For those of you who watched the Democratic Debate held in Las Vegas Monday night, you know (or should know by now) that it was absolutely terrible for the democratic party. Insults were being thrown around like a bunch of school children at a playground and the obvious victor was Donald Trump. However, the debate had 20 million viewers in total mostly because of the first appearance of Michael Bloomberg on stage. So let me get this straight: Bernie Sanders has just crushed everyone in the polls and yet the debate Wednesday night in Las Vegas was all about the democrats beating Bloomberg to a pulp? Why would you target Bloomberg who is in second place and not even touch Sanders who, arguable, has the worst chance of beating Trump AND is in first place in the polls? Good job democrats, good job. Identity politics and virtue signaling that you hate billionaires and anyone who is white, as always, took over the debate stage. After all, that is the sole purpose they went after Bloomberg wednesday night. He is just too easy to pick on. At least this is what many people believe but after a lot of thinking, Im going to throw out some unpopular opinions and see what you guys think. I believe the Bloomberg allegations are not only wrong but, at the very least, weak as well.
- Lets start with the big one: Stop and Frisk. Biden, Sanders, and Warren absolutely slammed this man about this policy. Is Michael Bloomberg to blame for african american and hispanic people being the overwhelming majority of the people being stopped? Yes, he did enact the policy that’s true, however the policy simply gives more power to the police so that they can stop people who they believe to be a threat to the area. Now if anyone here is being racist, in my opinion, it is the police force. Not Michael Bloomberg. Also, this so called terrible plan helped drive the number of murders down by 50% in New York City which I would call a significant drop. Personally, I think Bloomberg’s biggest mistake here is going on the defensive when being asked and challenged about this policy. He makes himself weak and an easy target when he just hides in the corner of the debate stage apologizing for a mistake that he made….if you would call it a mistake on his part. He could have easily gone on the offensive and argued that he was mayor for three terms of the most diverse city in the U.S and talked about how he has created millions of jobs through his company as well as donating very large amounts of money.
2. Claim: Michael Bloomberg is trying to buy the Democratic Nomination. C’mon really? That is what you are going to use to your advantage? Yes, he is a billionaire who is spending more money than the other candidates but it is for advertisements people. If we are assuming that the citizens of the United States are smart people (which they are and we should assume we are dealing with smart people) than why do ads matter when it comes to a nominee? We should educate ourselves on the nominees and know them regardless of how many ads we see or who can purchase the most time on national television. For example, when we watched the Super Bowl are we assuming that everyone who watched the Bloomberg ads are immediately jumping to the conclusion that he is the best candidate? No. We are not idiots and we know marketing when we see it. So don’t give me this “he is trying to buy our party” garbage. First of all, he polled in second place so clearly people like him whether you anti-billionaire’s like it or not and second of all, he is simply throwing money at ads so he can get his name out there since he has only been campaigning for like 3-4 months or something.
3. Last claim I will address: Mayor Bloomberg will not be able to beat Trump. My prediction is that Donald Trump will win the 2020 election (read my post: The Democrats Dilemma for more on that) however, if any one can come close to Trump in the polls and in winning the battle ground states needed it is Michael Bloomberg. He is a Moderate Democrat who has led a large city for three terms as mayor and has started his own business from the ground up. He is not into throwing large policy changes like Universal HealthCare or Free tuition for all and understands economics enough to know that you can’t just immediately ban industries from performing business (ie: Fracking). He cares about the environment enough to win over moderates and independents who care about that issue the most as well as health care which is a topic that he can get bipartisan support on since he believes in keeping the private plans alive. He is a billionaire who can take on Trump if he can learn to be better on stage because the first hour of the debate was not a strong showing for Bloomberg.
All in all, Wednesday night was a bad day for democrats. If democrats are smart they will look to break Sanders and challenge him on policies that he has yet to explain himself at Tuesday nights debate. Bloomberg is a solid candidate and hopefully he can perform a little better Tuesday because lets face it, Bloomberg is all the Democrats have left to take on Trump and actually be able to compete against him.
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