The Rise of Mike Bloomberg?
One of the big stories this week is the possible rise of New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg. My latest column for the Daily Beast is about Bloomberg’s, shall we say, questionable governing record.
The column is currently behind the paywall (you can read the whole thing by supporting The Beast) but I wanted to send along this excerpt, to give you a taste:
This may sound harsh, but, mean tweets aside, Bloomberg is offering voters a kinder, gentler (and less corrupt) authoritarianism. His comments (“racially-charged” is the politically correct nomenclature) about “stop-and-frisk” speak for themselves--as do the #MeToo comments he allegedly made to his female employees.
We conservatives sometimes joke about the “nanny state” aspects of Bloomberg’s record like his failed attempt to ban soda, but this actually serves to downplay Bloomberg’s record.
Trump jokes about never leaving the presidency, but as Mayor, Bloomberg got New York’s City Council to extend the two-term limit for him. Then, when a reporter questioned him about the third term, Bloomberg called him “a disgrace.” Sound familiar?
While Trump is rightly dinged for coddling dictators, Bloomberg praises Communist China, and insists that “Xi Jinping is not a dictator.”
If you’re worried about what Trump does with power, consider that Bloomberg was okay with the police “monitoring” Muslim students--or that New York City had to cough up an $18 million settlement for violating people’s civil rights during protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
Actually, though, authoritarian might be putting it too lightly. Only a true totalitarian would also want to be involved in even the most intimate parts of our lives. . While Trump is worried about toilets not having the flushing power he necessitates, Bloomberg advises employees to simply hold it.
For now, Bloomberg is biding his time. But if Joe Biden implodes in South Carolina, Bloomberg probably becomes the moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders. Bloomberg will then likely spend hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads, heading into Super Tuesday.
The crazy thing, though, is that Democrats might just nominate someone who is so similar to the guy currently in office (whom they hate!).
If your main concerns about Donald Trump are his authoritarian tendencies, you might have a tough choice to make this November.
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