Michael Bloomberg attended the Democratic Debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb. 19, and it did not go well for him. Senator Elizabeth Warren challenged him on his previous sexual harassment scandals and subsequent nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) with the women who accused him, challenging him to announce that he would release the women from their NDAs on live television. Bloomberg declined and was booed by the crowd. The rest of the candidates were on the offense as well, and Bloomberg got the worst of it. Those attacks were well deserved.
Michael Bloomberg is a horribly racist, misogynistic plutocrat who bought his way onto the debate stage. The fact that the Democratic National Convention legitimized him is one of the greatest blunders the party has made in recent years. Bloomberg does not represent the vast majority of Americans. He represents the few wealthy enough to buy a political party.
Bloomberg’s time as mayor of New York City is marred with controversy and grossly authoritarian abuses of power. Between the stop-and-frisk policy and midnight police raids of peaceful protestors, we know Bloomberg’s true colors. He bills himself as the Democrat to beat Trump, but if we’re being honest, he would be even worse for the country than four more years of Trump when it comes to personal liberties and freedoms. He has shown again and again that he has no regard for our rights and will use the police as a weapon against poor minorities, just as he has done before.
Bloomberg’s racist stop-and-frisk policy showed that he is more than willing to suspend the most basic rights of individuals under his rule. In 2013, his last year as mayor, the NYPD made 191,851 stops. Compare that to 2014’s 45,787 or 2015’s 22,565. This was not a one-year trend. Drastically increased stops, especially of young black men, were a consistent truth of Bloomberg’s iron-fisted rule over the city of New York.
Bloomberg and his rampant abuse of power at the expense of minority communities would fit much better with a fascist party than with the Democrats. But when you’re as rich as Bloomberg, political parties mean nothing. You can just throw millions of dollars behind whatever party you think you stand to benefit from. Bloomberg was running as a Republican when Donald Trump was still a registered Democrat, but now that the Democratic party is starting to take a wealth tax seriously, he jumped in, claiming he’s the only one who can beat Trump. He didn’t join the race to beat Trump. He joined the race to beat Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
No Democrat should be taking this man’s campaign seriously. His treatment of women should be disqualifying, and the fact that he still has Democratic support undermines previous feminist moves made by other mainstream Democrats. How can you condemn Kavanaugh then turn around and endorse Bloomberg? How can you call Trump a misogynist and not have that same energy for Bloomberg? Any Democrat who takes Bloomberg seriously but condemned Kavanaugh did that not because they care about women, but because they care about the Democratic party. Nominating Bloomberg risks alienating feminists from the party and costing the party votes in the general election.
There is not a single meaningful difference between Trump and Bloomberg and you should be skeptical of anyone who acts like they’re different. Bloomberg isn’t the savior of the Democrats that can save us all from Trump. He’s more of the same and if he becomes the nominee, young progressive voters won’t turn out.
“Blue No Matter Who” sounds nice and all, but people won’t vote for Bloomberg if they don’t believe he will make things better. I sure as hell won’t. If the Democrats want to continue to act as if they’re the party that cares about the working class, about minorities, LGBTQ people and about women, they’ll laugh Bloomberg off the next debate stage. This disgusting man is not your friend and his candidacy is the single most heinous part of this primary.
Changing the rules to allow Michael Bloomberg a spot on the debate stage was a mistake. Nominating Bloomberg against Trump would be a mistake that the Democratic party could not recover from. It would alienate the entire progressive branch and collapse the small amount of trust progressives still have in the Democrats. His history is too riddled with controversy, misogyny and racism to even pretend that the progressives will go out for him.
Robert Kinnaird is a junior majoring in global studies and journalism.
