BRANDON J. WEICHERT | THE WEICHERT REPORT
Bernie Sanders continues chewing up the scenery in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary.
Yet, the DNC leadership isn’t noticing. Bernie won the popular vote in Iowa (after the DNC effectively rigged that primary against poor old Bernie). He then won New Hampshire and came out of that primary with a double-digit lead over his other opponents.
During that time, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg entered the race as the official representative of the American Oligarch class.
Bloomberg has already spent more than $400 million on ad buys (and how much do you want to bet that all of these weird protesters showing up at Bernie rallies, interrupting his Leninist “What Is to Be Done?” redux, are all bought-and-paid-for by Bloomberg?)
Bloomberg has clearly coopted the culinary union, the largest workers’ rights union in Nevada, into disavowing Bernie because the Sanders “Medicare-for-All” Plan is, well, insane (which, it is, when you factor in, you know, how we’re going to pay for it).
Although, it is rare to find a union these days that is not at least sympathetic at the policy level to Sanders (because Sanders is good at lying about his true intentions, which is to destroy the working and middle-classes of this country).
Recently, Bloomberg intimated that he’d pick Hillary Clinton as his vice-president, if elected, too. Well, I hope he has plenty of food tasters should he win the dubious honor of being one heartbeat between Hillary Clinton and absolute power (unless, as I ruminated in these pages earlier, Bloomberg is in cahoots with the Clintons).
Just at face value, Bloomberg is a terrible candidate for president.
But, Bloomberg’s vast wealth makes him the equivalent of major boss character from a video game. He will be entering the arena against Donald Trump at the end of our struggles, fully armed-and-operational, with more health and vastly more wealth. And, Bloomberg is quite villainous, like any decent Boss partaking in the big Boss Fight usually is.
Yet, just as with the big boss fights at the end of a video game level, the best way to defeat Bloomberg is to understand his pattern of attack. And, once his pattern of attack is determined, he will be drained of all life-force, and sent back to the hellish netherworld of New York’s East 79th Street.
Before we go on, though, let’s acknowledge that Bloomberg is not only completely unelectable by Democratic Party standards (which is a low bar these days), but he’s totally unelectable by any standards. Hosni Mubarak at the height of his power could win more votes honestly than Mike Bloomberg will be able to, if he somehow “wins” the Democratic Party nomination.
Yes, Bloomberg is wealthier than President Trump.
But, his record as mayor of New York is only remembered for stopping-and-frisking young men of color while also demanding that working people give up their morning Big Gulps. Compare that to Trump who, at the very least, can depend on a sizable and eclectic coalition of “deplorable” voters to roll out on Election Day and vote for him–because Trump has actually delivered on many of his promises.
I get the sense that Mike Bloomberg might just be self-aware enough that his chances are slim (which is why he’s flooding zone with his massive tranche of “f-ck you” money).
But, what is his plan should he get a clean shot at Trump during the general?
What possible case could he make against The Donald?
He can’t run on being a man of the people because Bloomberg is not a man of the people.
And, the big factor in American politics from hereon out is populism, either of the Left-leaning socialist or the Right-leaning nominally nationalist variants. So, off-the-bat, Bloomberg has only money–which is precisely what Hillary had in 2016, and she couldn’t accomplish anything.
What’s more, his unfavorability rating according to a Quinnipiac University poll is somewhere between “34-40 percent” with “25 percent” of those polled indicating that they didn’t know enough about him at the time of the poll–well wait until they hear about his take on farmers!
This is not just hyperbole.
Bloomberg is constitutionally incapable of expressing a single shred of empathy toward his fellow man who is not either of New York City and/or of the billionaire’s brigade:
From workers’ rights to the “goal of the economy is for technology to replace people.” This is who the Democrats think can save them from that mean, old “Orange Man” in the White House?
It gets worse than this video, too. At one point in his business career, a female employee announced that she was pregnant, to which Bloomberg replied, “Kill it.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg for Bloomberg.
Perhaps some of these comments were taken out of context (as these things are want to happen during a contentious campaign). In the age of “Me Too” and the “Cancel Culture,” it is doubtful such distinctions matter. In fact, judging from the outpouring of vitriol directed at Bloomberg, it is clear that his obfuscations and denials are only encouraging more widespread opposition to his candidacy from the “Woke” Left.
Regardless of the intent behind Bloomberg’s statements, they clearly show a man utterly lacking heart. The comments affirm the worst things that have been said about Bloomberg, both by his opponents on the Left and the Right.
Basically, the humanity of a Bloomberg campaign is nonexistent…and that’s a critical factor, since humanity forms the basis of anything having to do with politics (though don’t tell that to the writers over at The Bulwark, who are still preening about Trump’s lack of conservative epistemology or something).
As I write often: facts may not care about your feelings, but politics is about feelings even more than facts. So, if you want to win, you’d better play the game with a lot of heart–and be able to win hearts, in order to win minds.
Bloomberg is after something else.
Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and one of the original Trump brains trust during the 2016 campaign, argues that Bloomberg is engaged in a “leveraged buyout” of the Democratic National Committee.
Possibly.
I do think this is about the pending Democratic National Convention this summer in Milwaukee, Wis. Don’t listen to what anyone else says, it is very clear that the Democrats are planning for some kind of a brokered convention. And, that means that Bernie and the socialist-populists are going to get screwed by the handmaidens of the billionaires again.
With all of that Bloomberg F-You money sloshing around the DNC, Bernie is liable to have all of his delegate votes redistributed. Heck, at this point, knowing that there’s no upper limit to the amount of money that Bloomberg is going to throw around the DNC Primary, I’m thinking about switching parties and volunteering to be an on-the-fence Bernie delegate in Milwaukee this year.
It could potentially be that Bloomberg is merely behaving a single agent representing a league of entrenched moneyed interests who both want to keep their grip on the Democrat Party by weakening the rising tide of socialism while taking their best shot at Trump.
During a brokered convention, the party’s power elite would work to nominate a more “acceptable” candidate, such as the DNC did during the infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago (which resulted in mass riots and chaos and inevitable defeat in November of that year).
Perhaps Bloomberg really wants to be the top dog on a Democratic Party ticket in 2020. He certainly has a personal axe to grind with Trump. Just look at this tweet storm between Trump and Bloomberg. It’s really quite pathetic that this is the state of our republican system of government–a prize to be won by bored billionaires looking to shoot some excess money at each other in a massive ego trip. It’s also indicative of some form of intra-billionaire penis envy.
Anyway, revenge and pettiness will only get Bloomberg so far. Other than being a billionaire who deprived New Yorkers of their precious Big Gulps, I really don’t know what Bloomberg’s campaign is about. He wants to throw his money and influence around openly, though, that much is clear. Bloomberg apparently thinks he needs to be feared as well–and the money is the source of his power.
His pattern attack will, therefore, be a deluge of cash to drown out his opponents, followed on by a series of bitchy tweets and public statements meant to goad Trump into saying or acting foolishly (which won’t work, by the way, many have tried that route).
OK.
That will turn many people off.
So, if he is interested in the leveraged buyout scenario that Bannon talks so frequently about–but Bloomberg isn’t really all that committed to the Boss Fight with Trump–what is his play here? Is it really to become president? I can’t fathom that Bloomberg really wants to be POTUS.
Last year, during the start of the Democrat Party’s impeachment fiasco, I wrote this at American Greatness:
It is more than likely that Americans will both rally to the president (believing the Democrats have gone overboard in their opposition to Trump) and deny Democrats their victory in 2020 because of this impeachment overreach.
And that’s a win for Pelosi.
As it stands, Pelosi cannot break the perception that she is being led around Capitol Hill, like a walker-bound septuagenarian at an assisted living facility by her young, callous nurse, AOC. Politics is mostly about perception. Therefore, both to protect her image as kingmaker, as well as the quickly fading influence of the Democratic Party’s neoliberal elite, Pelosi most likely ushered in the impeachment inquiry knowing it was doomed-to-fail.
Her hope is that the impeachment inquiry ends in such a disaster that it totally discredits the democratic socialist wing of her party, restoring Pelosi’s personal power in Washington as well as reinvigorating the dying neoliberal elite against the tireless forces of the democratic socialists.
I argued then that it was simply because Pelosi could read the political terrain: had she not gone along with the AOC mania on impeachment, it is more than likely Pelosi would have lost total control of her caucus (thereby empowering the very socialist elements that the DNC leadership has spent years trying to prevent from rising).
Impeachment was meant to fail in order to secure the neoliberal fiefdom that is the Democratic Party. Similarly, Bloomberg’s actions during the DNC primary, I believe, are less about securing his path to the presidency and more about ultimately ensuring that the billionaires have a conduit into the national political system via control of the Democratic Party.
If they prevent Bernie from winning the primary, regardless of whether any one of them can win the White House in November, they will have theoretically secured their grip on the levers of power within the DNC into the future. A Trump victory would be assured, but the elite could weather his tweet storms for another four years and then try to return to the way things were. Of course, you and I know there’s no going back. Ever.
The populist moment is here.
Should Bloomberg succeed as Pelosi did by pushing through impeachment and having it fall flat in the Senate, then, the Democratic Party is dead.
What’s more, whatever one may think about Suburban Moms rushing to the salvation of a potential Bloomberg (or anyone other than Bernie Sanders) campaign for president in November, Bloomberg cannot win the critical working-class, rust belt-type voters who switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, in order to vote for Trump (and who mostly remain loyal to him–particularly if anyone other than Bernie is not on the top of the ticket).
Donald Trump has proven the path to electoral success in America today: it is through the hearts and minds of the American worker. Under Trump, as my friend, F.H. Buckley argued in his 2018 magnum opus, The Republican Workers’ Party: How the Trump Victory Drove Everyone Crazy and Why It Was Just What We Needed, Trump has completed the reorientation of this vital set of American voters–most of whom inhabit important swing states on the electoral map–just enough so that the typical Democrat candidate will be unlikely to enjoy another victory (unless the DNC nominates someone who appeals to the workers the way that Trump did in 2016).
Face it, the only chance the DNC has to even compete with Trump electorally is if they nominate Bernie…and they’re unlikely to do that, even if he does win every primary from here until the convention. And, the Boss Fight between Bloomberg and Trump–if it were to happen–would be unimpressive, as Trump would have the electoral leverage in any engagement.
So, unless Bloomberg is going to literally buy votes with all of that money of his in the general election, he’s staring down a pre-failed candidacy–which is why I suspect that he’s not actually serious about running and winning. Instead, he’s simply trying to secure the DNC as the official home of the billionaire brigade.
THE WEICHERT REPORT 
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