"Don't help elect Trump you egotistical billionaire asshole!"
If that will keep the creep from doing the "independent" spoiler thing to help Trump, who knows. Reportedly Alexandria Occasio-Cortez has billionaires so shook that they're itching to block the possibility of economic justice and they don't care who it enables.
If there's one thing that having Trump in power proves, it's that billionaires are a danger to us all. I don't think it's possible for a democracy to survive having billionaires, a lot of the damage that started in the 1950s and 60s was due to the influence of the likes of David Rockefeller. We should be dispossessing them back into being merely obscenely rich and relatively limited in danger instead of a clear and present danger to democracy and even life on Earth. I think that it's time for us to start speaking about what a danger it is to have people that rich in the world. If people want to know why working people are getting stiffed, what else can you expect to be the result of there being so many billionaires, who, let's be honest, all are either crooks and gangsters or they are almost certain to quickly turn into those. A guy who has two million dollars who gets pissed off when his wealth is taxed at a fair rate for the common good might be a menace to the common good on a local or even a state level, billionaires, individually and collectively are dangerous to a far greater degree.
Since I was so hard on the Majority Report crew yesterday, I'll post their mostlly excellent take on this, noting what Howard Schultz said about "democracy" hearing his use of the word because, hearing that just now, it is a demonstration of what I posted earlier this morning.
I do think that Jamie Peck needs to get over Bernie Sanders, there are lots of people who do need to get over him. His running another campaign would have more of the same effect that Howard Schultz running would have than helping things to change. If a Democrat doesn't win, if Democrats don't win, the extent to which the "left" Green or Bernie or Buster prevents them winning, is the extent to which they are doing exactly the same thing this Starbucks billionaire is doing.
I have never been so glad that I've never, once, been in a Starbucks as I am since Schultz started this. I'm proud to say I drink rot-gut, store brand instant with a pinch of salt and watered down to make the taste tolerable. It's no where near as bitter as it would be to know I'd enabled this jerk.
I'm intrigued by the idea a billionaire asshole (Bloomberg is reportedly toying with the idea, too, also upset by AOC's tax proposal) can waltz onto the national stage and even compete with the established parties.
ReplyDeleteAs Ross Perot found out 25+ years ago, you can't do that without supporters in all 50 states signing petitions sufficient to get you on the ballot in those states. If all you can do is get on the ballot in a few states, you really are wasting your money and the nation's time.
Is this a good thing, or bad? Ballot access is law written by the parties to preserve their hegemony. OTOH, dese are de conditions dat prevail. Schultz is not even a spoiler until he can drum up enough support to get people to try to get him on the ballot. Perot didn't actually try to run until that had happened, and IIRC, he never got on the ballot in all 50.
It's way to early in the political cycle for this crap.