Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Black voters rallying to... Bloomberg?

I'm pretty surprised that Bloomberg is getting this much African American support. As I recall, he was loathed by the New York black community when he was mayor and he managed to win both terms with almost no African American support.

Maybe African Americans are pragmatic voters with a "keen sense of the limits to American democracy" as the article says. And yeah, Bloomberg would be much better for minorities than Trump (but wouldn't they all?) But I'm still surprised that the guy with that many bridges burned with the community could ever get their support, especially when there are still lot of alternatives.

On the other hand, I have a clear prejudice against people who try to buy the presidency. So maybe that is blinding me to his appeal? It is really frustrating to watch someone with a lot of things in his record that would otherwise be fatal to his presidential effort (like Bloomberg's long history of sexual harassment) just melt away because he is rich. The last thing we need is another president who believes that rich people should be allowed to do whatever they want.

ADDING: Will this make any difference? Probably not. We just don't do scandals like we used to.