1. In practical terms, there really isn’t much point in discussing the impact Michael Bloomberg would have on the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination.
2. As Alternet’s @JoshuaHol said, the former New York mayor has been on the edge of running for president for years. Let’s save that energy for if and when he jumps in.
@JoshuaHol 3. But I think it’s worth discussing why the press corps has been talking about Bloomberg & his potential affect on the Dem field. It’s worth discussing how elites view him relative to how normal ppl view him. Not surprisingly, the elites are seeing something normal ppl are not.
@JoshuaHol 4. What are they seeing? A “centrist,” I suppose. Bloomberg is a Democrat who used to be a Republican. The founder of Bloomberg LP is a billionaire who’s fighting gun violence and wants government to take action on climate change.
@JoshuaHol 5. He’s cozy with Wall Street and shared its interests but he has a reputation for solutions-oriented politics. Given that, Bloomberg “could cause a seismic disruption,” according to the Times.
nytimes.com/2019/11/07/us/…
nytimes.com/2019/11/07/us/…
@JoshuaHol 6. This news broke Thursday. On Friday, the Times reported the results of a new poll finding that Democratic voters in key states want a “moderate” who is willing to “work with Republicans.” nytimes.com/2019/11/08/us/…
@JoshuaHol 7. The poll emerged just as the debate over Bloomberg was getting heated, giving some people ample reason for saying, “See, I told you so!”
@JoshuaHol 8. OK what’s going on? First, the press corps dislikes a stale narrative. Stale narratives are boring. Boredom is so painful that reporters will seek out ways of livening up the story. This is not necessarily a bad thing.
@JoshuaHol 9. What’s bad is reporters being dishonest about this tendency, meaning they deny it. Fact is, it’s November. The Democratic story has been stagnant for months. There are weeks to go before Iowa. The press corps has been jonesing for something new. Enter Bloomberg just in time.
@JoshuaHol 10. Second, Bloomberg represents a kind of mythical creature that’s wholly the product of the press corps’ imagination. This chimera just happens to see the world in exactly the same way as media executives do. (In Bloomberg’s case, this makes sense. He’s a media executive.)
@JoshuaHol 11. They don’t like “socialism” but they don’t like the Republican foray into fascism either. While the former prevents them from being as greedy as they want to be, the latter is bad for business.
@JoshuaHol 12. The great talent of the Times’ David Brooks is telling these people they are right about everything while not appearing to be entirely in the tank for them. Now imagine if Brooks got to pick a Democratic nominee. You got it.
@JoshuaHol 13. Third, and related to the second, a “centrist” candidate who sees the world in the same way as media executives do is someone who won’t derail the gravy train.
@JoshuaHol 14. To be sure, Trump has been good for CBS, as its former executive said, but for the most part, media companies would prefer that politics return to “normal.” “Normal” is one party being just as bad or good as the other, and nothing really matters.
@JoshuaHol 15. This anti-moral worldview looks for a never-ending supply of partisan conflict that can be packaged and repackaged, sold and resold, to an audience festering with outrage.
@JoshuaHol 16. With Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, executives might risk being forced to adapt to a changed political landscape. But with someone like Bloomberg, they wouldn’t have to.
@JoshuaHol 17. As I said, the press corps is seeing something in Bloomberg that normal people are not. How do I know? Consider the claim, totally unfounded, that Bloomberg poses “an instantaneous threat” to Joe Biden.
@JoshuaHol 18. I can’t believe that sentence was published. It overlooks why Biden remains a top three contender. As the former vice president to the first black president, he offers a conservative bet for African-American Democrats solely focused on victory.
@JoshuaHol 19. African-American Democrats are, moreover, the strongest base of power in the Democratic Party, which is another way of saying that whatever African-American Democrats tend to want African-American Democrats tend to get.
@JoshuaHol 21. As if on cue, Axios reports this morning that Bloomberg was probably testing the waters—again. His own internal polling shows “big, perhaps insurmountable hurdles, particularly if Joe Biden stays in.” axios.com/mike-bloomberg…
@JoshuaHol 22. Actual voters are interested in Biden and the other candidates already in the rise (some more than others). They are uninterested in a candidate whose real base of power is media executives out of touch with reality.
@JoshuaHol 23. This is the real bubble, friends. If you can please subscribe to my newsletter, the Editorial Board. And please do not unroll this thread. THANKS! stoehr.substack.com/p/bloombergs-t…
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