America deserves better than Mike Bloomberg

Once again, billionaire Mike Bloomberg has revealed himself to be astoundingly out of touch when it comes to his bid to become the next president of the United States.

The latest highly questionable decision from his campaign came Monday, when whoever runs the @Mike2020 Twitter account decided to document vandalism done to its campaign offices across the country in recent weeks by sharing photos of the damage along with the caption "America deserves better" in a Twitter thread. One example showed the words "Corporate Pig" spray-painted on the campaign's Ann Arbor office. Another showed a sign saying "Eat the Rich" taped over a window of the campaign's Flint office.


It's baffling that the Bloomberg campaign decided the best way to deal with this rash of vandalism would be by drawing attention to and echoing the message of the anti-Bloomberg vandals. It also appears to highlight just how unlikeable Bloomberg is across the country.

Even more astounding is that the campaign is attempting to portray Bloomberg, the world's ninth wealthiest person at an estimated $62 billion, as a victim. This is not a winning message in 2020, where issues of income inequality and taxing the rich have become central themes in the debates on the left.

As plenty on Twitter pointed out, it's painful to watch the Bloomberg campaign cry about someone taping a sign over its Flint office windows when Bloomberg, a former Republican, donated $3 million to Gov. Rick Snyder's re-election campaign — the most he donated to any candidate that year. Snyder, of course, was at the helm when state-appointed emergency managers made the disastrous decision to change Flint's water supply, poising the city with lead.


It just goes to show how terrible Bloomberg is at this. A tally so far: Bloomberg tried to get The New York Times to alter its endorsement schedule because "he did not yet have positions on enough issues." (They moved on without him, though at least one member of the endorsement board still voted for the paper to endorse him.) Earlier this month, Bloomberg paid for popular social media influencers like @fuckjerry and @GrapeJuiceBoys to post bizarre, post-postmodern memes portraying Bloomberg as the desperately unhip, out of touch oligarch he is.

Then the Bloomberg campaign put out a press release (headline: "Bernie’s New Bro… Donald Trump") calling out the "repeated attacks by Bernie Sanders, his spokespeople and supporters" and equating it to the hateful rhetoric of President Trump. Those attacks? Calling Bloomberg a "racist" and an "oligarch." (Bloomberg's reign as Mayor of New York City has been criticized for its stop-and-frisk policies, which federal courts have declared to be discriminatory.) And those Bernie Bros.? Two of the three of them were Black women.

The cherry on the sundae was when Bloomberg, after weeks of hiding behind weeks' worth of polished TV ads as part of an unprecedented campaign, finally leapfrogged into his first appearance on the debate stage in Las Vegas last week... where he got utterly savaged by his Democratic opponents, who are all way better at this than he is — like a modern-day gladiator match.


America deserves better than Mike Bloomberg.

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