…I’m not eligible to vote in America. If I were then I would vote for Bloomberg. If Trump wins again then the world will never be the same again. It wouldn’t even be a difficult choice for me.
Edited to add: if Bloomberg were to win the nomination I would shut the hell up as well. I wouldn’t blame anyone who did continue to speak up against Bloomberg. But the stakes really are that high. What I fear most is a break from the progressives, a third party nominee that will split the vote.
I think the nightmare scenario is losing to Trump in November, period.
And I agree that Bloomberg’s biggest detriment is that he’s Mike Bloomberg. He can be smug and condescending, plus he’s short with a nasally voice. I lived in NYC during his tenure and I wasn’t a big fan.
It was the work of Bloomberg Philanthropies that sold me on him this year and I don’t think it’s properly characterized as “buying the election” or “throwing money at pet projects”. His approach when he works with city governments seems to be based on education, mentoring and access to data and expertise rather than straight up funding. When I started researching his work since 2016 it blew me away.
I like his approach to infrastructure and public health issues. I like the idea of working with city and even states ( he’s working with Michigan and Pennsylvania on the opioid crisis) to develop solutions that can then be implemented on a larger scale.
Of course, none of that does him any good if he can’t communicate it to voters, though.
Ah, that’s right you’re in NZ, right? I forgot; sorry. Thank you very much for answering that question. Extra thanks for such a complete answer.
Bloomberg’s pitch is severalfold -
His positions on the issues which are most important to many of us.
NOT selling disruptive change as the path forward. (Which many of us feel is unlikely to actually deliver anything, let alone anything good.)
A proven track record of delivering on goals set more often than not.
A path to beating Trump and to delivering the Senate with significantly better odds than many of us see any other candidate currently having.
And yes his executive skill set - excellence in which is in fact a very uncommon thing.
I am now to understand that to you not is not the amount of money Bloomberg is sppending, it is that “microtargeted propaganda” based on “information from data scientists who knew exactly who to target” is inherently evil.
Using a sophisticated team of data scientists, developers, and digital advertising experts to not only know who voters were, but how “exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be”, microtargeting specific scripted pitches to specific voters who might be most vulnerable/persuadable to that pitch … is … Trumpian and evil. Except, if you clicked the link, it was Team Obama that developed the approach to the degree that is was effective.
I know you are using the word “propaganda” as a scary word, in a negative sense, but all it really means is information in support of a cause. Team Obama was great at saturating the right places with the right propaganda. It worked in 2008 and the sophistication of the microtargetting process was raised in 2012. Eight years later it will need to be revised dynamically responding to how social media has changed, and using tools that may not have even existed in 2012. 2020’s battle will fought differently than 2102’s,
The R side will be using those tactics the best they can. The D side had better be able to do it better. Those “vulnerable” to the tactics (be it vote one way, the other, or more importantly perhaps, to vote, will more likely than not decide the election at all levels.
…this is a nothing platform. What positions on what issues? No disruptive change on the current Republican agenda? I could show you a million people with a proven track record of delivering goals more often than not. And Mayor Giuliani would have had equivalent executive skills. There is nothing there.
That just leaves the money.
No. Its the money. And how its spent. Its a significant increase on what happened at the last election and a significant escalation on what happened before. What happened before was bad, what is happening now is worse.
Did you think I didn’t already know this?
The problem is this little word called “truth.” Who is vetting the incredible amount of information that is being pumped out by both Bloomberg and Trump? Propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”. Propaganda is different from just “information in support of a cause.” Its information in support of a cause that is biased or misleading. We know Facebook allows political advertisers to lie. We know that many of the adverts posted to Facebook most of us will never ever see. This is a problem.
If America is going to continue as a democracy it cannot continue to escalate the propaganda wars: it needs to bring it under control. That will require regulation.
The only thing I like about him is he is an eagle scout.
Bloomberg in 2016 insulted farmers and factory workers. LINK
From another site.
If Bloomberg thinks farming is just sticking a seed into the ground he’s more of an idiot than I thought.
To be fair you are over simplifying his process. You also got to put dirt on the seed and pour some water on it.
BB I’ve covered “what issues” ad nauseum by now.
I honestly am getting whiplash trying to follow the moving goalposts here. Now you are trying to claim that Bloomberg is particularly being loose with the truth in his microtargeting and that that is the problem? His main sort of “influencer” ad is something clearly making fun of himself and I don’t think anyone believes he is sending a billion dollars to an influencer named Tank Sinatra to say he is cool.
No question that he should be, just as Sanders, and Buttigieg, and all of them, called out when he takes liberties with the truth. And he has done so when he makes it sound like he voluntarily reversed course on Stop and Frisk just not as soon as he should have. That is a bullshit claim.
Propaganda is always trying to support a cause and of course information that is presented is going to be biased to the information that supports the cause. It can be misleading. For example Urbanredneck’s bit that the Sander’s camp is putting out there - misleading propaganda. You can think Bloomberg is a condescending jerk and still, when hearing the complete context of a longwinded answer, know that stopping the tape where they did is intentionally misleading. It is clear that the writer of this peice is no Bloomberg surrogate!
The point made was pretty simple: the current information economy is automating many of the jobs in manufacturing and agriculture out of existence and you cannot just assume that everyone is going to be able to become a coder or some other information analysis profession. Whatever the solution is it needs to be something that preserves the “dignity of a job” … Yang riffed of the same theme and came to a conclusion of UBI. Bloomberg does not think that UBI preserves the dignity of a job.
Same period of time he stated the same point more concisely:
Presenting that as his saying that modern farmers are just sticking a seed into the ground is presenting intentionally misleading information, propaganda at its worst. And no microtargeting or big budget was needed.
Is making fun of himself by way of a paid influencer in pursuit of building name recognition and good feeling to a specific segment of potential voters propaganda at its worst? I don’t think so.
Even in context his comments about farming are ignorant, pre-industrial agriculture was a lot more complicated than sticking the seeds in the ground and pouring water; it in fact required a lot of concrete local knowledge which was passed from generation to generation. His larger point is also dubious; technology is not in fact destroying jobs at an alarming rate, there has been steady job creation for a decade leading to near-record low unemployment in the US.
More broadly, Bloomberg has repeatedly shown poor judgement on big national issues: Obamacare, the financial crisis and Dodd-Frank, the Iraq war and the Iran nuclear deal, often regurgitating dubious Republican talking points. He is great businessman and was possibly a decent mayor but there are reasonable grounds to doubt he would make a good President.
What those comments were not though is what they are being misleadingly portrayed as. I’d agree with you that the underlaying point about automation is open for debate, and the Great Communicator he does not sound like there.
As to Dood-Frank - not sure if he was wrong when he claimed that the banks would end up ignoring Dodd-Frank as it was written (claiming it would, as written, be unenforceable) but he certainly was wrong to suggest that the banks should have been in charge of writing the laws with Congress finishing it up, laws which he agreed were needed.
As to Obamacare - he was right that the law as written was hobbled by the process in Congress. A bit naive to think that there was some other way to do it. Still he argued strongly for passing it.
Yes I agree he was wrong to oppose the nuclear deal with Iraq and to support the war in the first place.
You’re correct that there is this little word called “truth”. Unfortunately, you are absolutely incorrect about the definition of the word “propaganda”.
By the way, Bloomberg made it into the debate tomorrow night.
Here’s the poll: http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/UPDATED_Tuesday-Release_NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_2002171446.pdf#page=1
About Obamacare I was thinking of this CNN articlewhich says:
I suppose he may have mellowed his position later but attacking it in such strong terms does suggest someone who didn’t share basic Democratic priorities. My overall sense of Bloomberg is that while he has broken sharply from the GOP on issues like gun control and climate change, his worldview has been shaped by the right on a number of other issues. He is a rare genuine centrist in American politics which is fine but makes him highly unsuitable to be the Democratic nominee. I can’t think of another major party nominee who has been so out of line with his party’s mainstream.
So Bloomberg said that about Obamacare 10 years ago, but says he wants to expand upon it now. The current front-runner, on the other hand, wants to actually get rid of Obamacare. Who exactly is more out of line with the Democratic party’s mainstream?
For me Bloomberg vs Trump isn’t Good vs Bad but Bad vs Worse.
I’m okay voting for Bad. Have seen Worse in action.
IMO many people thought the PPACA was a disgrace compared to what we all wanted and said so loudly at the time. But it was better than what we had so we took it.
You admit you kept the discussion going with me with no intention of listening to what I have to say. Nice. Being that this is the case, do as you please, but it would be fine with me if you never respond to me again. Why should I bother with you?
As for this, once again, you suggest that black lives don’t matter to me* just because I disagree with your description as “terrorizing” of the tactics of SaF. Ditto what I said above.
*Clearly based on your response, you are talking about me personally in that post.
Bloomberg qualified for the debate tomorrow night 2/19/20.
Psst. Look up.