Michael Bloomberg

With Bloomberg saturating social media and TV with ads, I’m starting to see some positive comments about him from well-meaning people who apparently don’t know much about the guy. So, let me explain why he is not, in fact, the moderate Democratic Presidential candidate you want running.

• You think Bernie’s too old? Bloomberg’s the same age.

• He didn’t become a Democrat until October 2018. He was a proud Republican when he ran for mayor of NYC, and a backer of George W Bush.

• He’s a long-time bankroller of Republicans, as recently as 2018. Recipients of his generosity include Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham and Pat Toomey.

• He was responsible for New York’s racist “stop and frisk” policies, and was proud of it. Here’s a quote from him:

  One of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that is true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that is true. Why did we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is.

• He blamed the 2008 financial crisis on black people being given mortgages:

  It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone. Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, “People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don’t go into those areas.” And then Congress got involved―local elected officials, as well―and said, “Oh that’s not fair, these people should be able to get credit.” And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn’t as good as you would like.

• He backed the Iraq invasion and still says he doesn’t regret it.

• Some 64 different women have filed 40 different lawsuits against him for sexual harassment and discrimination. Bloomberg quoted in one of the lawsuits:

  “It’s a fucking baby! All it does is eat and shit! It doesn’t know the difference between you and anyone else! All you need is some black who doesn’t even have to speak English to rescue it from a burning building!”

• Here are some quotes from “The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg”, published in 1990:

  “The Royal family – what a bunch of misfits – a gay, an architect, that horsey faced lesbian, and a kid who gave up Koo Stark for some fat broad.”

  “The three biggest lies are: the check’s in the mail, I’ll respect you in the morning, and I’m glad I’m Jewish.”

  “If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale’s.”

• Asked what it would take for him to believe a rape allegation was genuine, he answered “I guess an unimpeachable third-party witness.”

• Bloomberg on rising measures of income inequality: “That’s not a measure of something we should be ashamed of.”

• He’s in favor of mass surveillance.

• “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?”

• He’s garbage on LGBT rights in spite of being from New York, and there’s video.

I’m not a purist; in 2016 I wrote about why everyone should vote for Hillary anyway. I’d probably have reluctantly voted for Biden this time around. But Bloomberg is a racist, sexist, pro-war oligarch. He’s basically a competent Trump. If the Democratic party thinks it needs a competent Trump to beat Trump, then it deserves to lose.