Bernie Can Beat Two Republican Choices
As you know, the DNC recently changed its debate entry rules to allow a candidate with very few individual donors, namely himself, Michael Bloomberg, to walk on the debate stage. Clearly, the agenda of the ruling class supersedes the needs of the majority. As of this writing, Bloomberg’s national approval rating has reached 19%.
A great friend of mine and I discuss the race almost daily. He’s convinced Bloomberg is the only one who can beat Trump. As a progressive who voted for Ralph Nader twice, I’m a Bernie Sanders supporter. While I don’t care what brand of crayons I’m using when I color pictures with my daughter, when it comes to politics, “any blue will do” is not a mantra I’ll live by.
Turn on any nominally liberal news show on cable (I actually listen to podcast versions of shows like Morning Joe) and the narrative is nearly indistinguishable: the voters above all else want a candidate who can beat Trump. I also wouldn’t be the first person to point out there’s an obvious anti-Bernie bias due to his platform that focuses on a Medicare-for-All system that would hit the brakes on the health care & big Pharma gravy train that cable news indulges on (relies upon makes the networks sound broke otherwise, and we all know they’re not canvassing for viewer contributions).
Below is a screenshot of the RealClearPolitics ABC News/Washington Post poll from February 19th which shows that Sanders is one of only 3 candidates in the race who could beat He Who Shall Not Be Named with a lead larger than the typical polling margin of error (granted, the Emerson poll shows Bernie with a mere 2 point lead):
“Get over it.” Those are the infamous words of Mick Mulvaney when questioned by a reporter who asserted that what he was describing, following the initial uproar over the president of the United States’ phone call with the president of Ukraine, was a quid pro quo. They are the also the words of my friend when I asked him if he too recognized just how absurd this idea is, that we need to accept our choices as two billionaires for president, and forget about having a party that actually represents working people with policies from the left.
Why not repeat what we already know? Mike Bloomberg continued the “stop and frisk” policy that targeted minorities for years. Beyond that, his comments about the policy that were recently leaked made him sound like a racist bigot, and like the poet Maya Angelou famously said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Are we really going to argue that the current White House resident should be replaced by another man who clearly has bigoted views, won’t address income inequality in any substantive way, and also has been accused of sexual harassment charges? The Democratic leadership and the donor class clearly wants to, but the rest of us don’t, even if many well-meaning regular people are buying the BS that Bloomberg is the only one who can beat the carnival barker.
