Bloomberg Flunks the Wokeness Test

[Amimnoch]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/bloomberg-flunks-wokeness-test-it-doesnt-matter/606634/

Stop-and-frisk was awful. But to disqualify the former New York mayor from the presidency on that basis is to risk something more destructive: a second term for Trump.

Yet black America needs Bloomberg neither to have had a perfect past on race nor to “get it” 100 percent today—and neither does the rest of America. What black Americans want by overwhelming margins is for a moral and intelligent candidate to replace Donald Trump, and fetishizing wokeness above all other concerns may be antithetical to that paramount goal.

Bloomberg, a billionaire who was first elected mayor in 2001 and served for a dozen years, arguably has a better chance of ousting Trump than does Bernie Sanders, a growly 78-year-old man of socialist label who recently had a heart attack. If only because of his bankroll, Bloomberg could easily outshine Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar as well. What rationality could there be in allowing grievances over stop-and-frisk to ease Trump’s quest for a second term? Who is afraid, for example, that Bloomberg would try to reimpose unduly punitive policies like that on black people now?

Bottom line:

Bernie is systematically attacking all the candidates that dare to challenge his manifest destiny, Trump not so much.

Other candidates have gone defensive and counterattacking Bernie's people, diverting them from the real focus.. Trump.

Bloomberg is ignoring all this bullshit and unloading in Trump in the very way that Trump needs to be attacked.

I welcome all to stop the attacks on each other, and go after the common and major threat.

Bloomberg 2020

OR

ANY Democratic Party candidate BUT Bernie 2020.

[Kaleva]

1. I support Bloomberg 'casue I think he has the best chance and the means to defeat Trump

As for Sanders, I'll vote for him in the fall if he is our nominee.

[Talitha]

6. "As for Sanders, I'll vote for him in the fall if he is our nominee."

Me too.

But I'll literally plug my nose while doing it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. I like John McWhorter's writing.

[rzemanfl]

3. K&R. n/t

[left-of-center2012]

4. Bloomberg attacks Trump

Everyone else attacks Bloomberg.

Makes no sense to me.

[PatSeg]

43. He has a bad track record

His attacks on Trump don't change his history with minorities and women.

[jimfields33]

44. They want to win

Bloomberg should get vetted like the rest. I hope every candidate goes after Bloomberg the entire debate. Why should he get the nomination over every other one whose a million times better then Bloomberg.

[phleshdef]

5. "I think we disproportionately stop whites too much, and minorities too little"

It has nothing to do with "wokeness". It has to do with not being flat out racist. A line has to be drawn somewhere and Bloomberg crosses that line for me. You can turn a blind eye and mock it as "wokeness" all you want. At the end of the day, Bloomberg actively pursued some of the most evil policies against young black men that this country has seen since Jim Crow.

[Amimnoch]

10. Crime bill 1994. Very similar results, but on a national level from both Biden and Bernie.

Bloomberg has admitted fault and it being wrong.

It's easy to cherry pick things on anyone who has a long established history in American Politics.

Personally I give Biden and Bernie a pass on the Crime bill. Was more than happy to support Biden for a good part of this campaign season.

Stop and Frisk, the 1994 crime bill.. all small potatoes when you compare it to children in fucking cages right now on our border living in almost gulag conditions by some accounts.. some even dying while incarcerated for the horrendous crime of fleeing persecution and extremely inhumane conditions.

So, you can keep flinging attacks on one of our candidates, or join us in focusing on Trump. Choice is yours.

Until the rest of you, and the rest of the field of candidates comes around.. stops the attacks on each other.. and focuses in on attacking Tramp, like Mike Bloomberg is doing.. Bloomberg is the candidate for me.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. A majority of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for the 1994 Crime Bill.

[phleshdef]

22. Massive false equivalency. Bloomberg specifically said black people should be targeted by policy.

Flimsy "What about-ism" will never change that.

And you don't GET to tell me what my choices are.

Act like god damn 21st century Democrats people.

[Amimnoch]

25. deary.

you really should learn the difference between an equivalency and a simple illustration that all candidates have issues that can be cherry picked. But feel free to be comforted in your outrage.

You don't want a "what about-ism" then don't cast stones form a glass house.

If I don't "GET" to lay out choices, you sure as hell don't GET to tell me how to act.

Gooday.

[Bendim]

39. Winning without morals isn't really winning

We just spent 3+ years as individuals and as a party standing up to Trump for his racism and sexism and authoritarianism,

How can we ever be credible again with our arguments if we brush aside Bloomberg’s history just because he has 60 billion dollars.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

18. So true based on Democratic principles youd think we all share;its not even arguable yet here we are

Oh, the irony!!


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[DanTex]

7. Not surprising that a conservative who supported George W Bush would support Bloomberg.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. HMMM

7. Not surprising that a conservative who supported George W Bush would support Bloomberg.

McWhorter characterizes himself as "a cranky liberal Democrat". In support of this description, he states that while he "disagree[s] sustainedly with many of the tenets of the Civil Rights orthodoxy," he also "supports Barack Obama, reviles the War on Drugs, supports gay marriage, never voted for George Bush and writes of Black English as coherent speech". McWhorter additionally notes that the conservative Manhattan Institute, for which he worked, "has always been hospitable to Democrats".[12] McWhorter has criticized left-wing and activist educators in particular, such as Paulo Freire and Jonathan Kozol.[13] He believes that affirmative action should be based on class rather than race.[14] Political theorist Mark Satin identifies McWhorter as a radical centrist thinker.[15]

McWhorter is an atheist.[16]

Sounds like an interesting man.

[Kaleva]

9. Thanks! I was putting together a reply saying the same thing.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

11. I've seen him on tv many times.

McWhorter has some heterodox views but he's decidedly not a right winger.

[BeckyDem]

12. Yea, real interesting.

McWhorter considers that anti-racism has become as harmful a force in the United States as racism itself.[17][

18] According to him, what is holding blacks back is "black attitudes" rather than white racism.[19]

Your link.

[DanTex]

14. Hmm...

As an African-American, I was raised in a tradition in which voting Republican was simply not done, and in my mature life I have—traditionally—voted Democratic or Independent. Yet this year, I am coming to realize that the George W. Bush administration is the most promising for black advancement in 35 years. Not since the Johnson administration has there been more concrete movement to free African-Americans from their status as the country's problem race—and the lessons we've learned from LBJ's failures mean that this administration will avoid the pitfalls of the War on Poverty's hand-out philosophy. Who would have thought that a Republican administration would give such promise of reaching the long-sought goal of turning things around for black America?

Predictably, leftist black pundits who claim to represent the black view in America won't grasp the import of this moment. Brent Staples of the New York Times informs us that "black Americans' distrust of this administration is running extraordinarily high." Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, histrionically comparing the irregularities in the Florida vote count to the evils of Selma, urge black Americans to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Bush administration. Yet these are calls to distrust and resist a golden opportunity for black America.

...

In contrast, what would have happened for blacks if Gore had won? A Gore administration, regarding welfare reform as a necessary evil, would have dragged its feet over every detail. Through court appointments and executive orders, it would have resisted the nation's growing dissatisfaction with affirmative action. Gore might have paid lip service to the rebuilding of inner cities by encouraging white businesses to move into them, but he would have strongly supported the resistance of black victicrats such as New York's Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel to the idea of "whitey moving in on our communities." Gore gave no sign of offering anything as concrete as the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to encourage these communities to rebuild themselves without relying on Starbucks and Burger King.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-blacks-should-give-bush-chance-12026.html

[DemocratSinceBirth]

16. Primary Source

I in fact had no idea what Beck was saying about Piven last March. Contrary to what one might suppose of a “conservative movement water-carrier,” I do not follow the man, for the reason that I am a cranky liberal Democrat. Sleeper’s sense of me is clearly based on not having engaged a word I have written since Losing the Race, given that he is obviously bright enough to process that someone who supports Barack Obama, reviles the War on Drugs, supports gay marriage, never voted for George Bush and writes of Black English as coherent speech would be rather infelicitously cast as a “conservative movement water-carrier.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/82122/frances-fox-piven-jim-sleeper-and-me

[DanTex]

20. LOL. He said George Bush is the best thing to happen to Black America in 35 years!

And that Gore would have been much worse. This is a guy who writes National Review columns. He pretends to be a "liberal Democrat" and then spends all his time attacking Democrats.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. I would draw the line if McWhorter said he was "nauseated by John Kennedy"

I would draw the line if McWhorter said he was "nauseated by John Kennedy" like one of our nominees.
Where do you draw it?

[DanTex]

26. Not sure what that has to do with McWhorter being a Bush-supporting conservative.

Which he obviously is. You can draw or not draw any lines you want. I just think people should know that the person who wrote this article is a right-winger who thinks that antiracism is a religion and that Bush was the best thing to happen to black America in 35 years and that voter ID laws are pragmatic rather than racist.

You have every right to think this is a person whose opinion should be taken seriously by Democrats. I respectfully disagree.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

28. How should we weigh the opinion of candidates who said they were "nauseated by John Kennedy" ?

[DanTex]

33. Oh, so it's a total change of subject. I see.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

35. I was merely pointing out the inadequacy of selective outrage

For the record the martyred Kennedy brothers, Muhammad Ali, and Dr. King were my heroes when I was a ninth grader at Deltona Junior High and they are still my heroes some forty eight years later. I take the mention that one of them makes one of our candidates "nauseated" personally. YMMV

[DanTex]

36. I'm not outraged, I'm just pointing out that McWhorter is a conservative, so it makes sense that

he would support Bloomberg.

This has nothing to do with what anyone said about Kennedy. This OP is about a pro-Bloomberg article written by a conservative. You can start another OP about the Kennedy thing if you want.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

37. He said he says he's not a conservative.

Do conservatives routinely support Barack Obama, revile the War on Drugs, support gay marriage, and write of Black English as coherent speech?

You can start another OP about the Kennedy thing if you want.

I don't attack other Democrats, especially martyred ones. That's why I have a pristine DU record:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=128959

[DanTex]

38. Right, that's part of his game. Write conservative articles for the National Review

and other such outlets about topics like how great George W Bush is and how voter ID laws aren't racist, and then say "but I'm not a conservative" to get the whole "even a liberal like me believes this right-wing stuff" angle.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

41. Write conservative...

Write conservative articles for the National Review ... how voter ID laws aren't racist

Without a doubt, Republicans’ studious interest in state-issued photo ID cards is a sham. It’s the elderly and minorities—brown ones, to be specific—who are least likely to have such identification, least likely to hear that they need it, and least likely to be able to obtain it quickly upon finding out. Evidence is unanimous that there has been no significant amount of voter fraud due to a lack of falsified ID. The Republicans’ interest in the whole issue, including ancillary proposals such as those in Florida that would discourage voter registration drives, is based on a cynical ploy to keep the black vote down.

https://newrepublic.com/article/98535/holder-voting-rights-id-sham

[DanTex]

45. Umm, did you read the next paragraph?

Like I said, I completely understand why a conservative who thinks Republicans pushing voter ID laws "aren't bigots" would support someone like Bloomberg.

That said, comparisons with the South’s naked suppression of the black vote before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are overstated. What the Republicans are doing now is brutally cynical, but doesn’t compare with efforts from that earlier era, when Southerners were motivated by a conviction that blacks were subhumans, “Nigras” best taken care of like chattel. Recall, for example, that from the 1930s on, after blacks’ allegiance started shifting to Democrats in the wake of FDR’s New Deal, these Southerners were suppressing votes that would have gone significantly to their own party.

Today’s Republicans pretending such a concern about voter ID are, by contrast, inspired purely by the prospect of short-term political gain. I’ve been acquainted with a couple of conservatives who think of these voter laws as a canny political gain. They aren’t bigots; it’s a matter of priority. They instinctively seize political advantage wherever they can get it: In 1990s, they were just as rabidly devoted to overthrowing Bill Clinton. For them, political philosophy and power trumps concern about black people’s feelings or fate. The logic is pretty simple: because blacks vote so overwhelmingly Democratic, suppressing black votes is a handy way to minimizing Democratic electoral gains. A computer would come up with that calculus in microseconds. A computer, after all, has no feelings—and when it comes to America’s racial fabric one might say the same about these Republican operatives.

Here he is making the same argument (and others, like calling antiracism a "religion" ) in the National Review.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2015/11/19/black-america-and-right/

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

19. Wait Dan, I thought Mayor Mike HIMSELF promoted Shrub for President...

or do I have that wrong?


Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[emmaverybo]

13. He defended the policy up until he decided to run. He also mounted a rogue counter-terrorism

operation against Muslims.

What couldn’t he do or fail to do as president? Under the guise of fighting crime, getting guns off the streets, protecting us against terrorist attack he can do quite a bit.

He also believes in government spying. He denied civil liberties to Republican convention protestors.

He has told and shown us who he is. Scary nationally. Scary globally. He fully embraced the Neo-Con agenda and George Bush.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

21. Yes, the timing seems a bit suspect.

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together & can't be bought!!
Jump on the Bernie Bandwagon & join the revolution!!

[I_UndergroundPanther]

15. That is biased..

Bloomberg 2020

OR

ANY Democratic Party candidate BUT Bernie 2020.

I don't want either of those choices.

I like Warren and Bernie. Because they are correct in thier observations regarding economic justice.

[tulipsandroses]

23. Who is afraid, for example, that Bloomberg would try to reimpose unduly punitive policies like that

I am. I have seen him flip flop on issues. Even if he is not enacting those policies, what is he willing to do dismantle policies that disenfranchise minorities and the poor? I mean he is newly reformed on these issues since he decided to run for president.
And again, its not just stop and frisk.

I may not agree with all the candidates on some of their issues, but I do not doubt for one second, that they ware willing to work their damndest for working class folks. I trust Biden, Bernie, Warren, Klobuchar, Pete in that regards wholeheartedly. I have no confidence in Bloomberg that he will not govern as he did in NY. Poor and working class folks did not fare well. What makes me think it would be different as president? These are institutional policies that are recent, not in the remote past. I am not so confident he will be a different president than he was mayor. Just cuz he's giving a lot of money and running ads to get under Trump's skin.

[Amimnoch]

29. I'm not. He wouldn't be getting the endorsements he's getting if that were so.

Endorsements like just these 3 that I can think of right off out of many who have already chosen to endorse:

My own Mayor, Sylvester Turner of Houston.. whom I was proud to have been an active member of his own recent campaign, and destroyed 2 sets of cheap walking shoes canvassing!


Representative Bobby Rush of IL. Civil rights activist of the 1960's, and co-founder of the IL chapter of the Black Panthers and member of the Congressional Black Caucus.


London Breed, Mayor of San Francisco. First black woman to become mayor of San Francisco. Self made from an impoverished childhood raised in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Fran:


Completely different areas of the country, and backgrounds. Many more endorsements that can be cited as well.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. That's impressive.

[aeromanKC]

47. +1000

[emmaverybo]

34. I believe he would because he has a bigoted world-view and he believes as he has said that to

protect society we might have to “change our laws or our interpretation of the constitution.” His
ideas are dangerous. He us able to get support for them because he buys it. He makes offers that even the leaders of the Americans he most harms can not refuse.

He will make deals with our enemies, domestically and abroad. His Neo-Con agenda will take us to
war.

He will change us for the worse while appearing to do good. That is how he operated in NYC. And by the way, his policies failed. So much for leading on crime and counter-terrorism.

Do not think he will stop Republicans, the power behind Trump. He will do what keeps him in power and allows his dangerous ideas to prevail. As he did in NYC, so he will do in the nation.

Can’t happen here? Can’t happen today? Lesser of two evils? We need him and we can control him?

Where have we seen this movie before?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

27. He spent $100 million helping to elect Dems in 2018!

[tulipsandroses]

32. At the same time he was bankrolling republicans and holding fundraisers for the likes of Peter King

He bankrolled republicans to gain control of the senate.

[MoonlitKnight]

31. He is running because he doesn't want Warren or Sanders- not because he wants to beat Trump

[link:https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/14/bloomberg-signals-he-would-run-for-president-if-biden-struggles-against-warren.html|

“Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York, has indicated to associates in recent weeks that Joe Biden’s recent struggles against Sen. Elizabeth Warren are making him rethink his decision to stay out of the 2020 Democratic primary. ”

“During his three terms as mayor, Bloomberg was a Republican and an independent. He registered as a Democrat again one month before the party’s triumph in the 2018 midterm congressional elections“

[Warpy]

40. If other candidates don't stop sniping at each other

they might very well end up handing Bloomberg the nomination.

Think about that, folks.

The only response to having someone take shots at you is, "Yeah, s/he says a lot of things, but this is what I plan to do if we can pull together and get that Orange Disaster out of power and keep him out forever."

The Orange Disaster, of course, will not get that kind of consideration, nor should he.

[aeromanKC]

42. Bloomberg

Bloomberg would also help the Dems win the tough Senate races in swing and Red States. In addition, he would be apt to be able to work across the aisle repairing our badly divided county. (I'm not talking about the 30% MAGAt's. There is no help for them)

[SCantiGOP]

46. He's not on the ballot in SC on Feb 29

But I know several people planning to write his name in.
Getting votes as write-ins gets attention.
He is definitely gaining momentum, and getting under Trump’s skin.