I got my biggest laugh of the debate when Bloomberg said that he
deserved his tens of billions of dollars because he had worked hard for
it. I said, how many tomatoes has he ever picked? How many hours has he
ever spent on an assembly line? How many horse barns has he shoveled
out? How many coal trucks has he loaded? Somehow I don't think he knows
the meaning of hard work. The only so-called work I can see that he as
ever done is to manipulate other people's money while taking big chunks
of it for himself. He may as well have said, I deserve all this money
because I worked hard to steal it.
___
Sam Harris
“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence
as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell
him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who
will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every
incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what
so ever.”
― Sam Harris,
On 2/21/2020 4:45 PM, miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
The Bloomberg Myth Explodes on Live TV
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
21 February 20
The Nevada debate offered voters vital information - including the exposure
of Michael Bloomberg's reputation for "electability"
What a catastrophe Wednesday night was for Mike Bloomberg. The New York
plutocrat was kicked in the teeth by Elizabeth Warren in the first minutes -
she denounced him as a Trump-like "arrogant billionaire" who called women
"horse-faced lesbians" - and never made it back to his feet.
Bloomberg stood in mute fury as his $400 million campaign investment went up
in smoke. His contempt for democracy and sense of entitlement surpass even
Donald Trump, who at least likes crowds - Bloomberg's joyless imperiousness
makes Trump seem like Robin Williams.
That Bloomberg has been touted as a potential Democratic Party savior across
the top ranks of politics and media is an extraordinary indictment of that
group of people.
Some endorsements were straight cash transactions, in which politicians who
owe their careers to Bloomberg's largess repaid him with whatever
compliments they could muster. How much does a man who radiates impatience
with the idea of having to pretend to equal status with anyone have to spend
to get someone to say something nice?
California Congressman Harley Rouda called him a "legendary businessman":
Bloomie gave her more than $4 million. New Jersey's Mikie Sherrill got more
than $2 million from Bloomberg's Independence USA Super PAC, and in return
the Navy vet said Bloomberg embodies "the integrity we need."
Georgia's Lucy McBath, a member of the congressional black caucus, got $4
million from Bloomberg PACs, and she endorsed him just as an audio clip was
coming out of the ex-mayor talking about putting black men up "against the
wall" in stop-and-frisk. News accounts of the endorsement frequently left
out the financial ties.
That's fine. If you give a politician $2 million or $4 million, it must be
expected that he or she will say you approximate a human being.
But how does New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman excuse writing "Paging
Michael Bloomberg"? (Well, Bloomberg philanthropies donated to Planet Word,
"the museum my wife is building," says Friedman, so there's that.) How about
Jonathan Chait at New York, who wrote, "Winning the election is starting to
look hard. How about buying it instead?" Or John Ellis in The Washington
Post, who declared Bloomberg the "dream candidate"?
These pundits clung to a triumvirate of delusions: Bloomberg "gets things
done," he's more electable than a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren
because he can spend unlimited amounts, and he has the "toughness" to take
on Trump.
Far from showing "toughness," Bloomberg on Wednesday wilted under attacks
from his five Democratic opponents. He was unprepared throughout and seemed
to be ad-libbing the most important exchanges. When Warren asked him with
how many women he'd had sign non-disclosure agreements, Bloomberg muttered:
Warren: How many is that?
Bloomberg: None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe s-
they didn't like a joke I told.
The answer drew groans. Any political consultant could have told Bloomberg
"they didn't like a joke I told" would go over like a dead flounder. Either
Bloomberg is a lousy campaigner who doesn't understand the need for
preparation, or he thinks he doesn't need to prepare for live performances
because he'll just buy PR elsewhere.
Both explanations bode badly for a theoretical general-election campaign
against Trump, an expert at ad-libbing cruelties and generating free media
in amounts exceeding even what Bloomberg can buy. If Bloomberg can't handle
being asked by Warren how many NDAs he's had signed, just imagine when Trump
offers him a box to stand on and asks him how it feels to have to spend $4
million per friend.
Bloomberg's entire argument for office is that he's better than Trump, but
where exactly is he better? The biggest argument against a Trump presidency
involves his racial attitudes. Bloomberg's record is worse.
His defense Wednesday of stop-and-frisk - that it was a widely used policy
that got "out of control" because "too many" African Americans were stopped
- showed that even after all this time, he still doesn't get the problem,
i.e., that the mass-profiling policy was fundamentally discriminatory. Trump
is a crude circus nationalist, but Bloomberg's policing policies were
profoundly, intellectually racist, and he proved in Nevada that his only
growth has been to recognize their political inexpediency.
Trump is worse on the environment and on guns. Bloomberg supported George
Bush at the height of the Iraq War effort, and says he still doesn't regret
supporting that invasion. Bloomberg also has an awful record when it comes
to Wall Street. In the debate Wednesday, he said this about 2008:
The financial crisis came about because the people that took the mortgages,
packaged them, and other people bought them, those were-that's where all the
disaster was.
That's in the ballpark of true, although Bloomberg stopped well short of
denouncing the "people that took the mortgages," by which one presumes he
means banks. This is unsurprising, because when Bloomberg was not running
for president as a Democrat, he ridiculed Occupy Wall Street and regularly
spouted bogus Wall Street talking points deflecting blame from banks. This
is what he said in November 2011:
It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and
simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who
were on the cusp.
Bloomberg then went on to say it was "entertaining" and "cathartic" for
Occupy Protesters to "vilify" banks, a "let them eat cake" take on the
financial crisis.
It would be impossible to find someone less believable as a reformer of Wall
Street and an opponent of wealth inequality. Even Hillary Clinton was less
of a guaranteed disaster on this issue. A vote for Bloomberg - a billionaire
ex-Republican media executive, for God's sake - would mean conceding the
populist argument to Republicans again.
Trump has clear authoritarian tendencies and has wrapped his hands around
autocrats, but for all the fretting about him perhaps not leaving office in
2020 if voted out, it's Bloomberg who has already tossed term limits aside,
and it's Bloomberg who is openly trying to buy an election. There is zero
evidence he will be any less of a threat to democracy or an agent for
rapacious corporate interests than Trump.
Even assuming one could cross into believing that Bloomberg is somehow less
revolting or dangerous than the current president - I don't, but let's say -
Wednesday exploded the idea that he would have a superior chance at beating
him than Sanders or a conventional, non-plutocrat politician like Warren or
Pete Buttigieg. Bloomberg was a total zero charisma-wise, had trouble
thinking on his feet, and failed to find even one issue where he sounded
confident and convincing. His only distinguishing characteristic is his
money, and fuck his money.
One revealing moment in the debate came at the end, when Chuck Todd asked
all the candidates, "Should the person with the most delegates at the end of
this primary season be the nominee?"
Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Warren, Joe Biden, and Amy Klobuchar all punted this
question, deferring variously to the "rules" or the "process." Only Sanders
said, "The people should prevail." This makes the endgame clear: All five
non-Sanders candidates are placing hopes for the nomination in a backroom
convention horse trade.
While the establishment Democrats like Warren and Buttigieg beat up on
Bloomberg onstage last night, treating him like the interloper he is, the
major question is, would they do the same in the privacy of that
smoke-filled room this summer?
That's the question that should have everyone worried. Sanders could lose,
but a vote for Bloomberg would be a complete surrender to cynicism, and
would probably fail besides. If that's the plan, God help us.
