Pony Up

Whatever else you wanna say about Mike Bloomberg, the guy's putting his money where his mouth is.

There's a good probability (in my little brain) that he's mostly hedging his bets. He's trying to short-circuit the kind of backlash that makes the pendulum swing wildly away from the nice well-ordered environment that plutocrats need to foster - the kind that still eats everybody who hasn't scrambled into the upper echelons, but eats them at a slower pace than what a guy like 45* is pushing for.

Bloomberg (et al) can't afford to let Trump push too many of us into Bernie's Revolution.

What I hear from Bloomberg is: "Yes, I'm a top-down authoritarian, but I'm pretty gosh darned benevolent about it."

Which is kinda weird, cuz that's what I used to complain about when I referred to the Dems in the 90s, when it first really started to look like the parties were losing their differentiating features.

"Vote for Democrats - we're slightly less asshole-ish than those other guys."

Anyway, it appears Mike is going to put some of that $60,000,000,000 to "good use".

WaPo, Greg Sargent:

It has long been an open question whether Mike Bloomberg would actually make good on his promise to spend lavishly from his fortune to defeat President Trump, should he fall short of the Democratic nomination. Now he’s fallen short — he dropped out on Wednesday — and we have our answer.

It’s a resoundingly good one, as The Post’s Michael Scherer reports:

Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has decided to form an independent expenditure campaign that will absorb hundreds of his presidential campaign staffers in six swing states to work to elect the Democratic nominee this fall.

The group, with a name that is still undisclosed because its trademark application is in process, would also be a vehicle for Bloomberg to spend money on advertising to attack President Trump and support the Democratic nominee, according to a person familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

It seems clear that Bloomberg believes he can make himself useful by using his fortune to rattle Trump, to get in his head, causing him to make mistakes or, better yet, perform even more spectacular meltdowns than usual.