Message of the day for Wednesday, February 19

Image via The Week

Not Bloomberg.

That's it. That's the TL, DR message. Read the article the image came from. It’s a good one. 

But it comes from a known Bernie guy, and people inside and outside of the Democratic Party like to write them off as people who will only vote for Bernie. I am not a known Bernie guy. 

My modus operandi in primary season is to encourage people to vote for whoever is still in the race that best reflects them. I don't push candidates and I don't shit on candidates. I vet candidates and I do that quietly. I might talk to a few friends about it, but that's it. I'm still doing that. 

So don't take this as me shitting on a democratic candidate for president. Because to start, Bloomberg is not a democrat.  He's a republican opportunist oligarch using his billions to kick up a massive shitstorm with his newly minted Democrat nametag to capitalize on vote blue no matter who. 

It turns out that who does matter. And it does not include Bloomberg. I will vote for any name opposite trump on the ballot in November aside from Bloomberg because I’m not a hypocrite. He is everything I hate about the current president but with a D behind his name. Pick literally anyone else from the field and I will vote for them, or a dog or a fart, but I will note vote for a man who worked hard to put black and brown people in cages in NY when I have fought hard against people who did it at the border. More republicans should have told their fellow republicans in 2016 that trump was a hard no in primary season. Loosen the hold on white supremacy. Do not sell your souls for this option.

Bloomberg encouraged and expanded stop-and-frisk (stops up 605% in his tenure as mayor of NYC) and protects racist systems. He grew the prison population. He launched a surveillance and profiling system targeting Muslims. He has 40 sexual harassment/discrimination lawsuits against him from women. He had a policy of finger printing food stamp applicants. He changed the rules and bought himself a third term as mayor of NYC, a two-term seat. He is against a living wage. He obliterated the affordable housing stock in NYC. He has pushed privatization of public education. 

He donated to Toomey and others to get them into and keep them in office. I know, I know, he was donating for Everytown to get them on board with gun violence prevention. We can debate the merits of groups and PACs endorsing and funding incumbents over people who actually reflect an organization's mission later, but understand that in 2016 Toomey won here in PA by a sliver and was never going to do a damn thing to move the needle on gun violence prevention. What exactly did Bloomberg think he was buying, a fucking miracle? Bloomberg knew exactly who he was funding and exactly how Toomey would vote during his time in office. Bloomberg's money has ensured GOP senators like Toomey get into and stay in office, which has allowed this president to do anything he wants with zero checks, stack the courts at all levels with conservatives, and for the GOP to give people like Bloomberg an enormous tax break. Hate Kavanaugh? Thank Bloomberg! You have Kavanaugh for life. Oh, Bloomberg gave a few bucks to democrats along the way after he ensured a GOP majority to rubber stamp the current administration ? Goody for him. 

Now he's spraying his money like spittle all across the country, saturating markets with his messages, allegedly as a democrat. 

And people are fucking buying it. People who I thought were progressive are fucking buying it. It's primary season, democrats. Vet your candidates. Do your research. Follow the money.  Google is your friend. If you vet Bloomberg, you'll find he ain't it.

We all know the perfect candidate does not exist. Everyone is flawed. We are human. So are they. Purity tests are hurtful, right? But Bloomberg, he ain't it. There's dealing with things you don't like in people and then there's selling your soul to the devil. This is the latter. Don't do it. I don't understand why people are pushing him when a field of candidates exists - every single one further to the left than him. 

If you hate trump and want him out at any cost, including the price of installing another racist, misogynist, classist man who is actually not a democrat and doesn't give a shit about the American people, then you are not seeing the systems that have brought us here or you see them and don't care and will sacrifice black and brown people, women, and the poor to put another person in office like the one who is in there now, just with better impulse control on twitter and with actual billions. You are not seeing that he is the tip of an iceberg of problems that we need to work to change. If you have ever railed against kids in cages, do not for one second consider voting for a man who worked hard to make sure black and brown kids got put into them. 

If white republicans had discussed white supremacy and misogyny among themselves in 2016 we might not have ended up with trump. There were other options. Are the conversations comfortable? No. Has the existence of black people in this country ever been comfortable? No. If we want actual change we need to address the systems, not only the man at the top of them. 

No matter what "side" you're on, you should not want a racist, classist, misogynist in the White House. 

Because Bloomberg is the other side of the same coin, he just has a D behind his name for now. Getting behind Bloomberg - especially during primary season - is a vote to uphold white supremacy and patriarchy and classism. Period. There is no ignoring that. And if we can’t beat trump without installing another racist, classist, misogynist, then we get what we deserve. Us white liberals will just have to suffer (in ways we consider suffering people like these) like we have long asked black and brown voters to suffer (who actually suffer in ways we will never truly understand due to real policies of people like these and those who support white supremacy over everything else).