Steve thought
he was going on vacation, but as soon as he arrived, a chance encounter got him
thinking. Sure, we can all dream that Mueller is going to take Trump down, but
what if the Republicans refuse to budge? Perhaps we need a darn good Plan B to make
sure Trump isn’t re-elected in 2020.
The cab driver had just pulled out of Bermuda’s L.F. Wade
International Airport and set out across the causeway that spans Castle Harbor
when he waved his hand broadly to the left. “Daht
is where Mahkel Bloomberg and Ross Perot have dere fahncy mahnshuns,” he
noted. “Very reesch men.”
Wow. This was supposed to be a vacation, and I’ve been here
all of ten minutes and this cab driver has already jolted me with a strange juxtaposition,
which gradually germinates into an idea for a blog post. Here, on the soft pink sands of Elbow Beach,
I see the outline of a strategy for increasing the odds that we extricate
Donald Trump from the White House, and it does not rely on Robert Mueller,
Republican cooperation, or impeachment.
First, necessary context. Over the past year in our quiet
little corner of the blogosphere, BTRTN has been repeatedly making the point
that Democrats alone cannot take down Donald Trump. Period. Given the math of impeachment (a two-thirds vote to convict
in the Senate), and the realities of the mid-terms, it appears that anywhere
from 15 to 22 Republican Senators would have to vote to impeach in order to
remove Donald Trump from office. In short, if Robert Mueller were to present a Russian
military-issue gun that was actually still
smoking, and every single Democrat in North America was aligned on
impeachment, the issue would still hinge on whether enough Republican Senators
would each vote their conscience.
Conscience, however, is not a commodity in rich supply in
today’s Republican Party. By and large, the Republican Party leadership is a
terrified group of sissies who so fear that wrath of Donald Trump’s base that
they have chosen to abandon any pretense of principle. Remember that
overwhelming outcry when senior Republicans heard Trump describe African
nations as “shithole countries?” Neither do I. Not then, not about Charlottesville,
not about Stormy, not about Trump’s attacks on the free press or the FBI, not
about reneging on our word on the Iran nuclear deal or the Paris Climate
Accords. Sure, there have occasionally been some gentle rebukes from senior
Republicans, but in the main, the silence in the Republican Party in the face
of Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy is a dark echo of ugly authoritarian
regimes that this nation once proudly battled.
There’s no doubt that a certain percentage of the
Republican leadership actually worships Donald Trump. But there is reasonable
evidence that the Paul Ryans, Lindsey Grahams, and Mitch McConnells of the
world view Trump to be a toxic gas bag whose only organizing principles of
governing are to undo whatever Barack Obama accomplished and to keep Donald
Trump and his family out of jail. And yet they, too, kneel before Trump.
One reason Republican Party leaders are such supplicants is
that Donald Trump’s base of support never wavers. This, in turn, may be in
large measure because the base is informed by Fox News, Sarah Sanders, and
Donald Trump’s twitter feed. All these alleged “news” sources work in concert
to amplify Trump’s claim that he has accomplished more in the first seventeen
months in office than any president in U.S. history, that the Mueller probe is
the most partisan witch-hunt in U.S. history, the lame-stream media is
fake-news, and that the Deep State is staging a coup.
Call it the Pravda Doom Loop. Trump and Sean Hannity
whisper sweet fabrications in late night calls, which are then broadcast by Fox
to ensure that the base only hears Trump’s version of reality. The base’s faith
in Trump is reinforced, and Republican leaders kowtow to Trump for fear of
alienating his deeply loyal base. No one who wants to get re-elected dares
challenge Trump. Indeed, the only Republicans who have spoken out to condemn
Trump are the McCains, Corkers, and Flakes who have chosen not to run for
re-election.
With no principled opposition from his own party, Donald
Trump will be able to survive the impeachment proceeding, and he will no doubt crow
that the failure to impeach is tantamount to a complete exoneration,
vindication, and declaration of innocence. The failure of an impeachment vote means no
such thing, but Trump will use the vote to crucify Mueller, the FBI, and the
media. Before you know it, we will find ourselves in 2020 and Donald Trump will
be running for a second term against fill-in-the-blank
here… Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or one of a wide bench of
charismatic young Democratic Senators. Given a choice between Trump and
whatever soft on immigration, anti-Second Amendment, pro-welfare,
minority-loving commie the Democrats have nominated, Republicans will pull the
curtain in the voting booth and, once again, vote for Trump. Before you know
it, it is 2016 all over again.
All of which brings me to a soft pink beach in Bermuda, and
a reasonably decent plan.
Mike Bloomberg, please run for president in 2020 as a Republican.
Mr. Bloomberg, yours is already a career of phenomenal
success in the private sector, and outstanding achievement in the public sector
as Mayor of New York. Yet the greatest service that you could perform for your
country is to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. Go
on Fox News. Get yourself in a one-on-one debate stage with him in every single
primary in the 2020 election cycle. Use the extraordinary pulpit you could
wield to rip Donald Trump apart in full view of the brainwashed base that is
currently only hearing the bullshit that Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and Fox &
Friends is flinging.
At the heart of this audacious plea is the core BTRTN
belief that only a Republican can effectively call bullshit on Donald Trump.
And Mike Bloomberg is uniquely qualified to do this job.
First, let’s dispense with the issue of party affiliation.
Bloomberg has been everything. A
registered Democrat prior to 2001, he ran for Mayor of New York first as a
Republican, and was re-elected as an independent. It’s not like he’s running
against a dyed-in-the-wool Republican in Donald Trump. This issue does not
matter. All he has to do is re-register as a Republican and get to work.
Now, let’s move on to the most obvious of credentials: Mike
Bloomberg is a far more legitimate candidate than Donald Trump ever dreamed of
being when he launched his presidential campaign. Bloomberg is a far more
substantial and successful private sector leader than Trump, and he of course
also served for twelve years in the “second toughest job in America” as Mayor
of New York. From the first instant, Bloomberg could present himself as a far
more qualified and competent leader than Donald Trump.
Pile on the even more obvious: Mike Bloomberg is the tenth
richest person in the world. He does not need a penny from anybody to wage a $1,000,000,000
campaign that puts him at a spending advantage in every single primary state. He
could get the money from an ATM… that kind of spending would reduce his net
worth from $50.8 billion to, uh, a mere $49.8 billion.
Now, here is why it is so important that Bloomberg take on
this quest.
As noted above, the Republican Party operates in a
closed-circuit Pravda-like communications bubble in which Fox, Trump’s twitter
feed, and the party leadership constantly reassure the rank and file that Trump
is great and that every threat, challenge, or attack is the product of a fake
news leftist coup.
But imagine, if you will, a series of Republican
Party-sponsored debates, aired on Fox News, in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South
Carolina, in which the loyal Trump base hears a fearless, brilliantly informed,
and impossible-to-intimidate voice going toe-to-toe with Donald Trump on the
full spectrum of issues that have dominated his first term.
Michael Bloomberg became a multi-billionaire by developing
a software platform that put up-to-the-second fact and information into the
hands of the financial people who needed it to make split second investment
decisions. He understands data. He knows a fact when he sees one.
In a debate, he could filet Donald Trump cleaner than
Michelin three star chef serves up a Chilean sea bass.
Is the point that he could beat Donald Trump?
Nah. It’s not inconceivable that he could, but that’s not
necessary.
All he has to do is pound away at Trump’s gaping
vulnerabilities and weaknesses in state after state after state, and Michael
Bloomberg could bleed Donald Trump down to the point where he is a cement
cinderblock padlocked to the ankles of his party.
In interviews, debates, air time, and advertising, Michael
Bloomberg could inundate Fox News with information about the Mueller
investigation that Trump’s base has never heard.
Bloomberg could use that platform to explain to the rank
and file that Trump’s tax law is just a big sloppy wet kiss to the donor class
and the one percenters.
Bloomberg could explain, better than any candidate in
either party, just exactly how important the First Amendment and the free press
really are. (He did, after all, make those billions by founding a media
company).
Bloomberg, who is extremely active in addressing our
national gun epidemic, could stand up to the NRA and propose practical measures
to reduce gun violence. To Republicans.
Of course, you ask, if Michael Bloomberg is such a
compelling candidate, why aren’t we urging him to run for the Democratic
nomination, or wage a third party candidacy?
For starters, running for president as a Democrat in a what
promises to be a twenty-candidate free-for-all is not a good bet for Bloomberg.
If the Democratic Party decides to punt and nominate an aging white guy, it is
going to be somebody who has paid their dues, like Joe Biden or Sanders. Much
more likely is that the Dems will demand a candidate that by virtue of youth,
gender, or race is an effective counter to the aging white GOP. The truth
of it is that as early as we are in the 2020 race, Bloomberg would
already be starting way behind Biden, Sanders, Warren, Booker, Cuomo,
Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Harris, or Murphy. He’d be setting out on a long-shot that
wouldn’t be worth his time.
A third party candidacy? That’s where his Bermuda neighbor
comes in. Ross Perot was the most effective third party candidate in the last
100 years, and he only secured 19% of the vote and exactly zero votes in the
Electoral College. He wouldn’t have a chance of winning. More important,
Bloomberg knows that if he ran as a third party candidate, he’s be far more
likely to siphon votes away from the Democrat, thereby aiding the potential
re-election of Donald Trump.
Perhaps the biggest motivation for Mike Bloomberg to run
as a Republican against Donald Trump is because it would actually give him the best chance of actually winning
the presidency. If that smoking gun appears and the excrement hits the fan,
Trump will go down, and Mike Pence is going to be covered in a thick layer of
it. Who better to ride to the party’s rescue than the white knight who has had
nothing to do with the Trump presidency?
Most interesting of all: a Bloomberg Republican
candidacy would expose the lingering fault lines in the Republican Party
between extremists and centrists. There’s a popular myth that centrist
Republicans no longer exist. They may be in a deep hibernation of denial, but
they are out there. In 2016, Donald Trump won the New Hampshire Primary with
35.3% of the vote. Four candidates (Kasich, Rubio, Bush, and Christie) split
the “centrist” vote, and the totals of
those four candidates equaled 44.8 percent of the vote. If Bloomberg – alone in
a challenge to Trump -- came anywhere near that total against a sitting president,
it would be extremely damaging to Trump. Consider the wound that Pat Buchanan
inflicting on the elder George Bush when he took 38% of the vote in the 1992
New Hampshire Primary.
It’s interesting to reflect on the fact that every time
there has been a significant primary challenge to a incumbent president, it has
severely damaged that president’s re-election bid. Reagan did it to Ford in
1976, and Ford lost to Carter. Ted Kennedy did it to Carter in 1980, and Carter
lost to Reagan. Buchanan did it to Bush in 1992, and Bush lost to Clinton.
That is the thesis, Mr. Bloomberg: if you run against
Donald Trump for the Republican 2020 nomination, you will either severely
damage his chances for re-election… or you might win. Indeed, it is a classic
situation of “Heads you win; Tails, Donald Trump loses.” How sweet is that?
Where have you gone, Mike Bloomberg? Our nation turns its
lonely eyes to you. Woo, woo, woo.
You, sir, perhaps alone in the universe, have the talents,
credentials, smarts, experience, presence, money, knowledge, and attitude to drive
a spike into the Donald Trump balloon. You could wound Donald Trump to his base
more effectively than anyone.
In so doing, you – alone -- could save the country from the
risk of four more years of Trump.
And, hey, who knows? Maybe as a reward, you end up as President
of the United States.
Fine
with me.
Sing it, Sting... the one about a message in a
bottle.That message is simple: in today’s world of polarized politics, the only way to
reach Republican voters is through the conservative media. And the conservative
media must cover a major Republican presidential
candidate. Therefore, the conservative media will be forced to serve as a megaphone
for Mike Bloomberg to speak truth to the Trump base. Mike Bloomberg could command interview slots
with every conservative commentator, could go one-on-one against Donald Trump
in debates in every state, and could reveal Trump’s ignorance, deceit, and
potentially criminal behavior right on Fox News. This turns the
Republican media bubble inside out and transforms it into a fire hydrant of truth
against Donald Trump and directly to his base.
Most important: history has proven that an effective primary
challenge to a sitting president can have a severely damaging impact in the
general election.
Mr. Bloomberg, only you can do it. You have served the
citizens of this country many times before. May we ask that you do so one more
time?
I'm stuffing this post into a bottle
and hurling it into the pale blue water of Castle Harbor. Cue Sting: "Sending out an S.O.S..."
