It’s amazing no one in the media has pointed out that there is zero chance enough Bernie people will support Bloomberg in a final.
If anyone other than Bernie is the nominee there will be challenges to unity, but in the case of Bloomberg, this makes him impossible to nominate.
Please share widely!
No one who cares about maintaining a democracy should ever support Bloomberg.
It’s crazy, and frankly pathetic, that any Democrats are supporting this move by a Republican to buy an election.
We can probably expect Bezos to run soon, but in addition to having twice as much money as Bloomberg, he can also use the Amazon family of networks to make people think that there is only one person running for the office.
I don’t think there’s much constituency for Bloomberg, but his record and issue profile seem to make him much closer to RINO than DINO.
The constituency would be people who like supporting racist Republican billionaires with dozens of sexual misconduct claims who support cruel, fascistic policies – it’s weird that that might end up being a majority of Democratic voters.
It seems like the $350M spent on ads is creating some semblance of a constituency, at least in the polling. He is third in two national polls released today.
Bloomberg has sexual misconduct claims?
It’s weird evangelicals backed a thrice married reality star who bragged about groping women and paid hush money to porn stars. But they are actually smarter than us. They recognize at the end of the day the President does three things. Signs laws, appoints judges, and sets foreign policy.
If Democratic voters were smart they would also recognize that any Democrat from Bernie to Bloomberg will be doing the same three things for them. Evangelicals hold their nose but also GOTV. That makes them an invaluable constituency. There’s a reason Trump became the first president to address the right to lifers in person. I am 100% sure he doesn’t car about abortions and I bet he’s paid for a few of them in his day, but he butters their bread so he can win.
Bloomberg will be forced to do that for us. He already has backtracked on stop and frisk and is now claiming he cares about income inequality. Presidents keep 90% of their promises. Their sincerity does not matter. Their results do.
It’s up to disappointed Bernie and Warren supporters to play ball if their preferred nominee doesn’t win. It’s up to centrists to play ball with the progressives if they win. That’s how you win power and make laws. The evangelicals get that, we all should too. Otherwise the rational part of America will be fighting over public options vs. single payer while the Handmaids Tale becomes law.
We will nominate a candidate. I’m confident that that candidate will have the support of a majority of Democrats, whoever that candidate is.
Mike Bloomberg has the ability win the nomination and has already said he will contribute $100M to the campaigns of down-ballot Senate Democrats.
Mr. Bloomberg is not my candidate (I support Elizabeth Warren). Mr. Bloomberg has at least as much chance to win the nomination as Deval Patrick or, for that matter, Amy Klobuchar. I certainly hope that “the Bernie people” will support the nominee, at least in the states where it matters, whomever that nominee is.
This BMG retweet from Dan Kennedy is spot on:
At the end of the day the voters will vote. They will determine the nominee. The nominee will have my support. Bloomberg is nowhere near my first choice, but he will protect the right to choose, protect gay rights, protect Muslim rights, protect immigrant rights, fight the gun lobby, and fight climate change. He’s wrong on health care, wrong on taxation, and was wrong on policing, and was wrong on charters. Even if he hasn’t really changed his mind on those latter issues, he is now committed to being on the right side of them in every practical sense.
I’ve said this since the jump, we are partisans who want a progressive President. The vast majority of voters are not partisans, but I do think a majority of them want a smarter, stable, and more ethical President than the one we have. Bloomberg passes that admittedly low bar. If this were a race between Bloomberg and Mitt Romney, I’d happily vote for a progressive third party. It’s not. The choice is between any Democrat and continuing Donald Trump’s racist and destructive policies. They are only electable if we vote for them.
Bloomberg winning the presidency is the end of democracy.
It’s wild af that people are fine with that.
And on the quote you cite approvingly, “But if you’re serious about beating Trump and ending the slide to authoritarianism,” how is letting a racist billionaire who supports fascistic policies buy an election ending the slide to authoritarianism? It seems like it’s a full embrace of it.
I think the risk to democracy from a second Trump term is higher than the risks under a first Bloomberg term. Last time I checked, New York still holds free and fair elections for Mayor. It even elected and re-elected a Mayor who is the polar opposite of Bloomberg. Bloomberg is currently getting second place after Biden among black voters, if they are fine with his atonement for policing, so am I. I do not see what other fascist policies he is supporting unless you are joining Sarah Palin in arguing unhealthy servings of soda are a human right.
He is not my first choice in the primary. He might even by my last choice. He would make a far better President than Trump. That is the only argument I am making.
$350M on ads in a month is a hell of a drug.
Hasn’t Bernie raised and spent a similar amount? It’s also $350 m that’s largely defining Trump to swing voters now as a bad president. Something Hillary was not able to do in time and something the rest of the field is not focused on as they snipe with each other. To wit, Bernie’s ads have been very effective too. We’ll see who convinces the most voters.
I don’t think democratic primary voters know much about Bloomberg yet. Particularly, the nondisclosure agreements his company has with women. How many women? Why did they sue him? Why won’t he release them to talk? I’m hopeful that this will derail his candidacy, Ironically. getting him on the debate stage with other candidates is a key forum for raising this. So I will get over that the DNC changed the rules to allow his participation.
I would be happy with either of them. My number one priority is the safety of my students. I want them safe from ICE and guns coming into my classroom, climate change sinking our community, and to have access to good paying jobs. I want them to be free from the fear of medical bankruptcy. Any of the Democrats will accomplish these goals.
The same party leadership that targets Tulsi Gabbard is now bending over backwards for Bloomberg. Who is surprised by this? They want to stop Bernie, or anyone who represents change, even if it takes a billionaire neocon to do it.
Whatever the result, this primary will leave a lasting impression.
I saw an interesting discussion of this and how there is a generation of voters who could be taking the on ramp or the off ramp to electoral politics based on how things shake out.
That’s not to say that it is necessarily Bernie or bust, but it really depends on how these active young supporters are treated by the party.
All they have to do is vote in the primaries and they are the party.
It is ironic that a generation of men and women object to the “tyranny” and “corruption” of politics because their own opinion turned out not to be shared by the electoral majority.
Majority rule and representative democracy are imperfect, and yet remain better at preserving freedom and protecting a population from tyranny than any other approach that’s been discovered so far.
In particular, majority rule and representative democracy is better than authoritarian domination — whether that “authority” is named “Donald Trump”, “Bernie Sanders”, or “Joseph Stalin”. It is also better than religious rule, whether that religion is Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or anything else.
My reaction to a generation of voters who take the off ramp to electoral politics based on how things shake out is “Good bye, good luck, don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out.” I don’t then want to hear a single peep about taxes and how the resulting funds are spent, or any other complaints about the government. American-style representative government imposes very few obligations on US citizens: paying taxes, voting, and jury duty. In my view, people who don’t bother to vote are simply parasites.
There is a generation of minority voters in the urban centers of MI, WI, and PA who stayed home in 2016 rather than vote for Ms. Clinton and who are suffering enormous pain because Donald Trump and the GOP (I’m not talking about the victims of GOP suppression and I’m not talking about voters too infirm to get to a polling place). I’m talking about voters who cast a vote for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and who “took the off ramp of electoral politics” in 2016 because they weren’t sufficiently courted. I have ZERO sympathy for them. ZERO.
I’m just getting tired of the whining already. Short of a national same day ranked choice primary, the rules are the rules and will always be unfair to somebody. The Bernie crowd went to great and admirable lengths to change them for the better. I just don’t like any campaign whining about them now. Especially the losing ones. If at the end of the day a majority of voters select a candidate, we all have an obligation to rally behind her or him. That goes double for the people terrified about Bernie. If he wins this thing, he deserves our support.
In other words, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”
I’m surprised that comment got two downrates.
Meh. Look at who the downrates are from.
Bernie Sanders is the biggest supporter of democracy in this race. He’s so much of a supporter of democratic rule by the people, for the people, that he supports making voting an inalienable right that cannot be deprived from an adult American ever (including the incarcerated)..
Yet, Tom here groups him with Trump and Stalin as some opponent of democracy who wants to have “authoritarian domination” of the populace.
I don’t want to get my comment pointing this out censored for breaking some rule of decor by describing this mentality aptly, but OMFG.
The party loves young voters in principle. But as soon as they start thinking and acting for themselves, it becomes a problem. Gabbard’s previous support for Bernie and her criticism of our continued interventionist foreign policy put her on literally everyone’s s__ list. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. That’s just my experience, but there have been plenty of eye-opening moments these days.
Our leadership is no longer responding to the changing world we live in. It no longer responds to people’s actual problems. The primary institutional commitment is to stasis and special interests. Anything more than a tweak to the system is taken as a huge threat, which will be addressed with new media narratives and outright propaganda.
Bernie is only the beginning. A populist revolt on the left is inevitable.
@as soon as they start thinking and acting for themselves …:
Excuse me, but “taking the exit ramp from politics” because you don’t like an electoral outcome is neither thinking nor acting. It is closer to foot-stomping.
I stopped listening to Ms. Gabbard weeks ago, and it had nothing to do with any of the attacks on her. She was, like the other candidates who dropped out early, not ready for the office she seeks. Again, that has nothing to do with age or gender and nothing to do with thinking or acting independently. In the case of Ms. Gabbard, her debate performances struck me as less truthful, less sincere, and more synthetic than any of the other candidates.
At the moment, the Bernie Sanders campaign strikes me as emitting more propaganda than any of the others — particularly in comparison to Ms. Warren.
I share your contempt for the media and the false cries of “threats”. In my view, somebody threatening to stomp their feet and run off in a huff is the antithesis of thinking and acting.
I think it’s accurate to say the party and media establishment began targeting Gabbard after she endorsed Bernie and became more outspoken about foreign policy. You’re right, it’s not because she’s a young minority woman who served her country. (Although her Hindu faith has been used against her.) It’s because she refused to fall in line with the rest of the DNC.
By “propaganda” I mean “Assad apologist … Putin puppet” the empty jingoism we generally hear from the GOP, but is now increasingly being used by Democrats against other Democrats.
Some people will see this, throw up their hands and walk away. Yes, I wish they would stay engaged, but I understand where they are coming from. When people walk away in disgust it only means there is more unburnt tinder for the populist revolt that is close to inevitable.
My take is that Ms. Gabbard engaged in a war of words with several of the candidates, those candidates responded in kind, and the media was only too happy to publicize the resulting brouhaha. I don’t remember the role played by the party, because I frankly wasn’t paying attention.
The “propaganda” you complain of seems exemplified by this frequently-cited New York Times piece from last October. Except that it is ISN’T “propaganda” as I understand the word. Ms. Gabbard has, in fact, publicly defended Assad and met with him in January of 2017. She does, according to this reporting, support Narendra Modi of India “who has empowered Hindu fundamentalists at great cost to India’s minorities”.
If reports like this are incorrect, then please share what you dispute — the NYT is generally pretty accurate in its reporting. If the facts of the piece are accurately reported, then I suggest that any public figure should be prepared for the resulting criticism.
I was offended by the Moscow photo-ops of high-profile GOP elected officials on Independence day. That’s not “propaganda”. Many conservative Americans are offended by the decision of Bernie Sanders to honeymoon in the Soviet Union. I might not share their offense, but Mr. Sander’s surely knew what he was doing when made his honeymoon plans.
I tend to agree with you that when people walk away in disgust, they join the ranks of the deplorables vulnerable to exploitation by populist revolts. That’s my point!
I’m just not going cry about people who don’t have the discipline to stay engaged when their enamor of a particular candidate is not widely shared.
I think Elizabeth Warren is far and away the best candidate. I also recognize that she, like me, is a nerd who prefers data to passion, who prefers measured responses to podium-pounding, and who avoids personal attacks on colleagues as much as she is able. In other words, exactly the kind of candidate that the media and too much of America can’t stand, especially in a woman’s body.
I think I have an obligation to stay engaged for as long as I am able. I get that others disagree — I have very little patience with them, especially when the stakes are as high as they are.
Not just other 2020 candidates, but HRC too. Part of what turns me off to her is the contempt with which she has treated our last nominee in ways that are worthy of Trump.
Hillary called Tulsi Gabbard a “Russian asset”! Agree or disagree with her, but Tulsi Gabbard honorably served (and continues to serve) our country. Gabbard has had no connection with Russia. This is the sort of dirty dirty smear that is only tolerated when used against someone who is seen as a critic of US foreign policy.
Well, HRC actually didn’t name names, and the Russian trolls do seem to like her.
Tulsi Gabbard was on the Foreign Affairs committee when she met with Assad. It was at a time when our Syria policy wasn’t going so well. By gathering information from all parties, including Assad, she was doing her job. Others have met with Assad as well, that’s not the problem. The problem is that she disagrees with US policy and dares to voice that disagreement in a campaign for President. So she gets smeared as an “Assad apologist.” This is propaganda and we’ve seen it before.. It happened to opponents of the Iraq War… remember the “Saddam apologists”? It’s the same playbook we see used again and again against anyone tries to change US foreign policy.
Tulsi Gabbard did more than just meet with Assad, and she did more than just disagree with US policy. She met with Assad, she met with the victims of Assad’s terror, and after both meetings said nothing about the latter. Ms. Gabbard has had multiple opportunities to condemn Assad’s atrocities, and has declined to do so.
A consequence of speaking boldly is a willingness to hear and tolerate the responses to such speech.
The issue with Tulsi Gabbard is NOT her eagerness to voice her disagreement with US policy. The issue is her choices of who to attack, who to defend, whom to embrace, and whom to push away.
Meanwhile, I encourage anyone who cares to actually LISTEN TO the podcast that provoked Ms. Gabbard’s attacks on Ms. Clinton (the relevant portion is 33:20-34:55). The news media, especially the Wall Street Journal, misreported this exchange to point of outright lies.
Hillary Clinton did NOT call Tulsi Gabbard a Russian asset. Listen to the tape! She instead called Jill Stein a Russian asset — a simple statement of truth. HRC was talking about the GOP plan for 2020, not the Russian plan, and HRC said the GOP was grooming Ms. Gabbard for a third-party run in the key battle-ground states. HRC said this in an exchange speculating about how the GOP will overcome the barriers to Mr. Trump’s re-election.
As in SO many other things these days, it is hugely important to get to the SOURCE data and confirm whatever hysterical reports are coming from the media and candidates. Funny how the hysteria spreads far, wide, and loud — yet the corrections are barely audible.
And yes, suing Hillary Clinton for defamation is a hysterical over-reaction.
I oppose religious extremists of all faiths. Millions of Hindus are marching in the streets right now to protest the Indian governments unconstitutional cancellation of Kashmiri autonomy, the arrest without cause of Kashmiri citizens, and a Nuremberg style second class citizenship and ghetto policy for the massive Muslim minority in India. India’s democracy is threatened. While Modi destroys democracy at home and rallies with Trump in America, Gabbard has been his biggest Democratic cheerleader. Ro Khanna, also a Bernie supporter and an Indian American, has vocally opposes Modi. So I am not bashing her faith, I’m bashing her nationalism.
It is counterproductive to react to the “threat” of people leaving the electoral process as if it is some kind of personal affront. Nobody owes the party anything. If people see candidates and a party that is acting in their best interest, they will get involved.
They may not owe the party anything, but they are cutting off their noses to spite their faces, and the rest of us have to live with the consequences of their tantrums.
No “personal affront”, I’m just tired of their whining.
If people can’t get involved, then they are in no position to complain about the results of their apathy and laziness.
Well, I’m one for whom her isolationist views are a turnoff, but if that’s what people want they are welcome to vote for her. If young people want to be listened to, they need to prove themselves consistent voters.
Until they vote in meaningful numbers on this primary they are irrelevant. More of my young students supported Andrew Yang than Bernie.
Gabbard was the only Democrat running for President who did not vote to impeach Trump. She’s gone out of her way to appeal to the Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party. I overheard two MAGA hats at the Lynnfield Panera the other day say”she’s the one Democrat I would vote for-if she wasn’t running against Trump”. She does not have a constituency and does have a history of religious extremism, homophobia, backing authoritarian regimes, and flirting with a Trump cabinet position. She makes Joe Manchin, who voted to impeach Trump, look progressive by comparison. She’s gonna be another “Fox News liberal” like Kucinich when she inevitable retires from politics.
The only reason Bernie supporters like her is residual goodwill from her admittedly courageous stance resigning as a DNC during 2016 and her dovish foreign policy. Bernie’s dovish foreign policy comes from a place of genuine commitment to peace and a lifelong opposition to wars of choice. Her “dovishishness” masks a lifelong hostility to “radical Islam” and a lifelong affinity for Hindu extremism. She supports sending US ground troops against ISIS fighting alongside Putin and Assad’s butchers. So she self impeached herself from any serious consideration in my book. Hope she loses her seat too.
And FWIW, Kucinich has endorsed her.
Ahhh… where to begin? Kucinich is a lefties lefty. Now he’s supporting a homophobic Putin extremist? Can you see how an odd media narrative has snaked its way into your reasoning here?
It’s not a media narrative if it is objectively true. She was a hardcore homophobe. She is a Putin and Assad apologist. Kucinich took a right turn and opposed Obamacare and supported impeaching Obama. He lost a lot of credibility with me after that.
@jconway, Tulsi Gabbard announced a few months back that she’s not running for re-election for that House seat.
Good
So let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Bloomberg doesn’t get nominated, and he, or someone like him runs as an independent. And late in the campaign, the polling shows that the independent has a better chance to defeat Trump than the nominated Democrat. Is it more important to stay loyal to the Democratic nominee or to defeat Trump?
Hopefully, this isn’t likely, but sadly, it isn’t impossible.
Bloomberg himself won’t do anything to jeopardize the defeat of Trump.
Bloomberg can’t run as an independent even if he wanted to. Most of the filing deadlines will have already happened after Super Tuesday. In this state anyway, a third party nominee will be selected the same day the other parties vote. Also we were in touch with Bloomberg in 2016 since he wanted our ballot access (as did many other campaigns) since he did not think he’d have enough time to get on the ballot here as an independent. I think he wisely recognized our party is a big enough tent for him and Bernie. Any third party run from the left, right, or center will re-elect Trump.
Ok, let’s hypothesize a most unlikely scenario. Don’t think Bloomberg would run as an independent at this point. But let’s suppose some other vain billionaire does. Virtually impossible that such an independent would have a better shot at defeating Trump. But to do so, would have to draw republican leaning independents that democrats can’t get. That has happened once. Ross Perot ran and essentially got Bill Clinton elected. Though Perot did not win a single state, he drew enough republican votes so that Clinton could carry a solid electoral college victory with a plurality. Certainly not a scenario I’d wish for, if only because too many things could go wrong. Key being that the independent candidate draws more democratic votes and hands an electoral college victory to Trump.
But, you posit an almost impossible what if? Ok, if there really was a billionaire independent who had a better shot at defeating Trump my vote might hang on that candidate’s positions. That is, if the candidate had a position on climate change remotely close to the democrats that are running, I’d certainly consider it. If that candidate wanted to cut entitlements and taxes, etc, etc…….NO.
Removed incorrectly nested comment
Not just a billionaire (don’t forget, Tom Steyer is also both a candidate and a billionaire), but a FIFTY FIVE billionaire. There aren’t many of those.
This hypothetical is far outside the envelope of reality.
For what it’s worth, if the independent truly had a better shot at beating Donald Trump than the Democratic nominee, then I’d vote for the independent without hesitation. I think it’s an impossible scenario, though.
The best a third party candidate could do is win enough states to deny an electoral majority to a winner and throw the election to the House. Which adheres to an even more absurd and undemocratic process than the Electoral College; a vestigial Articles of Confederation style one delegation/one vote mechanism that would benefit the GOP even though the Democrats control the House. A roundabout way of saying the best they could do is re-elect Trump.
Yes. If the elites in the party want to put the good of the country before their own personal interests, and are actually sincere about the concerns about unity and a long drawn out primary and a brokered convention that would make Iowa look like a day at the picnic, then they should start the transition to getting behind Bernie once Super Tuesday has concluded and getting Stacey Abrams to be on the ticket with Sanders as VP..
If Bloomberg wins the nomination, I’m out of the party. I mean, what’s the point?
Bloomberg said on the Bloomberg TV channel
If Banana wins the election, I’m out of the country! 🙂