Bloomberg

Reconciled

The Moral Problem with Bloomberg’s Campaign

A few days ago, I made the following comment on Facebook. Bloomberg is single-handedly making me more sympathetic to campaign finance reform. The way he’s gaining support strikes me as dangerous and unfair. The thing about the other billionaires trying to get people in office is that they’re bad at it overall. But maybe some people can be very, very good at it. With luck, Bloomberg collapses after the first debate, but if not, I hope Bernie and Warren go after him hard and don’t stop. My politics are further from Bernie than Bloomberg. But for some reason, I’m rooting for the socialist over the paternalist plutocrat. I’ve been thinking over the weekend why the Bloomberg campaign bothers me so much. I’d like to try to put my finger on the reason. The simplest answer is that Bloomberg is massively violating a fundamental principle of democracy: that people who equal opportunity to contribute to political outcomes, even if that opportunity is miniscule. Bloomberg’s campaign is unfair because Bloomberg’s level of influence vastly exceeds equality. It may be the grossest violation of a kind of principle of politically equal opportunity that we’ve witnessed in modern times. But I’m less worried about equal influence if I feel like support for a candidate at least has some large source of sincere public support. There’s a problem there too, since people often like candidates for terrible reasons. But at least there’s a democratic element: the candidate has real support. Bloomberg seems to be doing something different, something that is in a way less authentic and more manipulative. He’s not really trying to link with voters and build support through shared values. He’s treating people more instrumentally, using money to purchase support, which will probably mean more superficial support. Many people will buy into his campaign because they’re convinced he can beat Trump, and even intimidate him, but nobody really likes Bloomberg, and his candidacy is, accordingly, inauthentic in a way that bothers me. But here’s the deepest issue. There’s something about Bloomberg’s attitude towards ordinary people that is authoritarian. It’s not so much that he has authoritarian policies (though boy does he!), but that he’s an authoritarian and paternalist at heart, and so he doesn’t actually mind using people, treating them like mere votes and not like human beings, and doing so in such a flagrant fashion. Say what you will about Bernie, but he’s not doing that. He’s got a ton of deep support, he’s authentic, and he cares about his voters. Again, I’m no socialist, but I find Bernie’s campaign far more honorable, and far more respectful of his supporters. So that’s why I don’t like Bloomberg’s campaign. It shows a unique kind of disdain for ordinary people. I’m sure he cares about people’s well-being, but not because he cares about most people and sees himself as their equal. They’re really more like, well, value receptacles. They’re just objects to be captured and filled with good things. That’s why I find his campaign dishonorable. Blomberg’s campaign manifests his failure to see others as worthy of equal respect, rather than as patients to be treated and manipulated, moreso than many other candidates.      

Reconciled

Why Did Bloomberg Bomb?

So, as everyone agrees, Mike Bloomberg bombed in his first debate appearance last night, wholly eviscerated by Elizabeth Warren. The worst moment for him of the night was when Warren asked him to release the women he had non-disclosure agreements with. Bloomberg had no answer at all. This is a bit odd. Bloomberg seems to genuinely, deeply want Trump out of the White House, and he presumably thinks he’s the best person for the job. He has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to win enough delegates to become the nominee. So why not drop a few million on debate prep? He could hire the best TV prep people in the world, and he could hire all kinds of people to try and anticipate the most obvious attacks from his opponents. Maybe Bloomberg did a bunch of debate prep, but it doesn’t seem so. So, then, what happened? Here are a few guesses, none of which are mutually exclusive. (1) Sheer Arrogance: Bloomberg believes he’s just so much better than the other candidates in lots of ways that he didn’t think he needed debate prep. He’d just think on his feet, muddle through, and then keep focusing on Super Tuesday. He underestimated the ferocity of his opponents’ attacks and overestimated his ability to respond perhaps because he simply couldn’t imagine anyone cutting him down to size. (2) Indifference to Debates: Bloomberg knows he has to debate, but doesn’t think debates matter all that much at this point in the primary process because not that many people are tuning in. Perhaps he has research suggesting that the debates don’t matter, and so he didn’t prepare enough as a result. (3) Personality Barriers: Bloomberg’s personality is such that debate prep wouldn’t do him much good. He’s not charismatic, he’s brash and arrogant, and he’s mostly set in his ways (he is 78, after all). So he anticipated that debate prep would be a lot of irritating and painstaking work for little benefit. (4) Not Fully Committed: deep down, Bloomberg really just wants Trump gone and isn’t sure he wants to be president for reasons we don’t know. He’s happy to spend millions attacking Trump, but some part of him would rather just help the Democrats in general. At 78, and with $60 billion in the bank, maybe he doesn’t relish the thought of being the most politically powerful man in the world. Even given these explanations, I’m still stunned he didn’t try at least a little harder.

KEVIN VALLIER

KEVIN VALLIER

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