They wouldn’t have been part of a Trump Administration if the GOP Senate had exercised its constitutional duty to provide adult supervision for the White House, and to put their foot down when his crimes and treasons became undeniable.
But No. The Senate went along every step of the way: Refusing to consider bills that would seek to prevent Russia from rigging the next election; confirming the nominations of utter scumbags like Betsy DeVos; suppressing all efforts to expose Trump’s crimes; joining in the Festival of Lies so that today, almost every sentence uttered by every GOP Congressperson is an outright lie, a hateful remark intended to promote Trumpism, or both.
Yes, a Rubio or a Cruz wouldn’t have dared to engage in the extreme crimes and malice of Trump. But now that they know they can get away with it, expect the next GOP President to be wildly enthusiastic about criminality, lies, and hate-filled ranting in his White House, whatever he thought of Trump.
If Sanders ends up debating Bloomberg–a billionaire from New York who’s got a history of spouting misogynistic bullshit and of supporting racist real estate and policing policies–it may just provide a view of how he’d debate Trump.
What differences there’d be between the two would mostly be in Bloomberg’s favor. Bloomberg is far more intelligent than Trump, far better at planning and sticking to message. He doesn’t have nearly the honesty issues that Trump has. All Trump has over Bloomberg, AFAICT, is a canny ability to bully opponents, and a cult-like following.
So, yeah: I definitely look forward to seeing how Sanders handles Bloomberg.
I look forward to it too but your reasoning is half baked at best. They are really nothing alike. Sanders better not debate a secret lizard man like Bloomberg the same way he debates a blowhard buffoon like Trump.
Bloomberg was elected mayor in a minority majority city during stop and frisk. Sanders may score on him but I don’t see “shredded” happening.
And for AFAIK the first time, Total Chaos is the clear front runner in the 538 projection! The relevant new data is apparently a new national poll with Biden (remember him?) still in the lead, and a Georgia poll showing him up by 32!
Going with the fait accompli that Biden is effectively out of it, it is really something that the four most likely to be contenders are two old Jewish men (the socialist and the billionaire controller of media and finance), a gay man, and a woman. Any of them as president would be a first.
This really needs emphasis. Black New Yorkers voted for him even as Stop and Frisk was getting lots of heat.
Sanders still over 50% to get a plurality. Biden first in one poll is a part of it but now Bloomberg seems the solid uppwardly mobile third spot. They doubled his odds on both win types.
I find it interesting that PredicitIt shows him (Bloomberg) taking the dem primaries in the Deep South.
He has a lot of support in the black community at the local level, particularly with mayors. His foundation has worked with lots of minority communities in past few years. They helped Flint during their water crisis and their mayor has endorsed him.
I saw several black leaders (most notably Al Sharpton) interviewed during the past few days about Bloomberg and “stop and frisk”. The general line was - Yes, it was a horrible policy and Bloomberg has a lot to atone for. This apology is only the first small step. He has to do a lot more. But we need to give him a chance and listen to him. And remember the other candidates aren’t so great either.
The black voters will end up deciding. Call me crazy, but I bet Bloomberg picks up the black vote from Biden.
I think another irony is that if Bloomberg and Sanders end up being the front runners for the nomination - all the big corporations and industry lobbying groups and Super PAC donors looking to buy influence are going to be out of luck. They are the only two that can’t be bought. Bloomberg’s buying it, but he isn’t selling it.
Google really let me down on this, but I was at least able to find single polls from Quinnipiac on mayoral races taken just before the election for each of the elections he won. Just according to Quinnipiac, Bloomberg always did better among white voters than blacks, and in 2 out of 3 elections had a minority of black voters to one where he had a majority. Unfortunately I can’t find any aggregate over multiple different pollsters over a time window, so this is all I have to go on.
With all the bogus lies about Biden wanted to cut SocSec (hint, he doesn’t), here is a interesting factoid:
Rep. Ted Lieu
February 11 at 10:47 AM ·
The Trump Budget cuts over $1.5 trillion from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
������️ REPEAT ������️
The Trump Budget cuts over $1.5 trillion from Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Still, in the 2009 election though he lost the Black vote to Thompson (who was Black) by 73 to 26%. Demographic breakdown here.
I do see one interesting possible Sanders/Bloomberg interaction during the debate -
Sanders launches his usual tirade about the evils of billionaire money in elections and how important it is that a candidate remains pure of that.
Bloomberg notes that he has committed to spending his billion in this election and the infrastructure he is building to defeat Trump whether he wins the nomination or not, and that Team Trump already had $300 million stocked up last Fall and are expected to get many hundreds of millions more in super PAC help from the like of Adelson and others. (Against Sanders in particular some corporate donors would flood the super PACS.)
“Senator Sanders, if you are the nominee, do you want me to NOT use my money and resources to help you defeat President Trump?”
There really is no good response for Sanders. Either he stays on message that billionaire money is inherently evil and that he would rather go into battle significantly outgunned on the money front than have help from those who have big money to use in the battle, or he contradicts his position. The former would show exactly how big of an idiot he is. The latter would show his hypocrisy.
If it came to this, I’d bet that Bernie would go with the former answer - declining Bloomberg’s money. Either he would know that Bloomberg probably despises Trump enough that he’d spend much money on Bernie’s behalf anyway even if Bernie didn’t want it, or Bernie would probably believe that he can beat Trump handily enough without Bloomberg’s money (which Bernie quite possibly can.)
"Mike, I’m really glad you want to help. What I want is a world where money is not concentrated in the hands of a few hundred people like you, no matter how well-intentioned those people are. What I want is [insert Sanderspeak].
I’m delighted you want to help me defeat Trump. You can do this by speaking out loudly and often about how our current system privileges you and other billionaires at the expense of working Americans. Go on talk shows, give interviews, be loud about how we need a wealth tax, about how we need Medicare for all, about how free college is a necessity in today’s economy.
If you want to use your money and resources to make the world a better place, there are plenty of wonderful progressive candidates across this country that you can support. This revolution is not only at the top. We need to return power to the people at every level of government. I’ve put together a list of campaigns you can help at bloomberghelps.com, and I encourage you to visit it.
Finally, while you’re there, you’ll find a list of nonprofits that are doing amazing work around the world. You’ve got $60 billion in net worth. Do you need more than $10 million of that? At bloomberghelps.com, you’ll find ways for you to spend up to $59 billion, 990 million in order to make life better for everyone around the world.
If it does come down to Bloomberg and Sanders that seems pretty ideal. While I think Sanders would be good for the country, I think Bloomberg would make for a decent president. He would probably be good for the national economy, and would probably be very good at foreign policy. In fact, I would guess he would be better at foreign policy than Sanders. Bloomberg is intelligent, and unlike Trump, I think he would strive to hire the best people, and also, unlike Trump he would also listen to the advice. While I think it exceptionally unlikely to happen a Sanders/Bloomberg or Bloomberg/Sanders ticket would be really strong.
