The WaPo, owned by the guy who persuaded Bloomie to run, has this on the front page:
Would you say that they are on the same path as as Spiked Magazine, which was left wing many years ago, but has become far-right/ayn-cap while keeping many of their old journalists and editorial staff?
I’m not sure. Counterpunch has been at this for decades now. They’re pretty consistent in portraying themselves as leftier-than-thou. I also doubt they’d take funding from the Kochs.
Bad as Bloomberg is, if for some bizarre reason he’d win the Democratic nomination (Prediction: he won’t, unless at least Sanders and Biden keel over dead; probably add Buttigieg and Warren to the list, too), I’d want everyone here to vote for him. Because even at his worst, Bloomberg is better than Trump at his best, and the impact of having a Democratic president in control of the executive branch is enormous.
While I absolutely agree with everything you said, that is a dark vision I chose not to consider too deeply. 
Well, it’s a very low-probability situation. Though since we are living in the Stupidest Timeline…
No. I’d say what they run is a very mixed bag. Like other sites, they got duped awhile back by a veiled Russian writer, but then owned up to it. A lot of the writers are consistently leftist in a good way, while for me, some is suspect in ways that @gracchus described. I’m obviously not onboard with dismissing the whole site outright.
Interesting take from folks I generally respect. Disagree with their assessment of Biden, though. Thinking that he would be most likely to be able to work with a Republican Senate is delightfully naive. If we don’t take the Senate, all we can hope for is to stop the bleeding.
I’m not convinced of that, because as we can see from his time in New York politics, Bloomberg isn’t incompetent. He knows how to work the system to get things done… like stop-and-frisk policing. And his actions seem to be far more aligned with Republican values than Democratic goals.
I’d rather see Bloomberg defeated in the primaries, so we don’t wind up with the non-choice between a rich, racist, sexist, classist Republican candidate and a rich, racist, sexist, classist candidate claiming to be a Democrat whose history reads like a Republican. Whoever wins there-- we lose.
More and more electability is coming to stand in for allowing the status quo to continue, which means the continued slow slide into authoritarianism. With Trump, that slide is just accelerating… with Bloomberg it will slow down, but be faster than under other candidates currently running.
I honestly don’t agree with that. If the nominee is Bloomberg, I think there’s a significant possibility that having a transfer of power nakedly and openly decided by a cage match between two authoritarian plutocrats, where the deciding factor was which one is richer, could do more harm to our much-vaunted republican traditions than Trump.
Best one could say in that case would be that Trump has openly and persistently pursued autocratic, fascist rule. Bloomberg might be just as bad, but we are not yet sure. Basically, choose between the guy who might shoot you in the head, and the guy who will definitely shoot you in the head. Yeah, let’s not go there.
The point was not so much the difference in what they would do (bloomberg be less autocratic, but would also be way more competent at being autocratic), but the damage that deciding a transfer of power that way would do.
Yeah. Terrible outcome- other than what we currently have. At least a Dem nominee of even that stripe won’t win without winning the popular vote.
In an electoral system that will require over $1 billion each, money is always going to be a factor. I suspect this one will set multiple records for spending, just because of the passions involved, before we consider the foriegn meddling money that will pour in. I would love to see public financing and end Citizens United, but that won’t happen any time soon.
At least a Dem nominee of even that stripe won’t win without winning the popular vote.
if bloomberg won the primary, i’d hope that someone out there ran as an independent. maybe even a sanders/warren ticket. sure maybe they’d lose -given that third parties never win - but it’d be an attempt worth having.
this isn’t a contest of two passionate sides. more like a contest between facism and democracy. if 45 does win this one, assume he’ll keep winning all the future ones as well.
it’s not about passion, it’s power
