Have you heard the latest about the strategic political genius of billionaire Michael Bloomberg?

The political brilliance, you might skeptically ask, of Michael Bloomberg?

The same Michael Bloomberg who had to spend a record $99 per vote to get himself elected mayor of New York in 2001, another $112 per vote four years later to get himself re-elected, and even more —  $174 per vote — to win a third term?

The same Michael Bloomberg who sunk over $900 million into a bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and won only American Samoa before dropping out as “a billion-dollar flop”?

The same Michael Bloomberg who rushed into Florida this fall with a $100-million plan to get that state behind Joe Biden — and again flopped royally?

Yes, the strategic brilliance of that Michael Bloomberg, at least according to Democratic Party apparatchiks in Florida. Earlier this week, they held a statewide conference call to proudly proclaim that their disappointing failure to carry Florida had actually been a brilliant political “feint” that, with Bloomberg’s help, had scared the Trump campaign into plowing resources into Florida — a state Trump figured to win handily — instead of the much more competitive upper Midwest.

A brilliant “feint”? Really? Did former president Barack Obama know about the “feint” plan when he agreed to spend the election’s precious final days campaigning in Florida? Was having Obama, Biden’s best campaign surrogate, spend so much time in a we-know-we’re-going-to-lose state part of the ruse?

This whole “feint” notion appears little more than a face-saving exercise on the part of Democratic Party operatives who burned through millions of Bloomberg’s dollars. All quite understandable, of course. Political insiders within the Democratic Party — and that galaxy of pollsters, consultants, and media buyers who circle around them — have a vested personal interest in keeping billionaires like Bloomberg looking brilliant. They make big bucks helping billionaires realize their political fantasies.

But the problem here goes beyond a political insider class that’s engorging billionaire dollars and flattering billionaire egos. These political insiders appear to buy into the core assumption behind plutocracies everywhere: that our wealthiest have something truly special to offer. The super rich, that core idea goes, must be super smart. How else could they have become so rich? Brilliance, in effect, both explains the existence of our billionaires and justifies that existence.

Bloomberg’s foray into Florida, CNBC reports, actually had Democratic Party leaders in the state “privately becoming more convinced that they were going to defeat Trump.” How could they not? They had a brilliant billionaire on their side.

In real life, billionaires don’t bring any exceptional brilliance into the political process. They bring their billions. They bring outsized stashes of cash that can distort election outcomes and safeguard their fortunes. Witness the $200 million our tech giants spent this fall on a ballot initiative to kill protections for gig workers.

And these dollars, even worse, drop a suffocating ideological wet blanket over the campaigns that Democratic Party candidates run. In this fall’s presidential contest, for instance, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were formally running on a platform many analysts considered “the most progressive document to come out of a major national party in US history.” The ideas in that platform — everything from a $15 minimum wage and ending tax breaks for capital gains to making public colleges and universities “tuition-free” for most students — had come out of joint task forces that brought together the party’s left and moderate wings.

But the campaigns Democratic candidates up and down the ticket actually ran essentially ran away from anything that might overly discomfort the nation’s most comfortable — and let Donald Trump and his pals pose as champions of average people against America’s overbearing elites. Trump came unnervingly close to winning. Many of his endangered pals did win.

Various national pundits are now savaging Republican movers and shakers for indulging Donald Trump, post-election, at his every narcissistic turn. But Democratic Party insiders remain largely free to indulge their super-rich benefactors. That has to change.

“Acquiescing to an unpopular and timid agenda that further entrenches the wealthy and the well-connected,” as Senator Elizabeth Warren puts it, “will lead us to more division, more anger, more inequality and an even bigger hole to climb out of.

“Unless Biden unites the people against the oligarchs who dominate the nation,” adds Guardian analyst George Monbiot, “the people will remain divided against each other.”

inequality.org

Michael Bloomberg, despite being a massive media player, ran a shockingly boring campaign for the Democratic ticket and now it would seem that the workers who made the cogs in his dismal attempt turn are getting together to file a class-action lawsuit against him. Apparently Bloomberg made the common pledge to support his workers all the way till the end of a “best case scenario” campaign throughout 2020. Essentially win, lose or draw everyone would get paid till the end of the election cycle.

This did not happen, and the former mayor of New York City cut funding for his people the day he cut his campaign short. Impressively Bloomberg was able to spin this defeat as a victory for the greater good of destroying Trump. In his concession speech he said…

“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden,”

Selling the complete and total failure of a campaign from a media billionaire with real political experience as a triumphant step to defeating the great evil of Trump takes a lot of nerve. It also took a lot of nerve for Bloomberg to refuse to pay any health benefits to his campaign workers as a Democrat.

Bloomberg preaches from on high while not paying those at the bottom.

But this betrayal is actually by far not the first time candidates have put the screws to their own campaign workers. Bernie Sanders was unable to pay workers the cherished $15 per hour wage that he feels is almost a human right and has publically spoken for man times. Young volunteers were expecting Sanders-style Socialism but got treated to a big plate full of pragmatic Capitalism instead. Sanders may have officially been offering $15/hour for a 40 hour per work week schedule, but in reality many of this workers were putting in 60 hours a week with no hope of getting any overtime for it. Workers’ rights including things like paid overtime are issues at the core of Sanders’ message, sadly when push comes to shove he is unwilling to make his words match his deeds.

Hillary Clinton during the previous campaign cycle at least had the decency to pay her troops while she may have laundered $84 in illegal campaign contributions. Maybe Sanders should try looking for “alternative sources of funding” as well?

So what’s the big deal? Running a campaign is hard, there is chaos everywhere, the candidates are running all over the country, accidents and missteps are bound to happen right?

Running a presidential campaign is indeed a massive challenge that demands serious organizational skills, but compared to being the President of the United States it’s a walk in the park. Many of the very few people whom we can actually move towards a presidential run are too incompetent or corrupt to even run their campaigns properly.

Bloomberg was too cheap, bitter, distracted to bother fulfilling his promises to his staff that he could easily just write a check for. He could have left the campaign leaving goog feelings and a good reputation but that could have cost a small percent of his yearly earnings so why bother?

Sanders managed to prove his anti-Socialist skeptics right by failing to put into practice even on a miniature scale the policies he wants for all American businesses across a massive nation.

And Clinton, well she does a great job of teaching us how much money you can make even as a destined loser.

There may be a tiny handful of people hiding somewhere across the American landscape who are capable of running a competent campaign and then ascending to the Oval Office. They may be out there but the options we are given to vote for in primaries are just pathetic. When people used to tell children “America’s great anyone can be President” that used to have a positive connotation. Now it seems like anyone no matter how dim their campaign is run could get the nomination given the right connections, cash, and the right look/message.

If someone is completely unable to run a campaign effectively they have no business being President of the United States of America.

After his late jump into the Democratic primary and, as critics argue, purchasing his way into the primary debates, former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has received mixed coverage from corporate media, with many negative critiques of the current presidential contender’s history, conduct and connections.

Yet, despite efforts by other campaigns and more progressive-leaning media outlets to dampen Bloomberg’s chances at the nomination, one clear weakness of Bloomberg’s has thus far evaded meaningful media coverage: his ties to key players in the Epstein scandal, including Leslie Wexner, Ghislaine Maxwell and even Jeffrey Epstein himself.

Silence among outlets that largely oppose Bloomberg’s candidacy regarding his connections to Epstein and those in his close social orbit is odd, especially when reporting on an individual’s connections to the intelligence-linked pedophile are a sure-fire way to generate considerable negative attention and fodder for rival campaigns. This is particularly striking given that the numerous accusations that Bloomberg has long stoked a toxic culture of sexual harassment at his company, resulting in no small number of non-disclosure agreements over the years, have received some media attention. Yet, the fact that many of Bloomberg’s close friends have been accused of far, far worse has received hardly any coverage by comparison.

For instance, when it was announced last week that the controlling stake in the Leslie Wexner-owned lingerie company Victoria’s Secret would be sold to a private equity firm called Sycamore Partners, only one media outlet — The Intercept — revealed that Bloomberg has at least $136 million of his money in that firm. The Intercept noted in passing that Wexner — the source of most of Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed fortune, his close collaborator for decades and alleged rapist of many of his victims — had been pressured to step down following the scandal, which also hit Wexner-owned companies hard and had forced the Ohio-based billionaire to seek a buyer for his lingerie brand and its tarnished reputation. Yet, the outlet did not make the direct connection that Sycamore Partners-backer Bloomberg is a friend of Wexner’s and has attended Wexner’s personal social parties for years prior to the most recent scandal.

Here's alleged-rapist Mike Bloomberg attending a fancy horse party at Les Wexner's place (Wexner furthest right) in 2010, about a year before Wexner formally transferred ownership of his Manhattan townhouse to Jeffrey Epstein. Cheers to good friends pic.twitter.com/gS8wpUVF00

— ePal, Your Close Friend-Enterprise Edition (@wash_cloth) February 17, 2020

Yet, even well before this recent opportunity to point out Bloomberg’s ties to Leslie Wexner, there have been plenty of opportunities for the media to question Bloomberg about his now-infamous picture with Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Mossad-connected Robert Maxwell and Epstein’s alleged madam and co-conspirator.

From left to right, Tamara Mellon, Mike Bloomberg and Ghislaine Maxwell

That picture, taken in 2013 at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, has not been mentioned by mainstream media following the launch of Bloomberg’s candidacy late last November. Similarly, mainstream media have failed to question Bloomberg regarding why his name and five different telephone numbers for him appear in Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous list of contacts often referred to as his “little black book.”

Bloomberg and the Manhattan Swamp

The extent of the Maxwell-Bloomberg relationship is unknown, though Bloomberg’s deep ties to his former employer Salomon Brothers is a possible link, given that that firm served as one of the Maxwell family’s main investment bankers in the years prior to and following Robert Maxwell’s mysterious death in 1991. Similarly, Epstein had close ties to prominent figures on Wall Street, some dating back to his time at Bear Stearns, who are also close to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg and Epstein also shared close friendships with some of the same New York media executives like Mort Zuckerman. Media outlets have described Zuckerman, a former business partner of Epstein’s, as Bloomberg’s “long-time enabler.” In another example, Epstein’s former publicist Howard Rubenstein is a long-time supporter of Bloomberg and was reported to be the driving force behind Bloomberg’s controversial push to run around mayoral term limits and pursue a third term as Mayor of New York.

Another mutual Epstein-Bloomberg associate is disgraced media mogul Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein was part of an investment group with Epstein that sought to purchase New York magazine in 2003. Another member of that investment group was frequent MSNBC commentator Donny Deutsch, who has recently fervently backed Bloomberg’s candidacy.

Weinstein was recently convicted of rape and has dozens of accusers, whose decision to come forward about Weinstein’s sex crimes in recent years helped spark the “Me Too” movement. Weinstein also has ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was a close friend and business associate of Epstein’s, and it was Barak who personally introduced Weinstein to former Mossad spies that Weinstein hired to intimidate his accusers. In addition to being Prime Minister, Barak is also the former head of Israeli military intelligence, the foreign intelligence agency that sponsored Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation involving underage girls in the United States.

Bloomberg’s candidacy has yet to be strongly challenged over his ties to Weinstein, which are considerable. For instance, Weinstein was a major backer of Bloomberg’s mayoral campaigns and even recorded robocalls on Bloomberg’s behalf to boost his election chances. Bloomberg, in turn, appointed Weinstein to a charity board and Weinstein later praised Bloomberg for aiding his film company. While Bloomberg’s ties to Wexner, Epstein and Maxwell have gotten the silent treatment, some outlets (mostly right-leaning) have covered the Bloomberg-Weinstein ties, but there has been little pressure on Bloomberg from mainstream media to address those ties directly.

Another close Bloomberg associate who recently has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment is hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt. Steinhardt is a long-time fixture in Bloomberg’s social circle and has long appeared at Bloomberg’s dinner parties. Steinhardt is also connected to Leslie Wexner through his membership in the so-called “Mega Group” — an exclusive group of organized-crime-linked “mega” donors to pro-Israel causes that Wexner co-founded in 1991. Steinhardt also boasts close ties to the now deceased founder of Glencore, the Mossad-linked Marc Rich, and Steinhardt — along with top Israeli politicians and spies — aggressively lobbied former President Bill Clinton to controversially pardon Rich before leaving office.

“Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are”

The oft-quoted saying “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are,” seems to hold true for Bloomberg. For instance, his eponymous media conglomerate has received no small number of lawsuits over the years alleging rampant sexual harassment and even the rape of female workers, much of its allegedly egged on by Bloomberg’s long history of comments that have been derided as sexist. Many of those lawsuits ended in female accusers being asked to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). More recently, The Nation reported that Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential campaign is making use of NDAs in such a way “that could prevent staffers from reporting workplace abuse.”

In addition, a 1999 profile of Bloomberg in Wired magazine quoted Bloomberg as saying “My daughter is tall and busty and blonde. We went to China together. And what’s a 16-year-old going to do on a business trip? So, I got her dates in every city in China.”

Bloomberg, not unlike Epstein and Wexner, also has a history of cozy ties to the CIA. For instance, during his tenure as Mayor of New York, Bloomberg actively promoted a controversial post-9/11 program that saw the CIA work directly with the NYPD to spy on the city’s Muslim communities. Even though the CIA is technically prohibited from spying on Americans not linked to criminal activity, one of the CIA officers working as part of the Bloomberg-backed program said he had “no limitations” on what he could do. Bloomberg has long defended this program and its merging of the CIA with local police.

In the case of Epstein and Wexner, as MintPress News reported in its viral series on the Epstein scandal last year, Epstein once claimed to have worked for the CIA during the 1980s and Epstein and Wexner were the key players behind the relocation of CIA front company Southern Air Transport to Ohio, where Wexner’s business interests have long been based.

Rudy Giuliani, left, New York Gov. George Pataki, center, and Mike Bloomberg during a “Salute to Israel Parade, May 5, 2002, in New York. Shawn Baldwin | AP

In addition, Bloomberg was also a key player in a controversial initiative regarding Israel’s intelligence-linked technology sector. For instance, Bloomberg created a $2 billion project that involved opening a Manhattan campus called “Cornell Tech” that brought together Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, which has close ties to Israel’s national security state and military-industrial complex. Bloomberg personally gave over $100 million to facilitate completion of that project. That campus is now a partner in the recent creation of two Israeli-run “cybersecurity” centers in New York City that are tied to Israeli intelligence and were recently reported on by MintPress.

Jeffrey Epstein was also involved with Israeli military intelligence-linked technology companies and, as previously mentioned, Israeli military intelligence was also the sponsor of Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation that targeted mostly U.S. politicians and public figures for the benefit of the state of Israel, whose military currently receives $3.8 billion per year from U.S. taxpayers.

While these aspects of Bloomberg’s past have received considerable media attention as of late, these same outlets have failed to note that Bloomberg’s inner circle boasts many individuals accused of harassment, rape or worse. With his clear ties to the “Epstein network,” the fact that mainstream media has declined to even question Bloomberg about his social appearances with Ghislaine Maxwell or Leslie Wexner and having five different telephone numbers of his in Epstein’s list of high-profile contacts is a damning indictment of the current landscape of both American media and American politics.

mintpressnews.com

When the conversation veered toward “capitalism” and “socialism” at last week’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, the preeminent capitalist on the stage, Michael Bloomberg, could hardly believe what he was hearing. “I can’t think of a way that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get reelected than listening to this conversation,” lamented billionaire Bloomberg, who pronounced the discussion ridiculous. “We’re not going to throw out capitalism,” he said. “We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work.”

Ten, or even five, years ago, Bloomberg’s concern would have probably seemed justified. In the recent past, having a serious discussion about the benefits of socialism versus capitalism on American national television — and at a major presidential debate, no less — appeared almost inconceivable. For as long as many Americans have been alive, capitalism has been widely considered the natural order of things. Questioning its existence seemed not only wrong but woefully naive and dangerous.

Since the Cold War began in the mid-20^th century, the United States has been viewed as the center of the capitalist world. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, capitalism seemed to have triumphed once and for all, ending the historical struggle between the competing ideologies that characterized modernity (hence the notion of the “end of history”). There was no more questioning capitalism, which had proved to be the economic system that corresponded most with human nature. (At least that’s what orthodox economists, who subscribed to the homo economicus, or “economic man,” model of human nature, told us.)

In his 2009 book, “Capitalist Realism,” the late author Mark Fisher described a certain pessimistic attitude on the left, captured by the popular saying: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.” Capitalist realism, Fisher wrote, was the “widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it.”

Neoliberalism wasn’t even acknowledged as an actual ideology until fairly recently. In fact, many neoliberals continue to deny its very existence. As scholar Adam Kotsko notes in his book, “Neoliberalism’s Demons,” neoliberalism “loves to hide” and its “very invisibility is a measure of its power.” Neoliberalism, according to Kotsko, is more than just a set of economic policies that have been implemented throughout the world in the last half-century. Rather, it “aspires to be a complete way of life and a holistic worldview, in a way that previous models of capitalism did not.” For this reason, Kotsko describes neoliberalism not just as an ideology but as a form of “political theology.”

In neoliberalism, Kotsko remarks,

an account of human nature where economic competition is the highest value leads to a political theology where the prime duty of the state is to enable, and indeed mandate, such competition, and the result is a world wherein individuals, firms, and states are all continually constrained to express themselves via economic competition. This means that neoliberalism tends to create a world in which neoliberalism is ‘true.’

The very fact that we are now discussing neoliberalism, Kotsko writes, is a “sign that its planetary sway is growing less secure.” As the “planetary sway” of neoliberalism has weakened over the past decade, more and more people — especially young people who were born and raised in the neoliberal era — have started to question a system that has left their generation drowning in debt, burned out and mentally exhausted, and stuck in an endless loop of precarious uncertainty.

Neoliberal ideas, political scientist Lester Spence writes, “radically change what it means to be human, as the perfect human being now becomes an entrepreneur of his own human capital, responsible for his personal development.” Young people entering the workforce today are expected to cheerfully embrace their own alienation and the commodification of their whole existence. Under neoliberalism, citizens become producers/consumers who are “free” to participate in the market economy but not necessarily free to engage in political protest or to form unions.

Neoliberalism is the opposite of solidarity. It encourages an extreme form of selfish individualism that ends up depoliticizing the populace and eroding the collective spirit of democracy. It also leaves the individual isolated and alone. “In a brutal, competitive, and atomized society, psychic well-being is so difficult that success on this front can feel like a significant accomplishment,” observes political theorist Jodi Dean. “Trying to do it themselves, people are immiserated and proletarianized and confront this immiseration and proletarianization alone.”

Considering the hellish reality that it has created for so many people, the backlash against neoliberalism was as predictable as it was inevitable. In a real sense, neoliberalism has radicalized an entire generation, pushing many young people to revolt against the existing order as a whole. The fact that the Democratic Party’s likely presidential nominee (especially after his landslide victory in Nevada) is self-professed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders tells us that the secular religion of neoliberalism has quickly lost all credibility and authority.

During the Cold War, under the threat of communism, America and other capitalist countries in the West embraced social democratic reforms that played an essential role in curbing the more extreme contradictions of capitalism. This led to a less brutal and unequal system, and therefore a more stable one. When communism fell in the late 20th century, the neoliberal age was already in full swing, with both parties uniting to reverse many of the progressive reforms that had been enacted after the Great Depression. Now, after 40 years of neoliberalism, the worst contradictions have returned, and unsurprisingly, mass movements opposing the current system also have returned.

When Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor of New York City came to an end in 2013, a few years after the Great Recession, it was already clear the neoliberal era was on its last legs. Bloomberg used the New York Police Department (the world’s “seventh largest army,” he once boasted) to crush Occupy Wall Street in 2011, but the spirit of the movement could not be crushed. On the debate stage almost a decade later, Bloomberg’s neoliberal talking points no longer sounded like Thatcherist truisms.

Sanders began his “political revolution” in 2016, and he is clearly still leading it in 2020. For most people in the halls of power, his electoral success has come as an utter shock. “Something is happening in America right now that actually does not fit our mental models,” remarked journalist Anand Giridharadas on MSNBC after Sanders’ big win in Nevada. The donor class, the media elites and those in the political establishment, Giridharadas said, are behaving like “out-of-touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy.” While 18th and 19th century aristocrats in Europe were coming to terms with the collapse of monarchism after it was undermined by the radical critiques of enlightenment thinkers like Rousseau, today’s elites are dealing with the collapse of neoliberalism, the ruling ideology for the past half-century.

There’s little doubt that elites will do whatever they can to stop Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination and perhaps the general election. Although they are less likely to succeed after Nevada, it is unwise to underestimate the reactionary impulses of a dying aristocracy (the Bloomberg campaign is already plotting its brokered convention strategy). Regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, one thing is absolutely clear: The neoliberal worldview that has dominated the discourse for decades is being consigned to the dustbin of history.

truthdig.com

Nevada confirmed the main trends that had emerged in New Hampshire and Iowa, Senator Bernie Sanders, championing ideas so radical that President Franklin Roosevelt supported them 80 years ago, came first with an impressive 40.5 percent.

Second came former Vice President Joe Biden, with 18.9 percent, still the best bet for a “stop Sanders” coalition and third, losing ground where he had hoped to gain it but still in the race South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 17.3 percent .

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the other candidate along with Buttigieg most beloved by the Deep State and the Mainstream Media (MSM), was down at a miserable 11.5 percent, a crushing 29 points behind Sanders, whose Progressive voters she had tried so hard to woo away from him.

The debate was a triumph for Sanders. Neither his advanced age of 78, his supposedly outrageous left wing radical views and policies nor even a significant heart attack a few weeks ago have dented his momentum and popularity.

As analyst Jeremy Stahl wrote in Vox on February 24, “the reality is that Bernie Sanders is opening up a sizable polling lead nationally and in many key states, and is building a steady delegate lead, which could soon become insurmountable.”

The Nevada results also confirmed that Wednesday’s debate was a death knell for the hopes of former New York Mayor and multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

If he can’t fight and claw back even against Elizabeth Warren, what chance will he have in a debate with Donald Trump? This elementary calculation is now indelibly burned into the minds of 15 million potential Democratic voters who watched the Las Vegas debate.

The Nevada caucuses also confirmed no last minute miracle breakthrough for hapless Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She remains the Darling of the East Coast ancient, men-hating Femi-Nazis, who were predictably reduced to childish and hilarious claims that American voters were afraid of “a strong woman.” Warren’s problem, however, is that voters – men and women alike – aren’t afraid of her at all. They just don’t like her.

At 11 percent in Nevada, Warren is clearly on the way down. Now she faces the Southern states on Super Tuesday where even Democrats historically don’t like Massachusetts liberals.  And she is only four points ahead of Senator Amy Klobuchar, still in single digits at seven percent in Nevada, but the longer she lasts, the more attractive she looks as a veteran and moderate lady senator from the Midwest to balance Sanders on the presidential ticket.

Most of all, the Nevada results cruelly confirmed that Michael Bloomberg has no momentum at all: Nevada caucus goers were completely unimpressed by his endless soulless, passionless television advertisements falling faster than snow in a blizzard. He made zero impact on them in his first and most important nationally televised debate

As I have already elsewhere noted, Bloomberg reigned as a philosopher-king through his 12 years as Mayor of New York City. But the down and dirty, red in tooth and claw, scratch and draw blood, debates of presidential candidates are another game entirely. And at age 78, Bloomberg is just too old to learn it.

Bloomberg has also learned – far too late – that the truly impressive skills needed to make a personal fortune of $65 billion are entirely different from the skills needed to win a major presidential nomination, especially when the rank and file of that party hates billionaires.

Caveats have obviously to be added: Sanders tsunami-wave sweep to the Democratic presidential nomination will not be confirmed until he wins equally big across the 15 states going to the polls on Super-Tuesday, March 3.

However, already, Sanders’ dominance in the race has been confirmed in the vastly different worlds of the prosperous agricultural Midwest (Iowa caucuses), the post-industrial, depressed Northeast (New Hampshire primary) and the high tech economy of the Desert West (Nevada caucuses).

In fact, Bloomberg would never have had a chance against Trump. The master of wit and invective in the White House would have chewed him up and spat him out, day after day in the fall campaign.

Instead, it is Sanders who is now the unstoppable figure. All those mythical moderates and independents supposedly out to stop him at all costs will either stay at home or actually vote for the Vermont radical as still intellectually and socially more respectable than Trump. Sanders, indeed, appears fated to be Trump’s true nemesis: The first political champion in five years who can slay the dragon of Anti-Good Taste in the White House.

If you think US domestic politics have been a wild ride over the past five years, then, in the words of Al Jolson, the most popular (and most tasteless) American entertainer of the first half of the 20^th century, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Good work, Democrats! In the Las Vegas debate, you blasted every target but Donald Trump. Instead of quivering in his Gucci loafers, the man who would be king was left dancing on air.

The man who should have been king, newcomer Mike Bloomberg, was left looking like a beaten-up cigar store Indian. He had not prepped for the debate and failed to dodge the obvious incoming missile attacks on him launched by a hissing Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.

Many veteran Republicans fear that TV promoter Trump will steamroll Warren, Buttigieg, Biden and Amy Klobuchar. They may be right. Trump had to be delighted by the no-prisoners Democratic debate that bloodied his opponents before he could even get to them. Bloomberg was totally unprepared for the savage attacks launched against him. He looked like a neophyte suffering from camera fright.

I got a good read on Bloomberg when I had an intimate dinner with him some years ago. Rather than the stiff, unsmiling man we saw on TV in Las Vegas, in real life Bloomberg is clearly brilliant yet understated, charming, and endowed with a sharp sense of humor and quick wit.

Bernie Sanders, who has three homes, blasted Bloomberg for being ‘rich.’ This is a big sin to the Democrats who, like Hillary Clinton, pocketed millions in political support from big banks, unions and businesses under the cover of night or via bogus speaking fees and her fake foundation – a scam emulated by Trump.

The deeply corrupt Democratic National Committee, controlled by Hillary Clinton, rigged the vote that blocked Bernie Sanders during the last election. When news of this scandal emerged, Hillary kicked off the anti-Russian hysteria to divert attention from her chicanery.

Yes, Bloomberg may be the 9th or 10th richest man in the world. But his net worth comes from ownership of one of our most successful and reliable financial news organizations that he built up from nothing, and that employs important numbers of men and women. The use of Bloomberg terminals saves forests of trees.

Ignore Elizabeth Warren’s cheap shots about women being called names like ‘horse-faced lesbians’ or ‘fat’ at his firm. Many men speak this way to one-another in casual talk. Women often do the same regarding men. The answer to this is to totally segregate the sexes, as in Saudi Arabia. Trying to whip up a war of the sexes is not going to make angry Elizabeth Warren president. She should stick to her commendable work with banking and voting rights.

It’s pretty clear after the shootout in Vegas that Joe Biden has used up his last chance. Black voters and unions won’t save him. He looked old and very tired. But not as tired or off the mark as Mike Bloomberg. By contrast Bernie looked old, to be sure, but was full of beans.

As a foreign affairs specialist, what really dismayed me was that there was only one significant mention of international policy. That’s when the abrasive, loud-mouthed Sen. Amy Klobuchar could not remember the name of the president of Mexico. For God’s sake, she on a senate committee that deals with Mexico.

While our presidential debate focuses on overweight women and health care, the US and Russia have come terrifyingly close to open war in the Mideast.

But barely any mention of this in the debates. Trump and his big money men from New York and Las Vegas are trying to push Iran into an air war. The US is seeking to overthrow the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, and Iran. Clashes between China and the US are a major danger. Former defense chief Sam Nunn warns the US and Russia are closer to a nuclear conflict than any time since the 1960’s Cuban missile crisis. No matter.

Americans want entertainers for their made-for-TV politicians. Poor, dignified Mr. Bloomberg didn’t know he would face professional actors, not legislators.

ericmargolis.com

Despite all that, or perhaps because of it – Bloomberg is reported to have spent an astonishing $400 million to buy for himself a double-digit polling figure.

While Buttigieg’s campaign has struggled to regain the momentum it snagged from declaring itself victor in Iowa, ‘Pete’ attempted to position himself as a ‘moderating voice’ between the ‘extremes’ of socialist Sanders and capitalist Bloomberg in the Nevada debate.

But who could gain the most from attacking Bloomberg’s attempt to buy his way in the party? Warren has been looking like a mostly spent candidate, and while Warren is often miscast as a ‘progressive’, she’s considered a safe-bet by establishment insiders – some of the same who are fond of Buttigieg. This has made it functionally difficult for Warren to distinguish herself from Buttigieg, and more to the point, has made it difficult to land attacks on him in the aftermath of the billionaires in the wine-cave assault. This dis went memetic, and has helped Warren to remain a distinct figure in the race, a race that without a Sanders, would have her looking like the ‘leftist’.

Warren appeared to open the front, but Sanders, Biden, and Buttigieg jumped in. Bloomberg appeared stunned and lost most of the time. What is difficult to explain at this stage is the apparent lack of planning and practice that Bloomberg had going into the debate. It’s questionable if he took the debate seriously at all.

It was Sanders who was able to show that everything wrong with Bloomberg was also wrong with Buttigieg. Both men were also shown to be incredibly smug, giving the public an archetypal shortcut that characterizes their establishment politics.

Beside Bloomberg’s actual record in office, in addition to the numerous complaints against him (which have resulted in NDA’s – non disclosure agreements), he is poor at speaking and comes off both empty and defensive.

Was this some sort of surprise? Assuredly not, and this is what confounds the subject in particular. It is unfathomable that Bloomberg could, at the very least, have a strategy which is premised upon winning the debates. In his successful bids in NYC, his successes were found in projecting an image of corporatist efficiency and an impersonal regime by the numbers which upheld the Giuliani status quo.

For Bloomberg, this is an extremely problematic position as the only way a Democrat can win is through the success of a charismatic crusade with deep and hard-earned grass-roots support for fundamental structural change. Democratic leadership at the DNC is also terrified of this proposition. Buying his way into the DNC itself, in a bid which at face value looks like a partnership with Clinton herself at the level of the personal, is far from the same thing as electability against Trump.

This underscores the fundamental contradiction in vulgar anti-Trump politics, one which exposes the hypocrisy and invirility of the DNC itself. The DNC leadership and most of the candidates (which it controls) have some picture of America where it’s the status quo but without Trump and better marketing. The international image of the U.S. as being significantly worse in Trump’s era is purely manufactured by the same Atlanticist consortia and their media networks – social, legacy, and otherwise – that wants to take Trump down.

This focus helps to underscore endemic problems in the U.S., but none which are unique to the Trump administration nor to Republican governance in general. Activist community and labor groups put forward long-held demands which are aired in legacy media for the first time in years, simply because they fit an election narrative scheme against Trump. Community and labor groups have a different vision of the Democrat Party, and their opposition to Trump is merely incidental to their opposition to what they view as a general problem with a capitalist oligarchy in power of a plutocratic system.

Meanwhile, all the energy at the base that’s required to be strong throughout the campaign is only sustained if the aims and vision of the campaign is continuously and consistently communicated loudly at every opportunity.

That explains why Biden and Buttigieg’s ‘restorationist’ campaigns are dead in the water.

We have written about this being a ‘change’ election for Democrats if they are going to have a chance at winning it. This may seem at odds with how the phrase is understood in terms of running against an establishment. Trump is not an establishment politician, even though whole sections of the establishment benefit from his policies. The energy at Trump’s base are anti-establishment energies, and Trump will have to run against the establishment again in order to energize his own base against the Democrat’s candidate, despite him being the incumbent. Here the entire ‘deep state’ theory will be oft utilized by Trump and his campaign in 2020.

That’s why such a Democrat candidate would be trounced by Trump unless they were able to convert and carry forward Trump’s own energy. There is a Democrat and even labor element within Trump’s base – a statistical fact based in the direction of votes in swing states won in 2016. A Democrat then must also run against the same establishment and attack Trump for not going far enough on the matters that are critical to Trump’s rustbelt base.

And yet despite Bloomberg buying his way into the race late in the game, and by directly paying the DNC to change the rules, he’ll be promoting a restorationist politic – moreover in the personage of a Mike Bloomberg. This is already a set up to fail against Trump, but underscores the mania on full display when he called on Klobuchar and Biden to bow out of the race so that the public debate could focus on Bloomberg versus Sanders.

While aiming to look strong like Trump in 2016, for Bloomberg it will backfire because he’s simply not as likable as Trump. He projects tremendous arrogance but strikes a chord here that Trump generally does not. In comparison, Bloomberg projects unlikable qualities unlike any other candidate, even tending to make Buttigieg appear better in comparison.

Does Bloomberg suffer from yes-man syndrome? That is a popular theory, that his private sphere organizational preferences are the predominating feature of his campaign team. If not receiving proper coaching and preparation for these debates because he refuses it, it could negate the hundreds of millions he’s already spent on advertising.

Bloomberg has done no real campaigning, but has purchased ads in such a saturated manner, that his name recognition is top-trending. Is this sufficient for a campaign? What happened to Bloomberg in Nevada is unlike anything seen in the recent history of these events. Typically, a candidate would be advised to come off as receptive to criticism and avoid certain body language and gestures. Moving forward, they would have an agenda of their own to focus on and drive attention back towards. Bloomberg is apparently immune to coaching on body language and public speaking.

Herein lies Bloomberg’s real problem – he has no agenda. With only the structure of a campaign, he has gone through the formal process of building a campaign staff without any particular loyalty to his missing message. An agenda isn’t something that’s optional, something ‘nice to have’ – it’s the foundation of any campaign which minimally has the inner circle on-board. But Bloomberg’s organizational practice is at odds with anything resembling a movement. What the New Yorker lacks is any sense of the moment.

Bloomberg was left for dead in the Nevada desert, with all candidates directing their supporters to notice. This alone won’t bode well for Bloomberg in the post-debate polls. What we can count on today is the Bloomberg campaign upping the ante and committing to another massive cash surge to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. At the end of the day, if it doesn’t serve some other plot within the DNC, the failure of Bloomberg’s campaign will have been meaningfully a public referendum on the practice of overtly purchased elections.

Bloomberg’s record as mayor of New York City is now sneered at by jealous rats, cockroaches and other insects. But it was, in fact, one of remarkable accomplishment. He restored and maintained the prosperity and confidence of the city after one of the greatest catastrophes in its history – the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.

Bloomberg even maintained the city’s economic prosperity and its recovery through the years of George W. Bush’s inept presidency and through Bush’s true legacy, the worst economic crisis since the 1929 Wall Street Collapse in 2008-9.

No wonder therefore that when Bloomberg threw his hat into the presidential arena, outsiders to U.S. politics assumed that the enormous gravitational pull of that $65 billion made his clinch of the Democratic Party’s nomination inevitable.

However, the Race is Not Always to the Swift, Nor the Battle to the Strong, as the cynical old author of the Biblical Book of Ecclesiastes reminds us. Even in modern America, wealth does not always conquer all and is not always irredeemably evil, whatever simplistic old fools like Noam Chomsky may imagine.

For Wednesday’s debate – Bloomberg’s first foray on national television before the American people as a heavyweight presidential candidate – was a catastrophe for him. The man who easily won election three times in a row in one of the largest and most diverse cities in the world was pummeled, assaulted, slandered and abused on all sides. New York City politics were no match for the ravening wolves in a national presidential contest.

Bloomberg never had a chance: That underestimated mistress of low blows and dirty fighting, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Richard Nixon of modern American politics mugged him at the beginning of the night.

Warren launched into a ferocious attack at the start of the evening – sticking her hand in the air like an eagerly destructive little child – to accuse Bloomberg of calling women “fat, ugly broads” and “horse faced lesbians.”

The accusation, it turned out, came not from the documented columns of The New York Times or The Washington Post (which would be problematic enough) but from a slim satirical book affectionately produced for Bloomberg by employees who actually liked him around 30 years ago. It did not matter. Warren had drawn first blood. Immediately, the other four surviving Democratic candidates forgot their visceral loathing for Donald Trump and joined the frenzy to rip Bloomberg to shreds.

Anyone who has seen packs of wolves or Arctic dog teams ferociously clawing each other to bits in the bloody struggle for supremacy will recognize the process immediately. For me, it was reminiscent of nothing less than the alcohol-filled, joyous, violent and ferocious Northern Irish newsrooms of my own Impressionable Youth 40 years ago.

How should we interpret this debate – infinitely more abusive than anything Trump and his fellow Republicans descended to four years ago?

We should certainly withhold judgment about its impact on voters until enough of them actually vote. That means waiting until the string of nine primaries across the U.S. South and elsewhere are held on Super Tuesday, March 3.

Perhaps moderate mainstream moderate Democrats were impressed by Bloomberg’s strange combination of bewildered shock and genuine dignity in his response to the attacks. He never appeared afraid: But he never appeared commanding or resilient either.

At least Bloomberg had no cringe-worthy moments like ridiculous “Little Pete” Buttigieg who looked terrified that Senator Amy Klobuchar was going to hammer him through the floor of the auditorium at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas as she angrily reduced the Mighty Mayor of South Bend, Indiana to whimpering blubber by icily asking him – “Are you trying to say that I’m dumb” (which in reality he was trying to say).

Klobuchar is listed as 5 foot 4 inches tall – 162.5 centimeters. Buttigieg is officially 5 foot 8 inches tall – 172 inches. But the cool, icily furious Klobuchar appeared to tower over the Incredible Shrinking Mayor.

The NBC Mainstream Media spin-doctors who revere Buttigieg contorted themselves to make it claim Klobuchar was hysterical and lost her dignity. It was another Big Lie. It was Klobuchar’s moment: It will be endlessly replayed on YouTube. And it may yet propel the lady senator from Minnesota into the vice presidential spot behind Senator Bernie Sanders.

First polls after the debate showed Bloomberg losing precious momentum rather than gaining it and Sanders soaring into the Democrats’ lead more than ever. Even in 21st century America, there are limits to the national credibility that unlimited billions of dollars can buy: Just ask Jeb Bush (Jeb!) and Hillary Clinton.

The night was Sanders’ from beginning to end. Bloomberg, at age 78 an elderly gentleman who has done so well for so long in so many worlds, was simply not remotely prepared for dealing with this new one.

I learned the basic principles of survival in attack dog environments in those Northern Irish newsrooms 40 years ago. Mayor Bloomberg, for all his wealth and achievements has up to now lived a far more sheltered life. His first presidential debate was a rude awakening.

With an estimated personal wealth of $60 billion, Bloomberg is reckoned to be one of the richest men in the U.S. He is vying for the presidency in November’s elections against White House incumbent Donald Trump – a billionaire real estate magnate before he was elected in 2016.

Trump’s earlier promises to be a “man of the people” are a cruel joke. He’s done nothing to drain the swamp of corruption in U.S. establishment politics. With his pardonning of white collar criminals this week, one can say Trump is refilling the swamp. But what else to expect from a billionaire oligarch whose White House tenure is just another crony dimension of his family business?

It would be rather fitting if Bloomberg ends up getting the nomination as the Democratic Party candidate to run against Trump, the Republican candidate. Then it would be merely two billionaires going head-to-head, and in that way cutting out the bothersome window-dressing of political parties seemingly competing. It was always big money from oligarchs and corporations that poured into the American two-party system to determine the winner. So why bother pretending there is a party competition and all that jazz, when we can just have the fat cats with the money standing in the ballot?

U.S. democracy is moribund. Arguably it has been that atrophied way for a long time. It’s rather devolved more into a dystopian contest between super-rich individuals who try to win votes by outspending each other. American politics has truly descended into a dark dungeon akin to Gotham City of Batman movies. Only there is no mysterious superhero to save the masses held captive by the oligarchs. It’s only a matter of time when the formal casting of votes will eventually be deemed superfluous in the exercise of power over the people.

This week saw Bloomberg being given a platform on the TV debates between Democratic candidates. He qualified for that nationwide spotlight because several public opinion polls have, it seems, registered growing support among voters, thereby meeting the supposed criteria of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

But that poll support for Bloomberg comes after he has spent – so far and counting – $400 million on TV, radio and digital advertisements promoting his campaign. That’s a flood compared to a trickle from other candidates.

That has led to the other Democratic candidates accusing him of “trying to buy the election”. Well, that may be true. But there again wasn’t it always the case that oligarchs bought the U.S. election? Maybe what the professional politicians are irked about is that they sense they are out of a job as being lackeys for the money-men.

A recent profile by the New York Times, headlined ‘Bloomberg’s billions: How the candidate built an empire of influence’, surveyed how the billionaire has spent years cultivating patronage and policy within the Democratic Party.

According to the NY Times: “In all, Bloomberg has spent at least $10 billion on his charitable and political pursuits… And it is not simply goodwill that Bloomberg has built. His political and philanthropic spending has also secured the allegiance or cooperation of powerful institutions and leaders within the Democratic Party who might take issue with parts of his record, were they not so reliant on his largesse.”

In a nutshell, the political party is bought. It has become a vehicle that is patently the political property of an oligarch. And not just this one oligarch, but the entire oligarchic system of super-wealth in the United States. Hillary Clinton, the Democrat candidate in 2016, was despised by voters because of her solicitous connections to Wall Street and Big Business. That corruption has now only become starkly manifest in the form an oligarch-in-person taking the political stage instead of a politician-surrogate. The same can be said for the other side of the oligarch coin, the Republicans.

It is rather fitting too that Bloomberg stood as a Republican when he was elected Mayor of Gotham (er, New York City) between 2001-2013. Since leaving that office be flipped to the Democrats, no doubt sensing a more expedient route for buying his way to the White House. That again demonstrates how hollow the party names are of any substantive meaning regarding policy.

In the 2018 mid-term elections, Bloomberg donated $100 million to the DNC to promote 16 new female lawmakers to Congress. Enamored by that superficial progressive benevolence, the party bosses are in his pocket.

A recent NPR/PBS poll puts Bloomberg on second place with 19% behind front-runner Bernie Sanders on 31%. Over night, Bloomberg has overtaken Joe Biden (15%), Elizabeth Warren (12%), Amy Klobuchar (9%) and Pete Buttigieg (8%). That mind-bending power of U.S. billionaire money over politics puts into perspective the nonsensical claims about alleged Russian influence.

Sanders, an avowed socialist candidate whose growing popular appeal stems from his criticism of American oligarchic wealth and politics, said: “I got news for Mr Bloomberg, and that is the American people are sick and tired of billionaires buying elections.”

That may well be true. But, unfortunately, Sanders and the American people will struggle to exercise their democratic freedom to vote for the next president. That’s because the Democratic Party leadership are hostages to Bloomberg’s fortune; and the antipathy of oligarch-bought news media towards any move towards a genuinely socialist democracy, will stack the deck in favor of Bloomberg. Or Trump.

The only “superhero” that can save Gotham (er, the U.S.) from the oligarchs is the American people themselves finding the strength and independence to rise up against the endemic two-party corruption, and voting for real change.

That, however, requires mass organization, mobilization and a class consciousness about the predatory capitalist, oligarch-ridden system that the U.S. has descended into.

Since Donald Trump captured the Republican nomination four years ago, mainstream media across the political spectrum have warned us about the rise of “populism.” The standard narrative goes something like this: those on the political extremes — especially the far-right but also the far-left—are rapidly gaining ground and subverting liberal democracy across the globe, ushering in a new age of authoritarianism.

“What is spreading today is repressive kleptocracy, led by rulers motivated by greed rather than by the deranged idealism of Hitler or Stalin or Mao,” explained former George W. Bush speechwriter turned #Resistance leader David Frum in 2017. “Such rulers rely less on terror and more on rule-twisting, the manipulation of information, and the co-optation of elites.”

When it comes to right-wing nationalists like Trump and others — Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Italy’s Matteo Salvini, to name just a few — this critique has largely proved correct. Trump’s authoritarian impulses are undeniable, and he has expressed his fundamental disdain for democratic norms, the free press and the rule of law on an almost daily basis. The former game show host has done extraordinary damage to America’s already deeply flawed institutions, and there’s no telling how much more he would do with another four years in office.

Whatever truth there is to this argument, however, there has always been something deeply disingenuous about veteran neoconservatives and neoliberals positioning themselves as defenders of democracy. Some of the loudest critics of this “new authoritarianism” were devoted supporters of Bush II, who was arguably an even more effective demagogue than Trump. Along with Frum, Bill Kristol, Thomas Friedman, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot and Jonathan Chait all supported the Iraq War and an unprecedented expansion of executive power. President Obama, of course, consolidated and strengthened that power by broadening the surveillance state that is now under Trump’s control. None of the aforementioned pundits felt compelled to speak up about these developments before 2017.

It’s not so much Trump’s authoritarianism that centrists object to then but the crude and impudent manner of its implementation. Three years after his election, they still regard him as a kind of aberration. Never has this been clearer than in the mainstream media’s recent embrace of Michael Bloomberg. With former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign in a death spiral, the former mayor of New York City has emerged as an appealing alternative for establishment types who despise Trump but cannot bear the thought of supporting a genuine social democrat like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The irony is that Bloomberg fits perfectly into Frum’s definition of authoritarianism, which he argues is built on “rule-twisting, the manipulation of information, and the co-optation of elites.” Not only does the billionaire own a media outlet that bears his name, but as his purchased endorsements make clear, he’s all too willing to subvert our political system for his personal gain. Indeed, he has staked his entire candidacy on his ability to do just that.

Bloomberg is notorious for disregarding rules and norms, infamously strong-arming New York’s City Council to overturn the mayorship’s term limits so that he could run for a third term. “Rules, in the Bloombergian universe, only apply to people with less than ten zeros in their net worth,” observed Joel Kotkin in The Daily Beast last month, adding that he is a “far more successful billionaire with the smarts, motivation and elitist mentality not only to propose but actually carry out his own deeply authoritarian vision should he be elected president.”

As mayor of New York City, Bloomberg governed as an authoritarian, from his draconian and racist stop-and-frisk policy to his heavy-handed crackdown on Occupy Wall Street. “I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world,” Bloomberg once bragged. While evicting Occupy protesters from Zuccotti Park in 2011, he even made sure to prevent journalists from documenting police brutality, closing airspace in lower Manhattan to block any possible aerial footage.

The former mayor’s disregard for civil liberties and disdain for popular movements is a matter of public record. But whereas Trump’s behavior is almost atavistic, Bloomberg employs what The New Republic’s Alex Pareene calls a “polite authoritarianism.” Comparing the two, Pareene writes that the latter “has explicitly argued that ‘our interpretation of the Constitution’ will have to change to give citizens less privacy and the police more power to search and spy on them. In fact, he does not seem to believe that certain people have innate civil rights that the state must respect.”

That so many talking heads have rallied around somebody like Bloomberg as an alternative to left- and right-wing populism should come as no surprise. A paper from political economist David Adler indicates that contrary to the dominant media narrative, centrists are uniquely hostile to democratic values. “Respondents at the center of the political spectrum are the least supportive of democracy, least committed to its institutions, and most supportive of authoritarianism,” writes Adler, whose findings were based on data from the World Values Survey and European Values Survey.

Per his research, less than half of self-identified centrists in the U.S. believe that free elections are “essential to democracy.” Perhaps more troubling, they tend to view basic civil rights as non-essential. While dissatisfaction with democracy is high on both the left and right, Adler is careful to point out that this does not necessarily indicate these groups are ready to abandon it altogether; rather, they want their government to be more democratic than they are at present. There is a difference, he notes, between support for democracy and satisfaction with existing institutions. And while he found “moderate levels of satisfaction” with the current system among centrists, they are the least disposed toward democratic reforms.

What these people fear and abhor, ultimately, is any kind of threat to the status quo and the entrenched power of elites. As Jeet Heer recently argued in The Nation, those on the extremes of the political spectrum are more likely to criticize a state whose violence they frequently bear the brunt of, while centrists who are “safely ensconced in mainstream society and hold positions of high social status, are more likely to take an uncritical view of trampling on democratic norms, since they have the comfort of knowing that the authorities are unlikely to go after reputable figures.”

Bloomberg would govern as a well-mannered neoliberal autocrat, and his assault on American democracy would be more insidious—and perhaps more dangerous—than Trump’s in the long run. He let his mask slip last year when he commented that China’s Xi Jinping is not, in fact, a “dictator,” since he “has to satisfy his constituents or he’s not going to survive.” The Uighur Muslims currently residing in concentration camps might disagree, but then again Bloomberg never did care much about the civil liberties of Muslims or people of color.

Sanders, the current Democratic front-runner, offers a very different view of Xi. “In China,” he wrote in 2018 article for The Guardian, “an inner circle led by Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power, clamping down on domestic political freedom while it aggressively promotes a version of authoritarian capitalism abroad.” Unlike Bloomberg and his toadies, Sanders is committed to expanding democracy and understands that the neoliberal status quo of the past several decades has fueled the rise of authoritarianism throughout the world today.

Here lies the crucial difference between those who denounce Trump from their armchairs and leftists who join popular movements fighting for radical change. With Bloomberg now set to challenge Sanders for the Democratic nomination, the divide couldn’t be starker. And for those who truly reject authoritarianism, the choice should be easy.

truthdig.com