Bloomberg is the Mechanism for Blacks to Vote Their Fears and Not Our Aspirations

BAR |  Bloomberg threw his hat and billions into the race when it became clear that corporate surrogates Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg could not be depended on to halt Bernie Sanders, the purported socialist who now leads the Democratic pack. Joe Biden’s aura of electability, which was always a media-invented mirage, evaporated when he collapsed into the basement in Iowa and New Hampshire. The Black voters of South Carolina are his only hope for resurrection. But Blacks don’t back Biden for ideological reasons, or even on the strength of his service as Barack Obama’s number two. Older (and scarier) African Americans were under the impression that Biden was the Democrat best equipped to beat Trump – but it turns out he can’t even beat previously unknown Democrats.

“Joe Biden’s aura of electability, which was always a media-invented mirage, evaporated when he collapsed into the basement in Iowa and New Hampshire.”

Some of those Black Biden supporters will now switch to Bloomberg, believing he is the one Democrat rich enough to drown Trump in November. Blacks don’t vote their own ideological preferences in Democratic primaries. Rather, many will support whomever they perceive as the strongest opponent against the White Man’s Party, the Republicans. That invariably means the Democrat favored by corporations and their media. Thus, the duopoly system effectively negates the core political aspirations of Black America, the most left-leaning constituency in the nation. The duopoly is a trap that neutralizes independent, progressive Black politics – a mechanism to force Blacks to vote their fears, rather than their aspirations.

However, as BAR senior columnist Margaret Kimberley points out in this issue, there are threats to Black lives and rights even worse than the flaming orange racist now squatting in the White House. As three-term mayor of New York City, Bloomberg increased the frequency of his predecessor Rudolph Giuliani’s stop-and-frisks by 700 percent . Although real estate magnate Donald Trump infamously called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, it was Mayor Bloomberg who for years delayed payment  of a $41 million settlement to the grievously wronged young Black men. And Bloomberg was the nation’s most aggressive, unrepentant ethnic cleanser, gleefully removing more Black and brown people from the city’s five boroughs than any of his predecessors. 

“The duopoly is a mechanism to force Blacks to vote their fears, rather than their aspirations.”