Back in November Mike Bloomberg was polling at four percent nationally and had the highest disapproval rating of any potential Democratic presidential candidate, and understandably so; the man has a uniquely horrible record and no redeeming traits to speak of.
Now, after spending $400 million in broadcast, radio and cable ads, $42 million on Facebook ads, $36 million on Google ads, and an unknown fortune on other shady manipulations, a national Quinnipiac poll released last week put him at 15 percent nationally in the Democratic primary. This week national polls released by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist and Zogby put him at 19 and 20 percent, respectively.
You can argue against the validity of polls all you like, and surely none of them are pristine representations of public opinion. But there’s no denying that these numbers have gone way up, and there’s no denying that now, approvingly or not, everyone’s talking about Michael Bloomberg.
Late night talk show hosts are doing bits about the prevalence of Bloomberg ads. People are making satirical videos spoofing them. I’ve seen parents complaining that their kids recite lines from his ads at the dinner table. It’s a story in itself. It’s saturating social consciousness. It’s very much a thing.
“Nothing remotely like what Mike Bloomberg is doing has ever been seen in US politics – nothing in the same universe,” journalist Glenn Greenwald recently tweeted. “And the threat and danger it (and he) poses to US democracy is equally without comparison.”
Greenwald is of course correct. But while Bloomberg is doing something that is without precedent, his campaign is also highlighting problems with the system which have existed for ages. And in my opinion it would be an unfortunate waste if his campaign came and went without these problems getting more attention than they currently are.
Mike Bloomberg is not the first plutocrat to use his wealth to manipulate a US election, and he is not the first plutocrat to use his wealth to manipulate public perception. He’s just the first to do it so brazenly and ham-fistedly. The fact that it is both possible and easy for a billionaire to throw a vast fortune at an electoral race and drastically influence its direction tells us everything we need to know about the illusory nature of US democracy. And now it’s right out in the open.
As long as a small elite group are able to manipulate the way people think and vote, then you don’t have democracy, you have oligarchy. If that small elite group happens to be much wealthier than everyone else, then it’s a specific kind of oligarchy known as plutocracy. You can watch this video and this video for some general information on the ways US plutocrats exert control over the political system, and you can read this fascinating thread here for more specific information on how Bloomberg has been stifling opposition and manipulating endorsements out of political figures using his unparallelled spending power.
The degree to which Michael Bloomberg is using his fortune to fundamentally alter & manipulate U.S. politics to his personal advantage extends way beyond ads. I've worked against him, covered him as a journalist & worked with his top aides. Here’s their playbook: (1/17)
— Blake Zeff (@blakezeff) February 13, 2020
This has been happening all the time, for generations, and not just with US elections but with Americans’ perception of what’s going on in their world as well. Whether it’s running ads, buying up media outlets, funding think tanks or incentivizing politicians to regurgitate the desired lines, billionaires are constantly using their wealth to shore up narrative control, because they understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world.
Bloomberg built a media empire. Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post. Most of America’s news media are owned or controlled by billionaires. Even that so-called “philanthropy” which mass media pundits keep crowing about in the same breath as Bloomberg’s name is actually just another billionaire narrative control apparatus, allowing them to donate a tiny tax-deductible portion of their income in exchange for political influence, and buying them the ability to wear the fancy label of “philanthropist” instead of “sociopathic parasite”.
Billionaires pour vast fortunes into think tanks, which are generally institutions where academics are paid to come up with the most intelligent-sounding arguments possible explaining why it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid, whether that be the destruction of the ecosystem, regime change in Iran, or further corporate/financial deregulation. They then circulate those arguments at key points of influence.
For a Bloomberg-specific example of think tank narrative control, take the time his donations to the Center for American Progress (CAP) leveraged that think tank into removing a chapter from a 2015 report detailing his Orwellian surveillance program targeting Muslims back when he was the mayor of New York City. Back in 2013 The Nation‘s Ken Silverstein reported that CAP staffers “were very clearly instructed to check with the think tank’s development team before writing anything that might upset contributors.” Sure enough, a former CAP staffer named Yasmine Taeb recently detailed for Democracy Now how “the chapter was flagged by a member of the executive committee who actually previously had worked for Mayor Bloomberg” and “said that there would be a strong reaction by Bloomberg World if this report was released as it was.” At that point Bloomberg had given CAP nearly $1.5 million.
The billionaire class has to buy up narrative control because there is nothing about plutocracy that is sane or healthy; people would never knowingly consent to it unless they were manipulated into doing so. Because power is relative, and because money is power in a plutocracy, plutocrats are naturally incentivized to maintain a system where everyone else is kept as poor as possible so that they can have as much relative power as possible. A glance at what the Sanders campaign has been able to accomplish just with small-dollar donations and grassroots support gives you some insight into why these plutocrats want people working long, exhausting hours with as little spare income as possible.
Nobody would ever knowingly consent to being kept poor and busy just so some billionaires can live as modern-day kings, so they need to be propagandized into it via narrative manipulation. If you’ve ever wondered why it seems like the news man is always lying to you, that’s why.
Whenever I write about the power of plutocratic propaganda, I always get people saying I’m just a conspiracy theorist (and that I have an awful addiction to alliteration). They argue that sure, it’s possible to influence public opinion a bit, but people are free agents and they make up their own minds based on any number of potential factors, so it’s silly to focus on media manipulation as the underlying cause of all the world’s ills.
Oh yeah? If people can’t be manipulated by the wealthy into supporting agendas which don’t benefit them, how come a billionaire presidential candidate was able to quadruple or quintuple his polling numbers in three months just by throwing money at them?
And that’s just one agenda of just one billionaire. There are 607 billionaires in the United States. And none of them are interested in giving up their plutocratic throne.
The unpleasant fact of the matter is that the human mind is far more hackable than people like to believe it is. Just listen to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer describe how he’d been completely taken in by the horrible mass media smear campaign against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prior to taking his case. This is an educated, intelligent and highly compassionate man who, simply because he’d relied on the plutocratic media to help him figure out what’s going on in the world, had an understanding that Assange was a wicked man who was guilty of wicked deeds. It wasn’t until he took the case and began personally investigating the actual facts of the matter without the filter of the plutocratic media spinmeisters that he was able penetrate beneath the layers of narrative distortion to get at the reality of the situation.
Some clever people figured out a long time ago that humans live in two worlds: the real world and the narrative world. The narrative world consists of the mental chatter which occupies the majority of most people’s moment-to-moment interest and attention. The real world is everything else: life as it is, without the stories about what life is.
The clever people figured out that you can get folks to give you real things in the real world, just by giving them narratives in the narrative world. Use your control over your society’s dominant narratives and you can get people to hand you real wealth and power in exchange for a bunch of made-up stories of fear and inadequacy and factionalism and otherness. Manipulative men can get real-life sexual favors in exchange for narratives about love and romance. Manipulative priests can get your real-life tithes in exchange for narratives about imaginary deities. Manipulative politicians can get your real-life votes in exchange for narratives about imaginary terrorists. Manipulative billionaires can use the rewards of your real-life labor in exchange for units of an imaginary financial system which exists solely as a narrative construct. They figured out a way to get everything for nothing.
Nothing remotely like what Mike Bloomberg is doing has ever been seen in US politics – nothing in the same universe. And the threat and danger it (and he) poses to US democracy is equally without comparison.
It’s a menace beyond what words can describe: https://t.co/tmFzlpBKzr
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 18, 2020
Humans are not difficult to manipulate. I am not difficult to manipulate. You are not difficult to manipulate. If you don’t appreciate this fact, you make yourself even easier to manipulate. It’s not difficult to mock the people who’ve been manipulated into supporting Bloomberg. What is difficult is coming to terms with the fact that you yourself, and indeed your entire species, have many glitches in your cognitive processes which can be, have been, and will continue to be exploited by adept manipulators.
All we can do is make this conscious. Like everything else in this struggle, the solution to the mind’s intrinsic hackability is bringing the light of consciousness to it. Manipulators cannot operate in an environment with too much awareness of their tricks.
Mike Bloomberg is a terrible human being. But at the very least he may operate as a catalyst for this consciousness.
_________________________
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67 responses to “Bloomberg’s Rising Polls Show The Power Of Billionaire Narrative Control”
Absolutely brilliant piece Caitlin! Awareness of the way we humans work as the biological machines that we are is the first step toward getting the system transformed. You can’t control something until you understand how it works. You can’t solve problems until you understand ultimate causes, can’t cure a disease by just treating its symptoms. The big question remains however: Even if we understand how the system works can we really change it or does it first need to self-destruct? Are the ultimate causes beyond our control?
The only “superhero” that can save Gotham (er, the United States) from the oligarchs is the United States of 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 United States has descended into. This fine article can be read here:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/02/20/with-bloomberg-entering-race-u-s-oligarchy-takes-stage/
Bloomberg stood in mute fury as his $400 million campaign investment went up in smoke. His contempt for democracy and sense of entitlement surpass even Donald Trump, who at least likes crowds — Bloomberg’s joyless imperiousness makes Trump seem like Robin Williams. This great article is here:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/mike-bloomberg-debate-disaster-955791/
In all sincerity, I need your help. I want the US to turn into a puddle of unmanageable, IMPOTENT chaos as soon as possible. Now, to speed up that process as much as possible, which famous POTUS candidate should I vote for — Tiny Tyrant, Donito “he needed killing” Assolini, Pistol Pete, Fauxcahontas, Bribn’ Biden or F35 “I trust the intelligence community” Bernie?
I have this little spell / spiel that I use to prove that magick exists.
I lay a banknote on the table.
“What’s this?” It’s twenty florins.
“Yeah, but what is it, really? Just look at it and tell me what you see.” It’s printed paper.
“Yes. It has no value on its own, it represents value. So, we go about changing real value for a representation of value, and vice versa, all day every day. It’s magick. So, this banknote represents a debt the world has to me as its holder. Now, I propose a senseless act of generosity and beauty. Of magick. I propose to acquit this debt. Through the simple ritual act of burning this banknote.”
The emotional response that is to be expected, because taboo, will pretty much assure that I won’t have to follow through to make my point.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/02/not-like-mini-mike.html
1930s capitalist power elites considered FDR to be a traitor, or at least a class-traitor, and tried to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead a military coup against Roosevelt. Butler flatly refused, busted them publicly and said he’d raise an army against them. Can Bernie Sanders be a class-traitor?
Bernie Sanders led in 10 of 10 national polls yesterday before the Las Vegas debate last night, about equal to no-candidate-on-first-vote at Democratic Convention.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-we-got-a-flurry-of-new-national-polls-sanders-led-them-all/
What happened in Vegas…
Right out of the gate, Bloomberg was under attack with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren landed perhaps the biggest (and first punch), making the former Big Apple mayor visibly squirm and roll his eyes in frustration.
“I’d like to talk about who we’re running against, a billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians,’” she said from the Paris Theater.
“And, no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-doesnt-knock-him-out-race-nothing-will-bloomberg-battered-left-right-debate-disaster
Saying that Bloomberg’s entry in the presidential race is a “threat” to American democracy is false.
Because American Democracy is a Big Lie. It does not exist.
Bloomberg is much like Donald Trump in that he is inadvertently revealing what the American Empire truly is and indeed ALWAYS has been: a Capitalist Oligarchy disguised as a democracy.
In fact, Capitalist Oligarchy disguised as a democracy describes most of the self-styled Free World, particularly Western colonizer nations like Australia, Canada, Germany, France–all of whom are America’s closest partners in crime.
For instance, George Washington–the “father of the USA”–was one of the richest if not the richest men of his era. Washington was the Donald Trump, Bill Gates, or Michael Bloomberg of his times.
Only, instead of making his money from shady real estate deals, crappy software, or financial chicanery, George Washington made his fortune through the slave trade and ruthless exploitation of Black people.
That is what America, the Land of the unFree, has always represented since it was spawned by the British Empire as an Anglo colonizer nation over two centuries ago.
Bloomberg, Trump, et al. are merely a continuation of this 240-year old American Oligarchical Empire, which is disguised as a democracy.
What’s truly damning is how Americans of ALL political masks aggressively promote, pimp, and push this All-American Lie of US democracy
HELLO FOLKS – (incl Caitlin)
Bloomberg ain’t “buying the election.”. He’s buying a very big megaphone to get out his message. It’s up to the voters to decide whether to buy that message or not.
Does his deep $ pocket give him leverage with think tanks and buyable politicians? Sure. Is that fair, compared to less wealthy candidates? Nope.
Now that we’ve got that established, let’s look at his message(s).
1. Dump Trump.
2. Raise taxes on the wealthy!
3. Expand Medicare.
4. Reduce carbon omissions.
5. Immigration reform.
6. Sensible gun control.
7. Restore international respect.
These aren’t new initiatives for him. His track record is fairly clear. Are there blemishes or concerns of mine? Sure.
A. Is he sincere about #2?
B. How effectively will he be able to resist the pull of Zionism?
C. Was the political lesson of stop & frisk fully understood?
I could come up with some others, but at the end of the day, I believe he has the best chance of beating Trump, given the negative baggage of each one of the other democrat candidates. YMMV.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/what-does-michael-bloomberg-believe-where-the-candidate-stands-on-6-issues
I failed to include his emphasis on strengthening public education. My bad.
And I failed to include my concern about his ability to resist the siren song of the military industrial complex.
1. Bloomberg is Trump except a slightly better liar and probably more competent, which is a bad thing. Hard pass.
2. Sure.
3. You’ll find he’ll find it easier to relate to the Martin Shkreli’s of this world than with you and me.
4. Reduce carbon omissions. Hmmm.
5. What does that even mean?
6. Unarm the proles.
7. International respect for America has always come out of the barrel of a gun. That won’t change even under Bernie.
A. Well, duh.
B. Not.
C. Yes, it is. It is understood that his would be a police state presidency. Afro-Americans and American Americans will have even more to fear than they already have.
Getting rid of Trump would be utterly meaningless if we get this POS in return.
You might want to break out of that Bloomberg propaganda bubble and get a little education on the man you are foolishly supporting. Or maybe your avatar is an accurate representation of what you’re trying to promote.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/20/bloomberg-is-the-equal-evil/
Reasonable people can disagree without resorting to negative adverbs as you did.
That was a beautifully written Hit piece link that you attached, from the pen of an anti-billionaire anarchist. Here’s one that I think is more balanced, but I reserve your right to disagree without attacking you personally.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-election-2020-where-does-mike-bloomberg-stand-middle-east-issues
If you really think using one (1) adverb, “foolishly”, constitutes a “personal attack” you are either a novice to the internet or you’re gaslighting me because you work on Bloomberg’s campaign. Either way, it’s disingenuous and I won’t apologize to someone working to elect a tyrannical plutocrat to take the place of another tyrannical plutocrat.
I can’t see Sanders supporters coming out to vote for him which equals 4 more years of 45. And as a New Yorker I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.
I personally think Bloomberg’s numbers have gone up due to his ads featuring Obama. I would guess that most people with the sound on or the sound off think that Obama has endorsed Bloomberg. Of course if you pay actual attention to what is in the ads, Obama is not endorsing Bloomberg, it’s a series of photo ops and comments in which Obama was undoubtedly kissing Bloomberg’s white ass. I know what Caitlin means about being manipulatable, but some of us are a lot more manipulatable than others! The U.S. population is extremely gullible for the most part, falling for cheap and tacky narratives depending upon who is peddling the cheap and tacky narrative (Trump, Warren, Bloomberg, Clinton, etc, etc, etc).
This is why dictatorships hate education. Countries like Saudi Arabia fear an educated public.
Money/propaganda does work, but Bloomberg may be going too far with this and creating a backlash. Fortunately, he imploded in the debate yesterday. He would have done well to stay away from the debate by trying to have the rules unchanged so he could not participate. Sooner or later, though, he would have been stuck in a debate confronted with questions about his lousy policies as mayor. If he manages to survive in the race until the convention, will he be able to buy super delegates?
As an aside, I witnessed another absurdity this weekend in America’s two year long election odyssey. I watched part of the Washington and Lee University Mock Convention, which was near where I live. The convention ended being brokered by the super delegates. So the students spent two days choosing a nominee only to find out their votes didn’t matter and the super delegate overlords would decide in secret. It looked bad. If the real convention is brokered, I wonder if the super delegates can get away with selecting anyone other then the person with the most normal delegates without facing massive voter wrath. The end of the convention, session 4, can be viewed at the bottom of this webpage:
https://www.mockconvention.com/livestream
His ads work, and work well, flooding our prime time commercials and even the debate commercial time.
I mailed in my CA. ballot for Sanders and my wife, watching enough prime time tv, voted for Bloomberg without ever listening to him outside his commercials. How many more people will do this. Not good for our nations broken political system.
Another brilliant article love to you Caitlin,
It’s not fair. Doomberg has to buy propaganda while the others get it free from the media.
Elisabeth Warren gave Michael Bloomberg a hard time in last night’s debate, and he looked lousy. Bloomberg may spam the whole United States with his billboards, but the voters are still voting for Bernie Sanders. The Sanders campaign is coming from below, and the DNC, together with Bloomberg, wants to counter his influence and success from above. The power of manipulation may work sometimes but not all the time. As everybody knows, the corrupt DNC wants to stop Sanders as they did in 2016 when they pushed Hillary Clinton through. I don’t think it will work with Bloomberg again, because he has a bad record with women and blacks in NYC. Plus, he is shady.
I wish you peace.
Republican Michael Bloomberg remarks at the 2004 Republican National Convention, while his police enforced “free speech zones” denying free speech rights in most of this city, within the United States of America. New York later paid millions of dollars in settling grievances against the city for his decision to violate the First Amendment.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4577522/michael-bloomberg-remarks-2004-republican-national-convention-nyc
Ms Johnstone there are quite a few people hoping that Mr. Bloomberg so divides the democratic party that it falls apart. It would be real nice if ordinary working people in these United States had some political representation for a change.
E.P.Thompson coined a term: tautocracy , derived from tautology.
The example social historian E.P.Thompson gave came from 20th-century commercial culture: the public is so inundated with the values, ideas and views of corporate/commercial culture that “scientific” polls usually “discover” the public holds these exact same values, views and ideas.
With plutocrat Bloomberg directly controlling narrative curators who have exclusive reach into the public commons of the public mind, the circularity and injustice of such a system becomes clearly visible to more and more people.
Just when one could be forgiven for thinking (naively) that despite all of its many flaws and depth of corruption, the US electoral system couldn’t be ‘bought’ by vast sums of money being spent by a candidate – along comes Mr Money himself, Bloomberg, and buys it. As if we needed it, it is further proof of how f….d the so-called democratic systems really are. And the hordes of susceptible people fall for it – every time.
As you rightly point out it is brazen, out there for everyone to see that if you throw lots of money at it, you’ll get results. Bloomberg is about to turn US elections into an auction – the highest bidder wins.
It will be interesting to see the effect it will have on Trump, whether he will start throwing millions into advertising, particularly if he thinks that Bloomberg might get the Democratic nomination.
It used to be that the plutocracy was more than happy to run things behind the scenes but now it seems it is more interested in establishing a U.S. Royalty Class right out in the open and the “evermores” of Congress have led the way towards a working system of “non-justice”. Is it simply that the egos of some who apparently have altogether too much time and money on their hands have taken over their sanity completely? Is it time for pitchforks and torches to storm the castle(s) perhaps? Ban all the guns and big gulp soda pops because nothing is worse than being overthrown by overweight rednecks with shotguns!
Bernie should go Trump one better when it comes to the universally despised MSM. Instead of merely trash-talking the handful of corporations that control American news and other entertainment, calling them fake news, Bernie should go Trump one better and announce his intention to break up the handful of media monopolies in the same manner and for the same reasons he would break up monopolies in other areas like Wall Street banks, big pharma, big ag, the petrochem industry, major MIC contractors, etc. Then, as the MSM became even more outrageous and relentless in attacking him (as they will), those attacks would be seen merely as institutional self-interest and would boomerang right back at the bastards, giving Bernie one hell of a boost at their expense.
If people didn’t watch the boob tube , Bloomberg would not have a chance. I haven’t watched it in 50 years, since the lies about the U.S. invasion of Vietnam .
Excellent article, should be school text for showing the mechanics of manipulation!
Marie Antionette was rich and influential, until her victims gave her a sharp rebuke.
Many dissidents know that the democratic process and political system are part of mass brain-washing and population control. Agents of the “establishment” have an easy task using BIG Money to misinform and indoctrinate. Where is the plan for effective revolutionary action we need to clear the way for a brave new world? The strategy must end up eliminating sociopaths and the power of BIG Money or else we merely get back to the same old dirty tricks when one corrupt oligarchy is overthrown and replaced with another corrupt oligarchy. Effective revolutionary action requires activists to link up and synergize with other activists, then network with more teams of activists. Read more of this here: http://www.wisdompage.com/2013%20Articles/Molyneaux%20essay.pdf
Brain-washing and population control by communist governments, military dictatorships and theocracies are blatant. Indoctrination by democratic governments is more subtle, indirect, and thus more effective.
Wall Street Broker and native of Israel mythological abstract, living as an American with dual citizenry and all the traditional Jooish neo-con connections… a self made man??? Well, isn’t that a reason we should elect him?… History’s fringe of delusional ignorance is locked up in the narrative of the Alice in wonderland story… Henry Ford was to have said, “Why do I need a collage education when I can press a button and have someone appear before me with the information I need to run my business”… Why did he provide the commentary on the Jooish Question? Obviously he knew who the wall street boys were and the power behind the abstract world of business created by the protocols and the future we are now seeing. Now we will have a president, if elected, that is linked even more than the groomed and blackmailed Trump to do the bidding of Israel! …AKA…Narrative? Pandora’s box and the opening of more death incorporated via abstract government military genocide, USA driven cultural holocaust, and driving millions of refugees into the democratic liberal tick of socialistic desperation and a cumulative fusion of government power to keep the system of death and control of the masses in line with the NWO neocons… heaven help that narrative!
“Nobody would ever knowingly consent to being kept poor and busy…”
This way you do not have any time left to think a little… you are on a survival mood and this is what they want…
A good article about Mr Assange:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/19/assa-f19.html
Days of Noah all over again; I pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus, which return is now very near, because I have seen more than enough bs.
Unfortunately, Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Buttiguaido do not seem like real human beings to me.
Rhodes Scholar. Afghan vet. Mayor. An impressive resume, to be sure, but to have made the fantastic leap from local politics to the doorstep of the Oval Office – at the age of just 38 – seems altogether impossible without some serious behind-the-scenes connections. This fine article is here:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/02/19/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-pete-buttigieg-but-were-too-afraid-to-ask/
Lets see, that’s $478 million in reported spending. Not to mention payments to the fake influencers for fake memes and of course any money going into the huge dark money funds in American politics. But, we’ll use the $478,000,000.00 figure.
That’s $478 million to get an 11 pt rise among half the voting population. So, that’s about $43.34 million per percentage point rise. Lets assume he needs to get to 40% to get the nomination. And no, with superdelegates and for-sale delegates from other pro-oligarch candidates, he does not need 50% like one would think it a real democracy. So, Wall Street Mike needs another 25% of the Dem useful idiots. At the going rate, that is another $1,086,363,636.36 to get the nomination. And note the assumption that the going rate continues is highly likely to underestimate that number as Wall Street Mike has probably picked up the easy pickings in his rise to 15%.
My opinion is that the Dem nominee beats Trump almost no matter who he or she is, as long as they aren’t as hated as Hillary was, and even Wall Street Mike doesn’t reach those sorts of numbers of total disgust among Americans. But, Trump has a big war chest, and if Wall Street Mike is buying the Presidency, he’ll probably have to match Trump’s fascist supporters in spending. So, lets say another $500 million in the general election, perhaps more.
That all adds up to Wall Street Mike needed to spend at least another $1.5 billion to buy the Presidency, on top of the $0.5 billion he’s already spent to get this far.
——————–
I don’t suppose this is a big shock. Billionaires often got that way by bypassing the middlewomen. Its more cost effective. Thus I suppose it was always inevitable that the Hillary-Goldman Sachs alliance to buy the Presidency would someday become obsolete as the oligarchs decide they don’t need to buy political hacks for expensive prices when they can just do it themselves.
Caitlin, even tho I’ve loved your writings for several years and forwarded many of them to friends, I think your hatred of the Uber-wealthy May be leading you astray here.
Bloomberg was a hard-working, smart Boston middle-class Jewish kid, Eagle Scout, ambitious Harvard graduate who put in his time on Wall Street and came up with a brilliant idea for a terminal which financial institutions needed and were willing to pay big bucks for.
He was already a NYC billionaire when he chose to put up with the inevitable crap that he would get, running for NYC Mayor.
He won, and inherited a serious crime problem which he took drastic (stop n frisk) steps to solve.
This anti-crime program was successful in saving hundreds of black & brown lives, a point overlooked by those who are justifiably critical of the overzealous, sometimes racist behavior of the police force.
Politifact concluded:
“Bloomberg said, “No other city in America did what we did. We reduced murders by 50%, reduced police shootings to historic lows, reduced the number of people incarcerated by nearly 40%.”
He’s generally on target, as each of the three statistical claims are backed by the numbers…
For a statement that is accurate but needs clarification, our rating is Mostly True.“
He’s not perfect, and has said some crass things like all of us. But Mike’s brilliant and (unlike most of the other candidates) can beat Trump !
This comment paid for by the Wall Street Mike for President campaign. Wall Street Mike endorses this message.
Not necessarily. A lot of people suck up to the uberrich simply and purely _because_ they’re uberrich. They may be poor or middle-class, but they like to identify themselves with people like Bloomberg, and they don’t need to be paid; they’ll get down on their knees for free. It’s a different kind of authoritarianism than the overtly thuggy kind represented by people like Trump and Giuliani, but it’s the same general idea. However, I think this portion of the population fortunately tops out at about 30% and I think that’s where Bloomie is going to top out. Considering the baggage he carries, he may not even do that well. He will also pull down the authoritarian suck-ups now following Biden, Buttigieg, etc., and this could actually benefit Sanders.
Money is power and power corrupts.
Nope, Dollar Bill, my above comment is just from a middle-class WASP who believes that Bloomberg may be the best chance to oust Trump.
However, “Believed” may be a more accurate verb because I just watched the first debate, and Mike didn’t do as well as I hoped. I fear it’s another worst case scenario where the Dems chop each other up, and “brand T”wins a second term. Very depressing.
Thank you. It is unimaginable to me for my child to be stopped and frisked on the way to elementary, middle, or high school, and this is what Bloomberg pushed for. The guy is a total sleaze and who cares about him beating Trump. As Caitlin describes our Fourth of July, you can trade one oligarch for another oligarch — hurrah.
It would be unimaginable to me also …. unless the option was my child getting shot on the way to school.
Stop and frisk was actually first implemented in NYC under Rudy Giuliani and his police chief, Bill Bratton. Bloomberg just continued with the policy.
It is so sad when someone who has all the power (read fear) their money can buy, thinks that they can purchase anything, including love, loyalty and respect. If only Bloomers was smart enough to just get a puppy and let the pooch train him.
If you didn’t get paid for this, you should be. If you did, Mike resold your soul to the Devil at three magnitudes markup already.
Oopsie wrong column! This one’s @ Bob D.
In other news, McClatchy newspapers, one of the few American outlets who sometimes, occasionally gave a different point of view, is now being acquired by a Wall St. Hedge fund. Another one bites the dust. Another one bites the dust. And another one’s gone and another one’s gone. Another one bites the dust.
In another bit of related news, newspaper readership and purchases of TV packages (cable/sat) continue to fall as people see less and less value in paying for propaganda.
The ability to buy your way into power is not proof that people like what you do — for Bloomberg or for Trump. As Arwa Mahdavi writes in The Guardian, “If these two billionaires end up battling it out for the presidency, I am not sure it matters who wins in November. Democracy will have lost.” This article is here:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/progressives-will-stay-home-for-michael-bloomberg/
Democracy is lost anytime anyone reads The Guardian.
Democracy was lost when money got involved
This will be the end result of any government, regardless what form it takes to begin with. Being the perfect environment for sociopaths it soon will become saturated with them, as they all are now. Sociopaths comprise the most successful manipulators in the world. Its a symptom of the disease. Bloomberg, on the other hand is a psychopath, and isn’t especially shy about demonstrating it. I think his sole purpose is to so disrupt the primary/caucuses that a brokered convention results, in which case the DNC can impose whatever candidate they wish on the party. Hillary’s name has been insinuated as Bloomberg’s “running mate”. This male bovine fecal matter is why I don’t vote. “If you don’t vote, don’t bitch” is easily countered by “if you vote for someone, you are responsible for their actions”. There is no such thing as good government, never has been, never will be. We can govern ourselves, or be governed by monsters. Gang rape is democracy in action. Keep the KY close by.
If you don’t vote, then you are just saying that you want to let the oligarchs decide. Not voting is a choice just like voting. Those who don’t vote are indeed responsible for the actions of those who obtain the office.
And of course, as Sanders poll numbers rise, the number of people saying “Please don’t vote” continues to increase.
Vote with your feet by building alternative independent communities which barter instead of using blood-stained money.
So, here’s the legerdemain. The closed question of elections is, by whom do you want to be governed?
Umm, waitaminute, do I want to be governed in the first place? Did I consent to be governed?
Aw yeah that’s right, I voted.
The oligarchs already decide. Given a choice between this or that sociopath is not a choice. I applaud Bloomberg getting in the game, and I hope he wins the nomination. It will perfectly demonstrate to the population what exactly is running their government.
That’s my theory, too. Otherwise, Bloomie as a candidate just doesn’t make sense. He’s unelectable in the general and probably can’t even win the primary. But I have long suspected that the DNC wants a brokered convention so that they can wheel out Hellary again–or maybe Michelle Obama.
“Giants: Who Really Rules the World”
Abby Martin, of Empire Files interviews Peter Phillips, author of “Giants” on the ruling monarch/monopolists who rule Earth by demonic possession.
https://youtu.be/ZUGh1Su7-ok
Mini Mike must be out of his “meme” if he thinks money will buy working-class love. One of Mike’s memes asserts: “He’s like kale salad: tough and tasteless but ultimately good for you.” Well, the 750,000 blacks and Latinos thrown against the wall by NYC police, must think kale is not only tasteless, but poisonous. The innocent Muslims surveilled and entrapped while worshipping at mosques must vomit at the thought of consuming just a spoon of mini Mike’s kale. The elderly listening to Bloomberg cavalierly say Social Security and Medicare should be cut are gagging– making Mike’s tasteless salad concoction impossible to digest. The victimized workers earning minimum wage shudder at mini Mikes antagonism towards increasing their hourly pay which doesn’t even provide for a cabbage patch dwelling. These folks also find Mikes kale much too vile to consume.
Bloomberg who cares too much for money will soon find out that money can’t buy him love. It will buy him sycophancy from the usual obsequious bourgeois black sellout pastors and politicians who aren’t even wanted in their own communities. It will buy him votes from the upper-middle class who are doing just fine with Trump, but might be looking for a new billionaire to support.
The Bloomberg veneer is tissue paper thin and requires just the strength of a pinky to pull it back without breaking a well-manicured fingernail. Female staffers have been the target of mini Mikes verbal assaults for decades. Bloomberg described the computer system that built is $68 billion fortune “as do everything, including giving you a blowjob. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.” Witty Bloomberg has a number of elegant dictums to inspire his sales staff. He compared “a good salesperson” to “the guy who goes into a bar, and walks up to every gorgeous girl there, and says, ‘Do you want to fuck?’ He gets turned down a lot – but he gets fucked a lot, too!”
Might mini Mike is going to learn that minorities, the marginalized, the working-poor, and women are sick and tired of being fucked by repulsive sociopathic billionaires.
Plus he loses the growing vegan vote, because we know how good kale salad is when it’s done right.
(Personally, I like mine extra Green. . . .)
Bloomberg has probably calculated that even if he is only buying a brokered convention and not an office, that is enough to make his investment worthwhile. It will maintain the status quo of $15 trillion in tax breaks for the uber rich since 2000.
The DNC proclaimed in 2016 that they have no legal obligation to play fair. While we have known this for years, now we have it in legalese, but we may have to suffer through another citizen-abuse re-run, this time in slow motion as farce, before a party that represents everyday people is founded.
Evolving Consciousness leading to wider awareness IS our soul tool to combat this type of nonsense. I am astounded by the thoughtful people taken in by this type of narrative manipulation. Micro to Macro, I see it all over from the day to day personal events I encounter to the world-wide stage. Thank you for pointing it out so well.
As always your clarity of thought and your amazing ability to express yourself in ways that can’t be misunderstood even by the dimmest of minds, is a rare gift indeed. It took me nearly a lifetime to arrive at the conclusion I’ve been manipulated to bits by not only those who control the official narrative, but by people in my immediate surroundings, family, friends, colleagues and partners. Yet I always felt that something in my life was fundamentally wrong – something that prevented me from fully knowing my own mind and expressing my true feelings. I became an artist and an academic perhaps to gain some kind of insight, a deeper understanding why the world has become such a horrible mess, but it wasn’t until the event of the internet and access to all sorts of independent media and thinkers like you, Caitlin, that the fog truly began to lift from my mind. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Another piece to be shared widely. Thank you, Caitlin.
History says it’s time for us to do that “RESET” thing again.
Mikey won’t do it.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/02/experiences-transform-society.html
Smoking Gun? Chinese Scientist Finds “Killer Coronavirus Probably Originated From A Laboratory In Wuhan”
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/smoking-gun-chinese-scientist-finds-killer-coronavirus-probably-originated-laboratory-wuhan
Marjorie sent me a link to BMJ, British Medical Journal, which is continuously updated. The viral outcomes outside of Wuhan are much, much milder in the tested population. Personally, I think this is due to only testing the sickest people in Wuhan, and testing broadly in the rest of China. It could also be that the virus is mutating to a less fatal form, which viruses often do. It improves their success to kill fewer hosts.
Conclusion As of early February 2020, compared with patients initially infected with SARS-Cov-2 in Wuhan, the symptoms of patients in Zhejiang province are relatively mild.
https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m606
You are what an awake person truly is without which you could not have written this article.Thank you and keep spreading the light.
Excellent article.