Watching The View this election cycle has been painful. The complete dismissal of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as electable candidates because of a short-sighted idea that beating Trump means stumping for questionable candidates in terms of their policy history has been exhausting.
With billionaire Michael Bloomberg raising in polls and buying his way into every avenue of the process, that has also meant the media making his horrid past policies more widely known. Yet, there are many who are ignoring that in favor of his so-called electability, including the women of The View. Except for Meghan McCain.
McCain brought up the accusation that Bloomberg discriminated against pregnant employees and made some choice comments about their parenting woes. As HuffPost shared:
“Around July 1993 at the financial data company he founded, Bloomberg allegedly browbeat a saleswoman in front of other employees. He’d just heard that the woman was having trouble finding a nanny, according to the lawsuit. “It’s a f**king baby! All it does is eat and shit! It doesn’t know the difference between you and anyone else! All you need is some Black, who doesn’t even have to speak English, to rescue it from a burning building!” Bloomberg allegedly shouted.”
I was honestly flabbergasted with Sunny Hostin saying that if Bloomberg picked Stacey Abrams to be his vice president that might be able to convince her. Why in Harriet Tubman’s green earth would Bloomberg picking a Black running mate undo the damage that he has done to Black and Latino youth, when he can’t even fix his face to explain why the policy was wrong and how it actively targeted Black and Latino people.
It’s absurd.
The View co-host Joy Behar saying that Bloomberg has done a lot for the Black community and trying to spin Bloomberg’s known racist history to quote Trump’s “both sides” Charlottesville statement just shows how Black and Brown people are being used as fodder in this entire experience. The very idea that Trump’s racism somehow makes Bloomberg’s racism permissible makes me want to break out in hives of anger. What is going on over there?
McCain brings up that there is a moral high ground and quite frankly, moral conversation, that the Democrats have been having since day one and this doesn’t exactly make this easier for Dems.
When Behar started listing Trump’s comments, McCain responded.
“I’m not defending Trump because I’m attacking Bloomberg!” exclaimed McCain. “I’m supposed to give Bloomberg a pass? Not on this show! Not with this host!”
Already the show fails from not having a young progressive voice on the show, but the way that it pivots center to center-right in this election has just been very disheartening to see. It hasn’t helped that with Bloomberg being able to buy Black support, while he also uses the same tired respectability politics that ended up profiling Black people for a generation, appears to be working. Again.
It’s a shame Mike Bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. But at least now primary voters curious about how each candidate will take on Donald Trump can get a live demonstration of how we each take on an egomaniac billionaire. https://t.co/H02radEZcv
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 18, 2020
As a born and raised New Yorker, I grew up in the era of Stop-and-Frisk. I know how it affected countless numbers of people from children to grown men. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, despite the massive harassment it caused, the gross majority of the people who were stopped were innocent:
“An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 5 million times since 2002, and that Black and Latinx communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. At the height of stop-and-frisk in 2011 under the Bloomberg administration, over 685,000 people were stopped. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent.”
Saying that “everyone has stepped in it” is a piss-poor excuse perpetuating institutional behavior. Yes, we all step in it, but all of our mistakes don’t lead to perpetuating racism and criminalization of urban youth. The two candidates who I am rooting for Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom have mistakes and have “stepped in it” but they acknowledge their errors and have worked to listen and support the Black and Brown communities they are campaigning in. Writing a check for $6,000 and giving everyone an iPad is not reparations. It is not dealing with the issues of systematic oppression.
The fact that we could be shaping up for a battle of the racist billionaires for the soul of this country is not shocking, but the desire to beat Trump, a desire I very much share and have huge personal stake in, considering most of my family are immigrants, does not mean we should anoint an old rich racist.
We are not “eating each other” by saying we don’t want a racist running for President on the Democratic ticket because he can buy his way in. It is not “eating each other” to have a high standard for whom we’d vote for in the primaries. What is “eating each other” is not covering the progressive candidates on their policies and just bringing up that your billionaire friends will not vote for them.
(image: screencap)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
