No multi-billion dollar entertainment franchise always gets it right. I’m fairly certain somebody’s been murdered over bad Star Wars movies, and even (some) staunch MCU defenders will concede the weaker entries maybe aren’t as good as Raging Bull.
Fans will put up with a lot from their favorite media properties, and few fandoms are such gluttons for pain and humiliation as the Democratic Party’s. Unlike Disney, the Democrats lack superheroes or talking animals to counterweight their cartoonish evil. The latest entry in the Democratic Electoral Universe lacks even the reptilian charm that usually passes as an excuse for fans to get excited.
So, my greedy little hogs, let us take a look at the latest slop they’ve shit into our politics trough.
Michael Bloomberg – Billionaire, Fmr Mayor New York City
Michael Bloomberg is worth $58 billion dollars. A truly obscene amount of money. This is the most salient fact about the man. If you’re reading this, that alone is likely enough to dissuade you from ever voting for him, much less tolerating his continued presence in civilized society.
Like so many other entrants in the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary his biography hits all the right notes. Born into a relatively modest family, his parents were second generation Americans, and he followed the rote path of a mid century child being groomed for success. A decent student. An Eagle Scout. An engineering undergrad and fraternity brother.
After graduating from John Hopkins he went to Harvard Business School for a Masters in Business Psychopathy. From there, to Wall Street and the world investment banking. Within 15 years he’d accumulated $10 million.
From 1982 on his business career, while as sickening and tawdry as anyone coming out of finance, has been defined by being an information broker. The famous Bloomberg Terminal is the service that raised his profile and fortune from run of the mill murdering the homeless in dark alleys to human zoo and most dangerous game levels.
An idea so incredibly simple only a finance guy could get hordes of other braindead finance guys to make him rich off of it. An early iteration of small scale computing, Bloomberg Terminals aggregated financial data and news on a dedicated platform. By offering the most up-to-date numbers and information traders and entire firms could destroy lives and economies more efficiently than ever before. It also just so happens that hypothetically one could collect the metadata of what information users are consuming, or in more contemporary terminals even their private messages, and glean otherwise unavailable information about market trends or even firm specific trading intent in a manner that could be characterized as insider trading or corporate espionage.
But I think we all know ole Mikey would never have leveraged any of that knowledge for personal gain.
After hoarding immense wealth Bloomberg did what all rich narcissists do, and started dabbling in politics. By dabbling I mean he ran for, and won, the New York City mayorship. This is a key moment in understanding why the worst people in the world pretend to like this guy, and why they insist other people definitely like this guy.
Bloomberg was a lifelong registered Democrat. He ran for Mayor of NYC in 2002, just after 9/11, as a Republican. Pundits and party operatives love the narrative of the man so principled he’ll cross party lines for his own benefit. They love the idea that someone can find redeeming qualities in both parties, and Bloomberg is the living example of someone who just fucking loves bipartisanship, and by bipartisanship I mean money.
Bloomberg is truly the perfect synthesis of everything wrong with both American political parties. He’s an unrepentant war hawk. A major booster of the Iraq War. He hates when the rabble forget their place and inconvenience important personages such as himself by protesting. He loved the test driven metrics of No Child Left Behind, and gets hornt for charter schools.
He is a devotee of racist broken windows policing, and to this day defends stop and frisk. He hates unions and union workers. He really hates unions. He champions, and is in many ways the poster child for the odious public private partnership.
Oh, and fuck you and your Big Gulp you swine.
Michael Bloomberg enthusiastically embraced every neoliberal policy during his tenure as mayor. Any policy that preferenced the wealthy and powerful like himself, and disciplined the vast majority of normal people in NYC was his default position. Taxes, but regressive. Social programs, but privatized. Police reform, but to make it more racist and brutal.
Nobody actually likes Michael Bloomberg. People think other people like Michael Bloomberg. He ticks all the boxes politics talkers think are important. He balanced the dang NYC budget, damnit. But, the kayfabe simple won’t work anymore.
If we’re lucky, Bloomberg might actually do some lasting damage to the DEU’s brand. I doubt it, but at very least he may contribute to finally killing the myth that what people want is a craven both sidesing, worst-of-all-worlds, Billionaire to sneeringly pronounce what’s good for them.
Jean Krill is is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His writing navigates the many disparate visions of a radically better future.