Even a delusional billionaire can see the writing on the wall. Bloomberg is out.
One interesting promise:
Bloomberg has pledged to pay his massive staff to continue to work through November to support whoever becomes the eventual Democratic nominee.
If he does that, I’ll forgive him his narcissistic attempt to buy the presidency.
Of course, he endorses Joe Biden on his way out. Cancel that forgiveness thing.
We are at the point in our civilization where the only thing keeping us from slipping into oblivion is a strange little billionaire and his willingness to spend millions of dollars to call an inflated, deteriorating maybe billionaire a dickhead over and over.
If Sanders wins I’ll vote for him, though I’m more a left-center incremental meliorist. If Biden wins it will be hard but I’m shifting toward Machiavellian expedience and going hesitantly toward lesser of two evils, Sleepy Joe, as a moth toward flame. Egads!
Even before Bloomberg dropped out, it was sobering to think that Trump is the youngest candidate in the race.
Lets hope they don’t run out of formaldehyde for Biden. It’s going to matter who is VP, for a change. If the dems really want to show us who’s boss they’ll run Clinton as VP and everyone will hope Biden wins then has a heart attack.
@ 1
Well then, we’re fucked.
@#3, Marcus Ranum:
Wow, a Biden/Clinton ticket… congratulations, I may be mistaken, but I think you’ve actually come up with the ticket which would give Trump the largest possible popular vote win.
@1, we are indeed at a strange crossroads. Previously, the wealthy simply bought their president, now they try to run for that office themselves.
I’m sure that’s quite novel for them, as the overwhelming majority of such folks have never really done anything by themselves after learning how to walk.
But, it also offers a novel experience beyond that, a failure that they cannot buy their way out of.
I don’t see Biden winning against Trump, the guy is actually senile.
@Akira MacKenzie
Yes.
More bigoted Homer Simpson with boundary problems is better than incompetent and ignorant Montgomery Burns.
lotharloo, #7
Yeah, it’s gonna be a straightforward popular vote victory. I predicted a while back in a thread that it would be a popular vote victory against any of the candidates, but beating Biden won’t even require interference from Russia or any acts of voter suppression.
I wonder if he will spend the money if Biden wins, and not if Sanders wins.
I suspect he believes (as do I), that Biden is the right-of-center alternative to Trump. Bloomberg isn’t a Democrat (despite his label)—he just doesn’t like Trump.
I believe that Sanders is an FDR-style Democrat (despite his label) who is really close to being in the center by European standards.
Glad to see America yet again turn down the possibility for any real change in favor watching two sundowning conservatives go at it like elephant seals while desperately trying to say a single coherent sentence.
I’m sold. Biden/Bloomberg 2020. Every patriotic Murrican believes we have better trolls than the Russians. We’ll show them who’s … by the … you know … you know the thing.
Also, eagerly looking forward to the special prosecutor looking into Biden’s son and Ukraine and the daily, breathless NY Times headlines covering each bullshit statement leaded to them by Devin Nunes like G Gordon Liddy testifying at the Watergate hearings.
At least we know they bullshit upfront, I suppose.
Kinda hoping at this point Warren drops out and endorses Sanders, after she underperformed basically everywhere including Mass. But the amount of support she did get would really be a great boost to putting an actual progressive in the lead.
Still, a lot of primary season left to go, lot of delegates up for grabs and so on. We’ll see how this goes.
So being as I am British this does not really impact me that much but I am a bit disappointed that Bernie didn’t do better but how would you feel about a Biden/Warren ticket?
@ 12
OK, that line was good!
@16 timorous
I would rather see Warren in a position like attorney general.
Given Biden’s age, specifically, and the general problem with Democratic leadership being old as fuck, I would rather have a younger person as VP to start building a new generation.
But short term, that may go some way in unifying the party. I certainly wouldn’t be disappointed.
Here’s a piece of good news, in a tweet from Addy Baird of (I think) Buzzfeed:
AOC has a real feel for politics and, long-term, a decent shot at Very High Office.
hemidactylus: “I’m more a left-center incremental meliorist”
So you’re a Sanders supporter?
Medicare for all is left-of-center meliorism par excellence. It’s what medicare was supposed to do in the first place: start with universal health care for the elderly, then reduce the eligibility age until everyone is covered.
I don’t really get the point of Warren dropping out and endorsing Sanders.
Having fewer progressive voices on the debate stage helps how exactly?
@21 it’s about consolidation. Klobuchar and Mayor Pete dropped out right before Super Tuesday and their votes went Biden, which was instrumental in Biden winning as many delegates as he did. Hypothetically, Warren drops out, throws her support behind Sanders, and the more consolidated progressive movement has a much greater chance of winning. That is much better than split progressive votes despite having two progressive voices on a stage.
@12 American liberals have, for the last 50-60 years, been waiting for “Someone Else” to come along with a cheap, easy and consequence-free plan to solve all of our problems instantly. “Someone Else”, they say, will come along and make everyone happy and not require anyone to make hard choices or value judgements – hell, we don’t even need values or judgements – or to delay gratification or make any effort at all.
Ultimately, in this society steeped in ennui and alienation, we have been every bit a part of the problem as anyone else. One election, one politician, isn’t going to change that. Taking a hard, unsparing look at what we’ve done wrong and could have done better will, in the long run.
@#21, numerobis:
Splitting “your side’s” support usually means that, thanks to the math used to calculate delegates, the total number of delegates assigned to “your side’s” candidates is less than it would be if there was only one candidate representing them all. If a candidate scores less than 15% of voters, in fact, then they actively impede their own side because candidates getting less than 15% of voters get no delegates.
Consider the following potential outcome in a Sanders-Warren-Biden race:
Biden: 47%
Sanders: 39%
Warren: 14%
Warren gets no delegates. Biden gets more than half, Sanders gets the rest. “Our side” came out with less than half the delegates. If Warren had dropped out and 13% out of her 14% of voters went to Sanders — which is what her supporters usually allege they would do — then the outcome would have been:
Biden: 48%
Sanders: 52%
In this case, “our side” gets more than half the delegates.
This is what has actually happened in about half the states so far.
That’s why a lot of people are now suspicious that she is deliberately double-crossing her supporters and undermining the left. In about half the contests so far, she has done so poorly that she got no delegates, so even if she drops out now and tells her delegates to go with Sanders in the convention, she has still harmed Sanders’ chances.
How I see Bloomberg’s “continuing support for the nominee” is that he thinks by throwing money and staff at the nominee he can make them his puppet. I think, seeing his performance at the debate, he would be happier that be the power behind the throne anyway.
Simplest answer to numerobis: you win with votes. You don’t win with symbolic crap like the number of warm bodies on a debate stage.
It’ll be great to see like nine months of biden vomiting blood and calling trump “mr reagan” on the debate stage while occasionally pushing policies that would have been right-wing under clinton, only for his inevitable loss to be blamed on dangerous berniebro guerillas for “sabotaging” the electoral campaign of the only person with a brain spongier than trump’s.
Then, when someone with the exact same positions as trump runs as a democrat against someone slightly worse than trump in 2024, we’ll get to start the whole thing over again.
I can’t blame Warren for wanting to hang in there through Super Tuesday, but it’s clear now she’s not got a path to the nomination and is already struggling to keep her campaign funded. So I expect her to drop out tomorrow. I don’t think she’ll endorse either Sanders or Biden though, because she doesn’t need to do either and it keeps her options open come the convention if it’s contested.
@ Akira, # 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsx2vdn7gpY
@Porivil Sorrens
If this was a game of Civilization that I could just start over when the nukes started flying, I would definitely stick with it through whatever god awful shitshow the Biden-Trump debates will be.
Biden is a mess and he’s still at least 60% more coherent and lucid than Trump.
This will be a referendum on what stimulants are strong enough to get these two shambling corpses through a couple hours on tv.
Wonder who Anita Hill will vote for. Must be infuriating to have to potential pick between the pussy grabber and one of the guys who burned her at the stake in the 90s
So do I choose jaded cynicism and not vote because it’s but a insignificant drop in the bucket or Machiavellian expedience and hope I can contribute to Biden hopefully ousting Trump who as private citizen may be meted his just deserts in a court of law…
I have another way to look at Bloomberg, like some of the supper wealthy, not all clearly, he may be trying to do something positive with his wealth, to help pay back society and make amends for what he has done to accomplish what he has done. He has chosen politics which has always been part of his core news business. He did give $100 million to support women candidates which he did not have to do. No I do not think he would be my choice for any office but if he really wants to help improve the country and make amends for clawing his way to the top I can accept it. He did not inherit his wealth and position as far as I know so he may not have quit the same loyalties. Part of his success was being able to supply up to date accurate information to the investor class part of his objection to Trump is that he recognizes him for what he is a lier and a cheat.
Time will tell how all of this works out it is going to be an interesting 2 years anyway.
uncle frogy
@30
I could not possibly disagree more if I tried. I have yet to see a single vocal appearance from Biden that I would consider having even a minimal amount of either coherence or lucidity.
unclefrogy wrote:
To believe this, I’d have to believe that he changed his core beliefs practically overnight, since he was defending all the worst policies of his time as mayor as early as barely over a year ago. We should be deeply suspicious of philanthropy by the rich and powerful, especially since that philanthropy tends to concentrate even more power in their own hands, and often even directly or indirectly enriches them further.
I think it’s more likely that his core objection to Trump is that he brings unwanted attention to the billionaire class, and makes it clear that the “meritocracy” that supposedly justified their excessive wealth is a lie. If the billionaires aren’t inherently better than the plebs, then by what justification do they hold all that money and power? This is not a question you want asked if you’re one of the billionaires.
In a bit of irony, I got a letter from the Bloomberg campaign today seeking my vote. (shredder feed even before he withdrew)
If Warren wants to be remembered as an actual progressive, she will immediately drop out and throw all support behind Sanders; with her support he can still win the primary outright. If instead she stays in and gives her delegates to Biden at the convention… not only is a progressive future less likely, but a “center-left” one is as well given Biden’s electoral track record.
unclefrogy@33: One hundred million dollars is pocket change to someone of Bloomberg’s wealth. Donating that is him literally buying a reputation boost, not a signal that he’s changing his ideals.
The news is reporting that the DOW is up 1200 as Biden victories have boosted healthcare insurance company stocks…
That should tell you all we need to know.
@38 & 38
all of that is true to some extent and I doubt there is ever one answer with regards to human motivation that encompasses everything. i was thinking of The Gates foundation as an example of worthy goals but can they really make up for the negative aspects of Microsoft’s history? Probably not but still I wont begrudge the effort. A hundred million may be chump change to Bloomberg but not to the recipients usefulness. Kind of like the philanthropy of the 19th century robber barons did not remove the damage but the libraries were accepted none the less.
He may be coming late to the struggle and may be trying to be too pragmatic with his support of Biden. he may think that half measures like Biden will be enough to avert the coming catastrophe . We have passed that point a long time ago from where I sit the track is out and the train wreck seems unavoidable.
uncle frogy
So in these comments, the general consensus seems to be that Biden is simply a right-of-center stooge who won’t do much to advance any of the things that liberals care about.
JAQ — isn’t one of those things supposed to be advancing minorities? Because it sounded to me like the main reason Biden won yesterday was that he was the overwhelming pick of African American voters. I’ve had several such students who were quite enthusiastic about him. They’re an indispensable block for the Democratic party, so shouldn’t the fact that he’s their pick weigh heavily in his favor? Or would you just dismiss them as dupes?
I voted for Warren yesterday, but I figure it’s time to start working on revving up my enthusiasm for whoever the nominee turns out to be. Right now that’s looking like it’ll be Biden, so I’m trying to find things to like about him. I am worried that once he wins the nomination, if the Bernie wing of the party as exemplified by this comment thread can’t find reasons to support him, then we’ll have four more years of Trump and we can kiss the planet goodbye.
Love to be preemptively proven correct in the same thread that my prediction was made in.
The incredible irony of the same people who will support any spongebrained invalid as long as he has a veneer of “electability”, only to then turn around and complain that said invalid might lose because a large segment of the electorate doesn’t like him is palpable.
Um, you might want to rephrase this? If they preempted you, then you didn’t make a prediction, did you? If you made a prediction, then they couldn’t have preempted you, since the prediction would have to have come first.
Maybe replace “preemptively” with “immediately”?
@41
that is true but from what I understand that support is divided by age with the younger black voters supporting Sanders and the older black voters supporting Biden (the establishment blacks?). the Latino vote is more solidly for Sanders.
If you doubt Sanders on race issues you might listen to one of Cornell West
uncle frogy
No, I don’t really care to rephrase it, nor am I terribly interested in semantic corrections from someone that I don’t respect in any way. Thank you for reminding me to update my tampermonkey blacklist, though.
@#37: Further than that, a Sanders-Warren ticket would energize a heck of a lot of voters who feel dissatisfied with both parties. There is some reason to think that most voters who vote Dem are not party loyalists, as the Dem party establishment would have everyone think, and there is probably a much more significant population of closet malcontents in the traditional conservative/Republican voter side who are sick and tired of the looney tune circus their party has become.
On the whole the motivations of liberals seem less primed to vote ‘for’ Dems then aggressively voting against Republicans. Its just that Dem candidates are merely the best option they have been offered to knock the Republicaners back. They’re about fed up with that horseshit too.
But a Sanders-Warren ticket could be potentially electrifying. Not only would it alleviate existing concerns (like Sanders’ age and other problems) it would also be much more likely to hound out Donny and his Republicaners in Congress than the Dem party’s pre-packaged Biden. If Biden is the Dem nominee he’ll lose. It will be another 4 excruciating years of the indescribable stench we’ve been soaking in over the previous four.. (Just remember the Donny-Hillary debates, replace Hillary’s coherent and articulate responses with Biden’s slop, then imagine how the pundits will interpret how Donny ‘dominates’ Biden. Now compare that scenario by imagining a fierce showing by a Sanders-Warren ticket against Trump-Pence Liar’s Club. Want to bet which way the current will shift in the voting ranks?)
Unfortunately, the likelihood of that kind of smart and bold strategic move happening may be low, but it isn’t nearly as low as some may think. It would mean bruising up the party establishment on BOTH sides, but most significantly the Dems who are complicit in bringing the country to its knees in the current mess. Americans can reassert control only if they knock them BOTH back. If it requires identifying the Sanders-Warren ticket with a third party, then so be it. Just keep it simple and honest, like the People’s Party.
Just imagine allowing Americans a real opportunity to throw out what actually ails their country – the stranglehold represented by both parties and their wealthy/corporate masters – and the chance to breathe freely by banishing the stink and have a shot at a decent future. Otherwise? Forget about it. There won’t be anything more to do but waiting to see how much longer we’ll last.
unclefrogy wrote:
Even that has some sinister undertones. The Gates Foundation was one of the biggest proponents of the charter schools (public school privatization) in the US. The medical aide the foundation provides these countries is usually provided by western contractors rather than building up domestic health care in the affected countries. And they’ve lobby for law changes in African countries that directly benefit companies like Monsanto, and have led to things like cotton crop failures in some of these countries.
I mean, I don’t doubt that Bill Gates intends to do good, but by inserting themselves into a situation they know next to nothing about, not taking the advice of those who know something about it, and not involving the local stakeholders, they’ve often done far more harm than good. And despite that fact, they’ve given themselves more power and control over the very people they intended to help and taken away the people’s right to make decisions about their own country. It’s this latter fact which is why I think everyone should be deeply suspicious about philanthropy, regardless of its source.
Good stuff, ck. Thanks.
Honestly, for anyone worried about “Bernie Bros” sitting out the election if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination, I’d suggest forgetting about that. The group of devoted Sanders fans who would vote for Sanders and only Sanders is pretty small, and it seems that much of the 2016 Sanders to Trump voters were people whose only politics were that they loathed Hillary Clinton. The fact she’s not in the race is probably one of the reasons Sanders isn’t doing quite as well as last time around in many places.
The biggest problem is that an enervating candidate like Biden is likely to cause unreliable voters to not show up. These are the people who showed up to eagerly vote for Obama in 2008 because of the excitement around that, but then went back to sleep after being part of that historic event. This is a group of voters which is much, much larger and very fickle. Maybe they’ll show up to vote against Trump, but they didn’t show up to vote against Bush, and Kerry was a stronger candidate in 2004 than Biden is in 2020.
Bloomberg lighting a mountain of cash on fire like he’s the gawd damn joker was funny at first. It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message! Which is that it didn’t hurt his net worth a bit, it was just his capital gains for the time he was running (well, hobbling).
Watching this Biden interview, my man could speak in full, coherent sentences 5 years ago, the contrast to his current state of mind is striking.
Well I’m enjoying the rough and tumble on display here (getting a bit rough like a rugby match with lots of tumbling). I am kinda open and persuadable (some of you [expletive plural] got me close to reconsidering my Never Biden stance…grrrr!). Now anchor @47 has me wishing for a Sanders-Warren ticket if confined to the Democratic Party. I could go for that. If a third party alternative it TRs Taft, Perots Bush or Naders Gore. Not good…at least in terms of critical four years won by Trump.
I don’t regret voting for Warren in early voting in FL regardless of any dissing here of her continued presence. But that Democratic lineup has progressive appeal and seems to be evaporating away as the clock ticks.
Otherwise I may just have to consider Biden merely as a means (perhaps not effective enough) to topple Trump which should be the ultimate concern. Ok I’m having a hard time selling myself on Biden and not opting out in November. A nail-biting hair-puller of a decision. I despise Biden.
Y’all present quite the range of views. Many who are disagreeing harshly are making good points. Thanks.
@ brucegee1962, #41
The main reason Biden won yesterday is that the mainstream media has been treating his nomination as a forgone conclusion since 2015. They scarcely even mentioned the other candidates until they wanted to fluff the ratings for the debates, and even then they’ve treated Sanders as unelectable and Warren as invisible. In the debates themselves, the ostensibly neutral moderators have repeatedly attacked both Warren and Sanders.
Unless you’re heavily invested in learning about the candidates, you’re likely to get the idea that Biden is the choice to beat Trump. In truth, he’s very nearly the worst, which is half* the reason the MSM is so anxious to make him the nominee. It better feeds their preferred horserace-style coverage to have a terrible candidate like Biden competing with Trump. Both Warren and Sanders are quite capable of chewing Trump up and spitting him out, but Biden is a boob with huge negatives and very few real positives.
Trump could easily beat Biden, but if all you know about the candidates is what you see on the evening news or read in the newspaper, it looks like Biden is the best bet. That will change the moment Biden has the party nomination sewn up- the press coverage of Biden will turn from almost totally positive to 90% negative, because the MSM doesn’t want to “look biased.” Biden’s candidacy will be easy for the talking heads to treat the presidential race like a sportsball tournament, rather than the existential crisis it actually is.
Do I dismiss POC as dupes? No. But the vast propaganda machine of the MSM treats all of us like dupes, and the constant drumbeat of predatory capitalism the MSM pushes affects us all. Propaganda works.
*The other half of the reason they want Biden is that he’s super-corporate friendly.
So, which one of us plans to vote Trump & Co. out of disdain for Dem candidate X, Y, and/or Z? Just asking’.
The moment Biden is determined to be the Democratic candidate (if he is…) you will see a determined effort from Trump to get him indited by the Justice Department. Since by that time Trump will have completed the overhaul to only have loyalists in the department and they have been building up the corruption propaganda for months now, this will be a straightforward process for Trump and the Republican party.
Even if Biden and the Democrats successfully defend against the charges and Biden isn’t forced to withdraw to salvage the election, it will suck a huge amount of effort away from campaigning and give a major boost to Republican voter enthusiasm.
….
The democratic establishment doesn’t seem to care, because there is no doubt that they are aware this is a possibility.
54
“So, which one of us plans to vote Trump & Co. out of disdain for Dem candidate X, Y, and/or Z? Just asking’.”
Anyone who doesn’t vote for the Democratic candidate in November.
@ wajim, #54
I’m assuming you mean ‘who intends to vote for Trump if Biden wins the nomination?’ I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but I doubt anyone here will vote for Trump.
For my part, I’ll vote for Biden. I’ll hope he wins. And if he does, I’ll use those four years to make preparations. There are hiding places to create, supplies to lay in, and much to learn. I don’t think he will win of course, but if he does then we’ll have a brief reprieve before fascism descends upon us for the final time.
See, the trouble with Biden is that he’s promising to return us to the halcyon days of 4 years ago… which was a real shit show, if you’ve forgotten. Undeniably better than where we are now, but the conditions already existed that delivered us Trump.
We won’t be so lucky in 2024. Even with my twisted imagination I can’t picture the rough beast that the Republicans will dredge up to run against Biden, but it will be worse than Trump, and it will win the election. And that, I’m certain, is something we simply cannot survive. Not as a nation, and most probably not as a global civilization.
So, if Biden is the nominee, vote for him. Then get ready, for the beast’s hour comes at last.
@48
I agree 100% it is a toss up whether any of the philanthropy of the rich ever makes up for the act of getting rich and always is full of negatives, I was only speaking to their motives and in this case only Bloomberg’s motives being not completely self-serving but trying to do good. The problem with that is the rich do not know how to do good that is not self-serving.
uncle frogy
@unclefrogy #58
It really really is not.
The richer you are, the bigger exploiter you are.
Unless the rich person donates enough to become non-rich, they accrued undue power over society.
Even then, there are a lot of questions to ask: to whom they donate? with what strings attached? what tax rebates do they get? how much money did they save in publicity? how in need were they to justify their power?
@2
If you have a choice between two evils. Pick the one you haven’t tried before.
@24
You complain that Warren has harmed Bernie’s chances by not dropping out. Yet I don’t hear you complaining about Biden. He’s caused the most harm. Why don’t you ask him to drop out and endorse Bernie instead?
I’m not sure if I can make this any simpler, but we’re in a public health emergency. Biden is certainly looking to be our Dem in the race. A year from now, when COVID 19 is widespread across the country and people are dying at increasing rates, and a vaccine is still months away, who’d you rather have in the WH?
I don’t particularly like Biden. But I do think he’s at least smart enough to understand the situation and follow the professional advice he’s given. FFS, Trump’s daily briefings are goddamn cartoons, and HE STILL DOESN’T GET IT.
IMHO, Warren was certainly the smartest candidate, and most pragmatic of the left of the left*, but Biden at least knows he needs to listen to others and not just pull shit out of his ass like Trump does.
I’m not known for my patience, but Incremental victories are still victories. Small moves, Ellie.
Yes, I meant “left of the left”
The Gates Foundation also refuses to impose any controls on its investment arm that would align its investments with its stated goals, meaning it is frequently working against its own agenda.
I recall at one stage it was spending money on treatment for people harmed by pollution from a plant in which it was an investor.
It’s weird, but I almost feel a little reassured that he spent a MASSIVE amount of money, over half a billion, and still lost spectacularly. Like, not even close numbers!
It shows that apparently you CAN’T just buy your way into office, and I honestly just figured that based on previous experiences, if you have enough money you pretty much own the gouvernment. It shows that even if you have shitloads of money, apparently you have to have SOMETHING else to be considered viable!
Trump had whatever it was…Reagan had it…Bush had it…Michael did not…and I freely admit this makes no sense to me! It’s not incompetence or assholishness or vile racism or corruption…all of them had that in spades! Is the “boys club” more exclusive than we thought based on some unknown rich-thing? Is Michael a part of the wrong country club?
I’m sure it’s childish and dumb, I just want to know what it IS!
Oh FFS, Trump called it the Corona-Flu on Hannity last night.
@23 Susan Montgomery
And, sadly, the followers of the GOP have been transforming into a cult – “Everyone else is propoganda and is out to get us. Only our churc.. er, party knows the truth! Jes.. er, I mean Trump will save us from evil.. Uh, I mean chaos and communism!” Some of the people I have talked to literally sound like young earth creationists or flat earthers. They literally can’t learn anything that contradicts their holy writ – which is Fox News and right wing media, and everything else is, as Trump, their great cult leader and master has told them, is a “leftist plot”, or, “possessed by socialism”, even their own freaking kids, if those kids disagree with them, and talk about anything that doesn’t come from Fox News.