Mike Bloomberg is just another billionaire with outdated views looking for attention
We’ve all seen the campaign ads. “Mike will get it done,” they profess. What exactly has he done? He’s had 64 sexual harassment cases brought against him. He’s expanded the infamously racist stop-and-frisk policy in New York. He’s spied on the Muslim community. And he has bought his way into the primary.
Not to bring everything back to another bigoted New York billionaire who got bored with having too much money and went into politics, but Mike Bloomberg certainly does remind me of someone.
Were it not for the mark on the ballot calling him a Democrat, people would assume based on his fiscal policy and social track record that he was at least a centrist-Independent, if not a conservative-Republican.
Despite being a registered Republican from the beginning of his political career up until 2007, and an Independent until 2018, he chose to run as a Democrat. Presumably, to gain the support of both Republicans and party-line Democrats.
He’s an authoritarian, plain and simple. Party isn’t the real issue here. He cares about power.
Bloomberg has a long history of bigotry. While his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, first implemented stop-and-frisk, it was under his watch that the program grew to the widespread excuse for police brutality and racial profiling.
When it was brought up by critics that New York police officers were disproportionately targeting black and brown communities, he gave the rationale that, “That’s where all the crime was.” In addition, he justified having undercover officers stalk Muslim New Yorkers as preventative measures against another 9/11.
“We had just lost 3,000 people at 9/11,” Bloomberg said in an interview with PBS Feb. 27. “Of course we’re supposed to do that.”
If anything, Bloomberg is a more dangerous version of Trump. He’s smart. He knows that putting up a polished front and playing up the establishment card will make him look like the opposite of the current president.
Aside from his dubious past, Bloomberg’s current policy proposals are anything but progressive. While his website claims that Bloomberg will defend equal rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, he has stated as recently as 2019 that he considers transgender individuals as just “some guy in a dress,” or “he, she, or it.”
On his website, aside from a reference to overturning the military ban, he has nothing to say on transgender rights. By considering equal rights for the transgender community to be reaching too far, he betrays the entire LGBTQ+ community.
Being progressive is about supporting the oppressed and the marginalized. No ally insults the people they claim to stand with behind their backs and considers the value of their identities negotiable.
According to his website, his plan for climate change is to “restore America’s leadership in fighting the global climate crisis, propel the United States toward a 100% clean energy future, make environmental justice a national priority.” These promises are all incredibly vague, and his campaign has been silent on the specifics of how they’d achieve any those goals.
General promises of somehow solving climate change aren’t going to help us. If we want this planet to be livable for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren, we need to take serious and quantifiable steps to ensure it. The science says we need ambitious action. All he offers are glossy advertisements.
If anything, Bloomberg is a more dangerous version of Trump. He’s smart. He knows that putting up a polished front and playing up the establishment card will make him look like the opposite of the current president.
I’m not afraid that he couldn’t defeat Trump in an election. If Bloomberg wins the Democratic primary, the general election won’t matter. It’s a self-serving billionaire in office either way.
