Warren or Julian or Harris or Booker. As soon as Joe Biden, Frontrunner for President of the United States (TM) had to step to the mic and actually articulate his vision for the country, he embarrassed himself. Biden losing so thoroughly isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Bloomberg exists in the same lane. His appeal is less in what he actually thinks than in the fact that no one knows who the hell is he is. His opportunities to speak to the country are few and far between. It is easy to seem well reasoned and calm in campaign ads; it’s easy to seem “cool with the kids” by paying a bunch of Instagram accounts to put some poorly conceived memes on the platform. Once the lights turn on and you’re in front of the country, you had best have your shit together. Bloomberg has not shown anything that suggests he has his shit together, not when every other centrist in the race will be superkicking him in the face like the fucking Young Bucks in an effort to encourage party donors to treat them as the beloved second option to Sanders.
And all of that will be happening at a time where Sanders, as hard-headed and stubborn as ever, will be repeating the same shit he’s said for like 8 years, only this time, to an audience that’s more receptive to it. There’s been a lot of scuttlebutt about how the Democrats don’t have a singular unifying message and what that could mean for the election year, but Sanders’ positions have never changed, for better or for worse. He is the guy in the race with the most consistent positions. He’s the guy who seems the least rattled when someone calls him on his shit. He seems like, and is acting like, the fucking frontrunner, and voters are treating him as such.
It doesn’t matter how many Michael Bloombergs you shove in front of people. Bloomberg’s run as a viable alternative will falter as soon as his numerous controversies are revealed. And the establishment Democrats will once again be absolutely baffled over how they can beat Bernie, instead of, ya know, trying to help him win and maybe currying some fucking favor with him so he won’t completely disregard every-fucking-thing you want if he wins nomination and the Presidency.
Winning this thing isn’t as hard as it’s being made out to be.
Bloomberg is a smaller version of Trump with somehow even less popular policies.
That makes him, of course, the absolutely perfect candidate for the DNC.
Trump is a poor persons version of a rich person. Bloomberg is just a shitty rich persons version of an acceptable human.
Indeed. I firmly believe his rapid rise in polling is due entirely to the short attention span of American’s in general, and his being able to flood the airwaves with campaign propaganda that isn’t challenged.
Finish Him.
So, I guess it’ll be fun to watch Bloomberg and Steyer go at it to try and prove to the audience who is the most liberal billionaire.
Naomi Klein had a great tweet earlier today…
Everyone should read that book. Yes, I mean right now.
I was looking at the state polling and Biden is still +8 in SC, so if he wins there you can bet that the DNC and various media operations will be going full tilt about Biden’s Big Comeback to Front Runner.
Even with that new poll, FiveThirtyEight is forecasting that Sanders wins. That’s Biden’s big problem; the glut of assholes running for his spot is keeping people who would typically vote for him from, well, voting for him. This allows Bernie’s core group and the people he’s picked up after winning in Iowa and New Hampshire to slide to a win.
Again, Bernie’s not blowing people out, but he’s holding on to his base and managing to attract people who are drawn to a front runner. Biden’s biggest concern at this point doesn’t appear to be Bernie; it’s Klobachar, Pete, Bloomberg, and Steyer clawing away at his votes, peeling just enough guys off the pile for Bernie to come through with a victory.
I’m not saying Joe can’t win South Carolina. I’m just saying the DNC and the Democratic establishment slammed the primaries with centrist candidates and now none of them can separate from the pack.
I was gonna put it in tomorrow’s DOT…but when you’re right, you’re right…& KC is right about Mike
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/18/michael-bloomberg-civil-rights-record-is-atrocious
Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones posted an article where he postulates that candidates have a popularity curve. When they are unknown, they peak. As people find out more about them, they start to decline. Bloomberg is in the honeymoon phase right now, but let’s face it, as some of his more racist and Republican actions are exposed, he’ll start dropping. That said, I still like the fact that he’s attacking Trump. I just don’t want him to get the nomination.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/02/mike-bloomberg-is-about-to-enter-the-highly-dangerous-phase-3-of-all-fresh-new-presidential-candidates/
Yeah I want him to stay in the race spending his billions long after his viability has passed.
…& yet at the same time I’m frankly kinda horrified by what that says of my underlying assumptions about the extent to which money talks louder than principles or policies in this shouting match?
Oh certainly. But he has yet to touch a debate stage, and yet to perform in an actual primary. I will wait before I freak out about him.
…fair…I think he’s mostly just a.n. other excessively rich dude who thinks (not entirely unreasonably) that with the application of enough money he can induce things to go the way he wants them to…I’m not sure I’m all the way convinced he really wants the job, even?
If he truly wanted to be helpful he should have just funded Kamala’s campaign
I hope you’re right.
I thiink it’s telling that the DNC has turned so hard toward Bloomberg while overlooking other corporate-friendly candidates lik eButtigieg and Klob; they couldn’t be clearer about who they think should be a president.
i like bernie… dudes most in line with my european ass’s opinions… im not sure how far that will really get him over there but still.. but honestly.. i dont mind who gets the nomination…i just hope everyone voting can get over the infighting long enough come election time to at least vote trump out…
i dont know how much more damage another 4 years could do..and i honestly dont want to find out… (im also hoping if yous guys go back to having a more or less sane government we might follow suit…the crazies are dangerously close to in power here…and by crazies i might just mean rich and ruthless..)
anyhoooo…dont mind me… im overcaffeinated again and bouncing off the walls…also…since the protest i find it very difficult to not call him booby sanders…coz im 12 apparently…
how come nobody protests pence that way?
aaaaand suddenly there was boobs *pence head asplode*
wheres my coffee gone?
Yeah…I was in a conversation with like-minded people on the Left Of Dead discord server the other day and they were all saying they’d refuse to vote for Bloomberg because he’d be exactly the same as Trump. As much as I hate Bloomberg, that is certainly not the case.
Yes. Trump is a very dangerous threat to this country and this planet. Seriously, the damage he’s done and the further damage he would do in four years CANNOT be overstated. I’d vote for George W. Bush for four more years if the alternative is Trump. And I HATE Bush. If Bloomberg is what we get stuck with, we have to vote Bloomberg.
It’s no longer a matter of principle, it’s survival. The house is on fire and we’ve got to put it out before we can rebuild it. And we can’t do that with Trump pouring gasoline on it.
If that’s the analogy you’re going with, Bloomberg will just stop pouring gasoline on the fire. Won’t put -out- the fire, mind you, just make it take longer to go out.
That’s what four years of a centrist will be. Four years of waiting for “the right time” to be environmental, or to fix health care, or to stop wars. Baby steps. Can’t risk damaging the economy.
Can you twiddle your thumbs for four years? Can everyone you know? Can everyone?
I understand what you’re saying, and I really dislike Bloomberg, but if he’s our ONLY alternative, at least Bloomberg stops pouring gasoline. I don’t want to twiddle my thumbs either, but we have to get that demented maniac Trump out of office. Thumb-twiddling is still better than concentration camps, ecological disasters, DOJ pogroms, insane tariffs, and all the other shit Trump has unleashed in three years.
Is it a compromise? Yes, a shitty one. And I promise you if any other candidate has a reasonable shot at unseating Trump, that’s who I’ll vote for. But Trump must GO.
As a silver lining, a successful Bloomberg run pretty much guarantees another blue wave in the downticket elections. And we’ve seen how important control of Congress is.
Eh, his policies wouldn’t be much different. Maybe a bit more polite about it. The one area where he’s clearly better is probably judges, but we don’t know enough and there’s no way to tell.
Look I’m not saying he’d be a huge improvement, but Trump is dismantling the government and the justice system from the inside. While Bloomberg hasn’t, um – explicitly promised not to do that? – Bloomberg is an institutionalist. Maybe he could keep us in tact long enough for us to turn things around.
In addition to Republicans openly fixing elections to keep Democrats out forever, we are about a year out from Democratic political candidates and politicians being investigated and imprisoned because of Trump and Barr and the rules they are setting out – the permanence of those problems cannot be understated. Anything to loosen the Republican stranglehold on us is a net positive.
I mean, he couldn’t possibly come up with a more disastrous “foreign policy” than Trump, right? Even that would be an improvement.
Yeah that’s the thing – Trump is explicitly anti-institutionalist. He is here to sow chaos. For all Bloomberg’s faults, that is not him. If we can at least return to some level of stability on the world stage (if that’s even possible), I’ll take that. I do think a Bloomberg presidency would pave the way for Trump #2 though.
Bloomberg is Feyd Rautha to Trumps Rabban in the grand plan of Baron Harkonnen.
“The Baron’s plan to assure Feyd’s power is to install him as ruler of Arrakis after a period of tyrannical misrule by Rabban, making Feyd appear to be the savior of the people.”
I’m not sure if you are saying this but I will NEVER believe that Trump is part of a long-term scheme wherein he is going to lose the presidency.
…conversely it’s pretty easy to believe that if there’s a plan that actually seems to be working it wouldn’t be his?
No, Bloomberg won’t be the same as Trump. He’ll be diplomatic about his gutting of the 99%.
I’m not a Bernie fan but if he gets the nod I will vote for him. If he picks Tulsi as VP though he will be severely testing my boundaries.
Obviously, Bloomberg over Trump so on and so forth
With that out of the way, I don’t know what the DNC is doing. They want so badly for Daddy Mike to save them that they’re willing to make the process look eve less legitimate, annoy a proportion of their base who are already to committed to a candidate, and give Trump and the GOP more ammo.
I have not watched the debates, but I’m dreading the softball:
Moderator: What would you say to those people who, some on this very stage, would accuse you of buying the nomination?
Bloomberg: I’m Not? 🙂
Moderator: Oh, okay! So you agree that Medicare for All is trash, right? Haha!