Good Morning Everybody!
I have a few things I hope to cover this morning so I’ll jump right in.
First, I have to give my thoughts on Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire New Yorker who just jumped into the presidential race claiming that he is going to challenge the billionaire New Yorker who is President of the United States.
I have so much beef with this man.
First and foremost, while he was Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg was the author and chief defender of one of the single most racist practices in the history of the city. It was called “Stop and Frisk.” And if you aren’t familiar with it, it was where over 1 million Black and Latino New Yorkers would be randomly stopped and searched every single year. Every single day, over 25,000 New Yorkers, who had not committed a crime, but were just Black or Brown, would be stopped, and inspected from head to toe, by the NYPD. It was humiliating, degrading, and relentless. Some people testified that they had been stopped and searched by the NYPD over 25 times. It made New York into something akin to an Apartheid State where white New Yorkers lived one type of existence and everybody else was constantly stopped, harassed, and searched by police.
When every single civil rights leader in the city told him it was racist, he not only defended it himself, but made city lawyers defend it in court for years, until finally the courts, not Michael Bloomberg, deemed the racist policy to be illegal. Almost monthly for the six years Bloomberg has been out of office, he has defended this racist policy, so the notion that this man, who was a Republican for most of his life, is now going to run for the Democratic nomination of a party where Black voters are the backbone, nah man. Not going to work.
Not only that, Bloomberg announced several deeply problematic things about his run.
He said he’s not even going to run in the first four states, including South Carolina where Black voters have so much say. Let me tell you why.
He’s polling at near 1% in those first 4 states. He knows that if he runs in those, and shows the nation how little those states believe in him, that he’ll be a flop right out of the gate. Instead, he is saying he’s going to start on Super Tuesday in March, thwarting the whole damn process.
He also announced that he is not going to accept donations, but instead is simply going to try to buy the presidency with his own money. He thought this seemed righteous, but it isn’t. Candidates are responsible to the people who fund them. So when everyday people fund campaigns, guess who they are responsible to? Everyday people. But since Michael Bloomberg is the only one funding his campaign, guess who he is responsible to? Himself.
He’s not going to do big events, mainly because nobody is going to show up. He’s just going to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into television ads, radio ads, and Internet ads. He’s literally trying to buy his way into the presidency.
I’ll close with this.
Michael Bloomberg has been close friends with Donald Trump for generations. They’ve been two peas in a pod for decades. Now that he’s running for President, he’s trying to claim otherwise, but they’ve always been friends. This notion that Bloomberg is somehow Trump’s arch enemy is laughable. No single candidate running for President has ever been better friends with Trump than Michael Bloomberg.
The man is as phony as a $3 bill. And it’s the height of arrogance and ego that this man, instead of funding campaigns to Flip The Senate, instead of pouring all of his time and resources into voter registration, instead has the vanity campaign for President.
I’ve gotta run, but I want to take a moment to wish all of our listeners a Happy Thanksgiving. And I want to tell you what has become a bit of a mantra for me.
Never make the people you love, your friends, your family, never make the people you love guess or assume how you feel about them. Tell them with your words. Show them with your actions. Make it plain for them. Make it so obvious that they never have to guess.
And just so you know, I love and appreciate each of our listeners so very much. Thank you all so much for you love and support across the years. It means the world to me. And thank you, of course, to the entire staff and crew of the Tom Joyner Morning Show. I love you all so much. We only have a few weeks left together, and I want you all to know that it has been one of the biggest honors of my life to spend these past few years with you.
I’ve gotta run! Happy holidays everybody.
Shaun King: Michael Bloomberg’s Presidential Run was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
