We Americans coined that phrase and we’ll use it any way we damn well please. So, if you don’t mind, hold my beer and watch while we teach you the meaning of clusterfuck.
And if that doesn’t work, I’ll buy you a pint and we can pontificate together about the intersection of billionaire wannabe politicians and tits on bulls.
ETA: I may as well just buy you that pint. UK politics really is a giant cluster of fucks.
(Based on meeting people in law school who had political aspirations and connections) For 20+ years I’ve held a belief that politicians, from both sides of the aisle, continue to seek higher and higher office because they need political cover to continue to get away with their crimes.
I’d long suspected that they had sexual drives that led them to do things that most people would consider out of the ordinary. Combined with unbelievable ambition.
More and more, though, I am beginning to believe that there really are a whole bunch of pedophiles at the top of the pyramid.
I dunno about all of them being pedos. But all of them being wired differently for ambition and adoration, yes. Even the ones who SEEM driven to serve, such as Bernie… There is another weird tweak in their psyche that drives them to the repetitive stumping and claps and jeers. It’s really weird, to me.
3b. You have neighbours who like to start major construction projects in the very off-season, and they’re not too clear about who owns what. (My wooden stakes with Krylon marker paint go in on the property line tomorrow, and they can keep their mini-Cat on the other side.)
and righteous dudes
Well, he’s got billions of dollars in assets. (Never mind the billions of dollars of debt…)
How about introducing preferential voting at the Electoral college?
Ok Millennial.
To be fair, if I would have been a republican all my life, I would have switched to democrat as well as soon as the Trumpistas really irreversibly took over my party.
Of course the writing has been on the wall for the Republican Party for the last 30ish years (Karl Rove, anybody?) so he is mighty late in realizing that, but better late than never, I’d say.
Well, this guy probably coined it. He’s 80, so is that one year too old to run? I’ve seen a lot of signs up for him.
How about omnishambles? I don’t think you can get more British than Malcolm Tucker (and with the current political situation here, aren’t we all Malcolm Tucker?)
Maybe he could choose de Blasio as his VP, and then we could have the dream “Bloomberg de Blasio 2020: New York Mayors Absolutely Nobody Fucking Wants for President” ticket. Or what if he reached across the aisle: “Bloomberg Giuliani 2020 The Worst of New York Collector’s Edition”.
Dare to dream.
My honest guess is that it hurts literally no one and that Bloomberg never tops 2% support; that Bloomberg is entering the race because entitled billionaires are surrounded by Toadies who tell them what they want to hear and what they want to hear is that they are great and beloved.
I’m less worried that Bloomberg becomes president and more just despondent at the state of the world.
Not that different from: Imagine having such a sense of entitlement that you were able to convince yourself that you were the best possible candidate for the Democratic Party nomination even though you spent almost the entirety of your life registered as an independent and still have not registerd as a member of the Democratic party.
I thought of Sanders when reading that, too, but there is a substantive difference that makes it difficult to draw anything but the most superficial equivalency of “non-Dem runs for President as Dem”. In relation to the Democrats, there’s a lot more distance between someone who supported the Cheney Regency as a registered Republican and someone who spent those same years (and many more besides) as an independent caucusing with the party on most issues.
There’s also the question of ideology that informs the supposed sense of entitlement. Sanders is running for the supposed duopoly party of the left because he’s trying to pull it away from the Third-Way neoliberal-lite establishment consensus and back toward its more progressive New Deal roots – he knows how third-party runs end up in the U.S. and doesn’t want to be viewed as Nader is. Bloomberg is running as a Dem because it’s the duopoly party opposing Il Douche, with ideology (preserving that Dem neoliberal-lite consensus) being a side goal.
If Bloomberg were more honest about his priorities (preserving his and other billionaires’ wealth), he’d challenge Biff for the GOP nomination and try to pull the party back to Rockefeller Republicanism – the William Weld route. But to be fair, he’s also realistic enough to know that the vandals and lunatics and bigots have entrenched themselves in the GOP and its base to a degree that he wouldn’t have a chance there. So an opportunistic run for the Dems it is instead.
Outcast misfit reject loser pervert lunatics! Gangsters, pranksters, and outlaws, yeah. Neurotic psychotic maniacs, brainiacs, hippies, yippies, yuppies, junkies, flunkies, monkeys, yeah.
Oh I agree, there is no real comparison when you look at policy. But I think that “Bernie is an outside carpetbagger,” idea is part of the explanation of why Warren is more popular with those with an investment in the Democratic Party than Sanders is.
Warren definitely has more cred with those who vote Dem as a matter of team sports or family tradition. Still, I’m sure the Third-Way party establishment dislikes her as much as it does Sanders (perhaps more, since she can’t be dismissed as a carpetbagger). I’m sure they prefer Bloomberg to Sanders, but the former’s entry blunts their “outsider” criticism of the latter.
The party establishment also knows that, when push comes to shove, Sanders will support Warren or vice-versa, meaning that the progressive push will have a long-time Dem behind it one way or the other.
