Of course there is no way to know for* sure*. But yes, vote for whomever you think is best, no matter what party they are in. Your single vote is not going to matter anyway, so if the candidate of the Workers World Party suits your needs, vote that way. The country desperately needs other parties that matter.
That being said, let’s not forget this is a thread about Bloomberg, and my statements here should be taken in that context.
Regarding Stop and Frisk, I know Bloomberg supported it when he was mayor. I don’t know much more about that, but my impression was that he thought it was a way to bring down crime, and now he renounces it. I say this not to support him in any way, because if he can be shown to be a racist, with no good reason to have supported that policy other than because of that fact, then of course he has no business being president.
…he renounced it because he is running for President of the United States of America and being responsible for a horrendous, racist, dehumanizing, punitive unconstitutional policy that stood for the duration of his Mayorship and wasn’t stopped until after he left is simply something he doesn’t want people to be reminded of. As Mayor de Blasio said: “People aren’t stupid.”
We have his thoughts on tape. Those thoughts have been posted in this thread. We have him on tape enthusiastically endorsing throwing kids them up against the walls and frisking them. Why do we need to show that he was racist? The fact that he actively supported a racist unconstitutional policy that affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of black and latino New Yorkers should be enough.
That’s where we disagree and only time will tell. Because in my real life, I actually know several older, upper middle class centrist light Republicans that would probably vote for Bloomberg but not for Sanders. And I don’t know many Sanders supporters IRL.
And I don’t think most of the Democrats I know IRL are outraged enough. They hate Trump, sure - but they are also apolitical and just don’t grasp the long term danger. And I’m nervous about them turning out, especially if the markets react negatively to Sanders news.
I don’t think radical structural change sells when the economy is good. People that are financially comfortable are pretty attached to that comfort. And a lot of people are doing just fine.
In my experience the Internet amplifies the extremes and downplays the middle. Everyone I know IRL is way more middle of the road than most of the people I know online.
I might be wrong, though. Its like many things in life, we all want to get to the same place at the end of the day - we just have different ideas about how to get there.
Discussing it can be productive at this stage as long as we don’t get poisonous. We’ll put it all behind us and come together in 6 months. If Sanders is the nominee I’ll walk through fire to vote for him.
this says JFK would have inherited $1 bil , inflation adjusted. This article was before Trump was in the race.
Or maybe he renounced it because he thinks he was wrong back then. I don’t know, but I do know that people make mistakes. To be clear, you may be right. I just don’t know.
Since posting earlier, I saw the stories about the tape. When he said “throwing kids up against the walls” I don’t think he meant that literally. Just to get that out there. But this is no defense of him, and I agree the policy was wrong and anyone should take into consideration what he did then.* And yes, that also means at least considering his explanation before just dismissing it out out hand. Finally, my racist comment was tied into the policy, and I don’t mean you have to show him to be racist in other ways. That would be enough to disqualify him.
Mostly what makes it seem bad to me, is that the message I have so far gotten from how he’s gone about things just says ‘screw the rules and the process; I have money, I don’t need to do things the same way the peasants do.’
And frankly, it literally looks like buying the nomination. Now, I’m not sure, but my impression is that although there are some very prominent super-rich people who would side with the Democratic Party on most things, isn’t there a whole heck of a lot more of that super-rich money on the Republican side? If something that looks this much like buying the nomination is successful - even if everything is totally legal and not breaking any rules - might it not unleash considerably more of that money that people have been afraid to make it look too obviously like the elections were being bought?
That said, after looking at his policies, I suppose I’m not quite as unhappy to vote for him if he were to secure the nomination, but I still think the whole thing looks bad.
Every time I think Bloomberg might not be so bad, I remember that he donated the maximum to Mark Johnson’s campaign. Johnson, a DeVos knockoff in the body of an eight-year-old boy, won North Carolina’s superintendent position in 2016, and has been screwing up our public school system ever since.
One fun example: just today, Johnson sent unsolicited email or text to over half a million NC parents and teachers, based on a database of emails intended for use in school-based communication, asking for their participation in a push survey about his desire to end Common Core standards in North Carolina. There’s a lot of problems with this effort, but the most significant one is that North Carolina replaced Common Core standards in 2018.
I know this is tangential to Bloomberg, but goddamn. All his talk about supporting evidence-based governance rings pretty freaking hollow to me.
…he could have renounced when the courts found that the policy was unconstitutional instead of blasting the courts and vowing to continue the policy.
Why not? How exactly do you think the NYPD enforced stop and frisk? They would throw people, including kids, up against the wall to frisk them. Its literally what they did. Just to get that out there.
It shouldn’t just be taken into “consideration.” It should, in any rational society, be disqualifying. His regime terrorised communities of colour. He approved of enhanced surveillance of Muslim communities and individuals. He’s only in this race because of his bank balance. That he can afford to wage a propaganda campaign is not a reason to think he should be president.
Okay, I went back and found the quote you are referring to in the thread. And I also saw this from the New York Post.
From these two, and assuming Bloomberg had data to back up the idea that the neighborhoods where Stop and Frisk was implemented had higher crime rates, it is clear he did what he did to bring down crime and stop the murder of kids. That doesn’t make the policy the right way to go about it, but it does show motivation. As for what I know now, I don’t know that Bloomberg should be excoriated for this when his intentions were good.
Then maybe you know more than I do. I am open to that possibility. How do you know they threw people up against the wall. I am interested.
Okay, if you want to believe what one side says about what Bloomberg did, take from that that he had no good intentions whatsoever, and not listen to what he says about it, and perhaps find out that Bloomberg did what he did because he wanted to reduce crime and kids being murdered, that is your option. You aren’t required to look at all sides. I prefer to.
with Biden fading fast Bloomberg now is likely the leading moderate left in the race or maybe #2 to Pete.
That’s a very interesting supposition.
Very honestly I don’t get the “buying” bit. Voters are not being given money for their votes. His money gives him a big leg up on getting his message out, no question, but people will still either like his message and how he delivers it or not.
Likewise. And a few “Independents” who have swung in different elections who say the same. But I also know Sanders supporters along with Warren fans, and all of them have said that they will vote and vote D no matter what. Anecdotes …
(Errors in formatting copied and pasted)
There is a FUCK TON of evidence out there. You only have to care enough to look it up.
I don’t give a fuck what his stated intentions were. President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug policies are aimed at “the neutralization of illegal drug personalities nationwide”. That doesn’t make them any less cruel, less arbitrary, or any less disgusting.
Bothsiderism isn’t a good thing. Sometimes there are not “very fine people” over there. I HAVE looked at both sides. I see no reason why we should give Bloomberg a pass.
I’ve already cited more than enough evidence to show that Stop and Frisk didn’t work. Why does the motivation matter? Bloomberg ignored the evidence, he even ignored the constitution in support of a racist policy that overwhelmingly targeted people of colour. It doesn’t matter if he did that “to stop the murder of kids.” That isn’t a good enough reason to terrorise hundreds of thousands of people.
I said I didn’t think they literally threw people up against the wall, and at that time you had not posted these links. But thanks, that is exactly what I was asking for.
Fine. That is your option. I happen to believe that if he was doing it for good reasons, they should be considered.
Great, and I didn’t mean to give the impression that I absolutely think you haven’t looked at both sides. And I never said he should be given a pass. Looking at both sides is not giving him a pass.
I never said it worked or not. And the motivation matters because if someone tries to do something to help people, that is a good thing. Not everything is as black and white (excuse the unintentional pun) as you seem to think it is. The weight of the evidence on “your” side might very well out weigh mine. But I can’t know that until I consider both sides.
…it astonishes me that you actually had to ask me for a cite for something that I would have expected to have been common knowledge. I’m even more astonished that you are arguing to look at “both sides” when you don’t even know the bare basics of what this is all about.
Hitler thought he was doing the world a favour by sending millions of people to concentration camps. Do you think that if Hitler thinks he was doing this for good reasons that we should consider that when we look at his impact on history?
Not bothering to look at *either *side unless spoon-fed **is **giving him a pass. You didn’t even know that (at times) the police would throw people against the wall to frisk them. You know absolutely nothing about stop and frisk except what I’ve told you in this thread. In the time its taken you to respond you could have put some effort into looking at “both sides.” But it looks like you’ve only put effort into exonerating one party. The evidence is overwhelming here.
My response wasn’t about you. The evidence showed that stop and frisk didn’t work. If Bloomberg was motivated by “stopping the kids dying” then setting policy that worked against that goal puts his motivations in doubt.
“Good” is subjective. Anti-vaxxers think they are helping by telling people not to get vaccinations. Is that a good thing?
Sometimes things are black and white. Some things are constitutional and some things aren’t. These weren’t random stops. They were being stopped purely on the basis of the colour of their skin. This is indefensible. Let me know when you’ve finished considering “both sides” and then if you can figure out a defense I would love to hear it.
Oh goodie, Hitler’s arrived.
…oh goodie! What a compelling rebuttal. Godwin has been clear that this kind of usage of Hitler in debate is acceptable: and if its good enough for him it should be good enough for you. You’ve engaged in anti-Godwinism: dismissing the entirety of an argument on the basis of a single Hitler.
Plus there’s the possibility you might agree (and just want to soften the disagreement with previous poster, or maybe you don’t agree) that a big shift to the left in public policies wouldn’t actually be in the country’s interest.
It isn’t simply being ‘attached to comfort’ with the implication things would get better if you abandoned that comfort. I think a reasonable discussion keeps open the possibility that Sanders’ solutions aren’t the right ones, they really do go too far, rather than just identifying narrowly self interested motives as the only reason anyone would resist them.
With that said, I’m not sure Sanders has a lower chance of beating Trump than the other candidates. Including the fact that Sanders losing the nomination after going to the convention with a delegate plurality would have a big cost in unity and enthusiasm. Same goes for any appearance the ‘establishment’ of the party is maneuvering against him in concert, having been caught doing it last time. So the alternative to Sanders has to win the nomination outright, not just be more ‘electable’ in a vacuum. A plan (like Bloomberg’s might be in part) to win a contested convention I don’t think produces an actually more electable candidate, considering party unity and enthusiasm. Thread is supposed to be about him, Bloomberg, I still don’t see any real chance of him doing that, going to the convention with a delegate majority.