How to Talk to Your "Socially Liberal But Fiscally Conservative" Friends About Bloomberg

Mike Bloomberg's candidacy has a lot of online leftists lighting their hair on fire. While I have long been a Bloomberg opponent, I also would like to see a more productive response aimed at actually winning the struggle.

In order to do that, those of us who want a more progressive Democratic party are going to need to make our case to those currently being swayed by an onslaught of Bloomberg advertizing. Bloomberg's biggest consticuency are those who call themselves "socially liberal but fiscally conservative." I have heard that phrase my entire life from middle class white people who think they're really smart when they say it. Of course, it's a total contradiction, because socially liberal things like affordable housing, livable wages, and the social safety net cost money.

What those people are REALLY saying is "I am financially comfortable and do not want to pay higher taxes, but I also am okay with weed, abortion, immigrants, and gay marriage." People who say it are also letting on that they are fairly apolitical and not that invested in partisan identity. As the Republican Party has become more extreme, many people with this mentality have started voting Democrat by default. Bloomberg, who migrated from the Republican to the Democratic Party, is their man.

They are, of course, plenty of Democratic candidates who are suitable to these voters. I'd rather have them voting for the likes of Biden, Klobuchar, or Buttigieg because they are not plutocrats buying an election. You may not get these voters to go for Warren or Bernie in the primary, but you can get them from Bloomberg. Here's how:

"Do you know he tried to ban large sodas in New York City, right?
Some SLFCs (my new acronym) are fine with policies aimed at punishing poor people, but a lot of them are pretty libertarian when it comes to people's choices. The soda ban goes against that impulse, and might make a different candidate more palatable. I find electability arguments tiresome, but if you want you can say "This is the kind of thing that voters in Michigan and Wisconsin will hate!"

"He has a pretty awful record of saying nasty things about women."
This is pretty well established. This sadly might not sway a lot of male SLFCs, but if more women knew about this stuff I think could potentially sink his candidacy.

"Stop and frisk was a racist policy that the data shows was not necessary to fight crime."
The crime rate in NYC has continued to go down after Bloomberg left office and stop and frisk was discontinued. Your average white SLFC might try to say "he was just trying to fight crime," but you can show them the data. If they have a libertarian orientation the fact that the police acted in an overbearing fashion ought to be something that concerns them.

"He's not even a Democrat!"
While SLFCs fancy themselves as "non-partisan" a lot of them do identify as Democrats. There are other rank and file Democrats out there who may have seen Bloomberg's ads who are awed by the razzle dazzle. Tell those folks he's been a Republican his whole life.

"He's actually not that electable."
Democratic primary voters are obsessed electibility to a morbid degree. This has been a big part of Bloomberg's appeal. This is easy to turn back. Trump's big appeal is anti-elitism, nominating Bloomberg feeds into that. His horrible record on race means a lot of voters of color won't come out to the polls for him.

When making these points just show videos of Bloomberg talking, since his demeanor often comes across as condescending and dickish. That's something the ads are trying to hide.

A Guide To Bloomberg Country

One of my favorite historical works of political journalism is James Q Wilson's "A Guide To Reagan Country: The Polical Culture of Southern California," published by Commentary in 1967. It was written to explain the political appeal of Ronald Reagan the year after his election to California governor. Wilson saw that appeal rooted in the lower-middle class suburbs where he grew up.

As Mike Bloomberg has forcefully entered the presidential race, we can trace his rise in a similar fashion by looking at the local culture that birthed him. While I am not from Bloomberg Country, I have worked in it for almost a decade as a teacher at a private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

If you take a look at the 2009 mayoral election, Bloomberg got the votes of registered Democrats in the Upper West Side, despite being a Republican.

Something about Bloomberg made Democrats vote for him there. What was it?

The Upper West Side is very white and very affluent. At the same time it touts its progressivism, rare for a place where wealthy white people live. But we should interrogate the version of "progressive" politics fancied in that region. Upper West Siders are very pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights, pro-immigrant, and anti-gun. At the same time they dislike unions, taxes, and welfare. They were unconcerned about stop and frisk. To their minds the aggressive behavior of the NYPD was totally warranted. After all, wasn't it keeping them safe?

They have also been involved in some ugly incidents around school zoning. White Upper West Siders talk a big game about diversity, but are not all that interested in integrating the public schools. In this regard they do not differ from white Americans in less tony parts of the country.

Folks in Bloomberg Country duitifully vote for Democrats in national elections, but they prefer a version of the Democratic party very different from the one represented by AOC and Bernie. They do not want the libertarian hellscape preferred by the Republican Party, but they recoil at free college and Medicare for All. They tout their opposition to racism, but don't really care about the horrors of mass incarceration.

It's not just a matter of policy, but also of style. They work in the corporate world and thus see Bloomberg as one of them. They want efficient, technocratic leaders who lead with competence, and have little patience for mass politics and the rabble behind them. They don't like Trump, but they fear a social democratic wave almost as much.

The denizens of Bloomberg Country are important because they show issues the Democrats are going to have if they try to move more to the left. The national media spends too much energy going to rural Pennsylvania diners talking to the locals. To understand another, equally crucial demographic, they also need to go to the cafe section of Zabar's.