It's a rather disgusting story, actually.
The Democratic party is really not required to have any sort of fair process for deciding their candidate for president. It can be as transparently crooked and disgusting as this and really that's just how he chose to operate within the legal frameworks established by folks like him.
Sure, there's the huge personality flaws that Bloomberg displays by taking this strategy, but those don't seem to be of major concern to most American voters. Our current president is a daily salient reminder of this fact.
If we want to focus on Bloomberg's personality, why not start with all the horrific policies he enacted as mayor? There are far more visible character flaws in those decisions than this decision to buy his way towards the Democratic party.
If you supported his policies, after all, you'd have no problem with this strategy being undertaken - right?
Pick your lesser evil
So what though? What point is this rebutting? If a process is crooked and disgusting then damn straight you're gonna have people complaining about it and demanding they do better, as you see here.
I disagree. This is somewhat par for the course. For many people, this could be the first time they experience the disappointment of how corrupt folks like Bloomberg operate within the political sphere. However, these people would be incorrect to chalk this up as historically or even politically noteworthy, for many of us this is rather unsurprising and the story has already been told many times. Why rehash these tired tropes when Bloomberg presents so many new, unique, and significant issues that we now must address?
In other words, just because you don't care doesn't mean that others don't. And the news isn't writing stories catering to solely your interests; there's millions of other readers to consider.
How about the current racist with his reign of corruption and racism?
Assume what you want, but that claim is just false. He also defended it for years even after it was ruled unconstitutional.
Stop and frisk is only the tip of the iceberg, by the way.
This claim he reduced it is a key talking point of his campaign, and an outright lie. He was defending it literally up until the moment he decided to run for president (defending it publicly for years until October 2019, then apologizing in November 2019 when he announced his campaign).
> You know, I strongly disagree with Bloomberg, having lived through his reign of terror in NYC personally. But I just don't see the point in focusing on this kind of attack.
I think there are two issues here:
1) candidate Bloomberg himself, and
2) systemic flaws that are offensive to small-d democratic sensibilities, of which Bloomberg is a representative and symbol.
The point of that kind of attack is to bring focus on the systemic flaws. Also, at this point, many more people are probably attuned to those flaws than they are to the candidate himself (as only New Yorkers have really had to care about him, previously).
> The Democratic party is really not required to have any sort of fair process for deciding their candidate for president. It can be as transparently crooked and disgusting as this...
It can be, but not having a fair process turns off a lot of voters, and makes others angry. Doubly so if that lack of fair process means they'll be forced to choose between two bad options.
I'm not convinced the typical process as far as there being two viable parties and running through the wringer of their processes, is something that is particularly great at producing good candidates, or that someone bypassing that legally is a bad thing.
... I'm only partly joking; I am not a fan of the idea that there are some special gatekeepers or One True Process™ for determining who's allowed to talk to voters.
The things Bloomberg has meaningfully "wrong" in terms of process look something like this:
- he is be a rich person (definitely not trendy in the party), and...
- his failure to solicit donations deprives people of one meaningful test of his political appeal, instead
- he spends his own money on politics instead: an uncool, Constitutionally protected exercise of the First Amendment, which has an unfortunate interaction with the political narrative that _Citizens United_ must be restored (though in fact it wouldn't stop him from doing this)
Needless to say, arguing about some of these "violations" is actually in practice just arguing about ideology and might be more effectively approached as such.
Politics lately seems to be:1) paint candidate in the best light, 2) paint opponent in the worst light.
Note: there is no requirement to have a consistent set of rules to do this.
Mark Twain: Running for Governor [Written about 1870]
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3189/3189-h/3189-h.htm#gover...
I was going to say politics has gotten nastier, but I know that's not true. [1]
It sucks, but welcome to politics.
This seems like a rather weak point of contention...