Mike Bloomberg has this problem with minorities because of his many years of telling the police in New York City to stop black and brown youths and frisk them, without cause.
When he began his campaign for the presidency, he went to a black church and apologized for stop-and-frisk.
But the damage had been done.
The Washington Post found one of what must be many videos where Bloomberg touted his stop-and-frisk policy and credited that policy with reducing murders and gun crime (as Charles Blow pointed out, the policy was completely ineffectual).
When stop-and-frisk was declared unconstitutional by the courts, there was no rise in crime. In fact, major felonies are far lower today than they were when Bloomberg was mayor. In the last year of Bloomberg’s mayoralty, there were 419 murders; last year there were 319 (no stop-and-frisk in place).
Bloomberg’s opponents on Monday began circulating audio of a 2015 speech in which he speaks in rather unvarnished terms about New York’s stop-and-frisk policy targeting minorities. The basics of what Bloomberg said: Minorities are responsible for the vast majority of violent crime, and thus their communities were the logical targets for warrantless searches.
Now, not only are Bloomberg’s Democratic opponents circulating the clip, but President Trump is, too.
Trump, who is reported to be wary of going toe-to-toe with Bloomberg and his essentially limitless resources, tweeted the clip Tuesday morning, saying, “WOW, BLOOMBERG IS A TOTAL RACIST!” (The tweet was later deleted, though it was captured in this Internet archive, and Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted the clip.)
Trump is in a glass house on this issue. Not only is his record on racial issues what it is — most notably on the Central Park Five and Charlottesville — but he has vocally supported the stop-and-frisk policy. During the 2016 campaign, he proposed bringing it nationwide, and he reiterated his support as recently as 2018. He could say Bloomberg’s description of the policy is crass, but it was widely known that the policy did pretty much what Bloomberg said it did, and Trump backed it.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
Stop and frisk works. Instead of criticizing @NY_POLICE Chief Ray Kelly, New Yorkers should be thanking him for keeping NY safe.
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
NYC politicians better stop pandering–ending stop & frisk would be a disaster. http://bit.ly/19xlEja
Thugs’ stop-and-frisk fear revealed in biggest gun seizure in city history
Even the gunrunners know stop-and-frisk works. The NYPD took down two smuggling rings that used cheap Chinatown buses to funnel a terrifying array of illegal weapons here from the South — and
nypost.com
But Trump’s standing on the issue aside, this is the day Bloomberg’s campaign had to know was coming, and the questions about it are thoroughly valid. Bloomberg finally disowned the stop-and-frisk policy when he began running for president, but he had previously defended it to the hilt. It’s not unreasonable to consider this his biggest obstacle to the Democratic nomination, especially given the important role minority voters will play after Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire.
This is the video: https://youtu.be/1bbjB3jVGRU
Bloomberg said earlier that “it’s controversial, but first thing is, all of your — 95 percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, 15 to 25. That’s true in New York. It’s true in virtually every city. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.”
Bloomberg’s team sought to prevent such audio from coming out of the speech by blocking recordings of it, according to the Aspen Times.
Some commenters on Twitter think that Trump deleted his tweet calling Bloomberg a racist re “stop-and-frisk” because he was afraid some of his voters might switch to Bloomberg!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dems nominating anti-union billionaire Bloomberg would be a surefire way to cement the perception that they are the bought and paid for party of coastal elites that to not care about working people or non-whites. If in their fear of Sanders or Warren’s progressive agenda, they do so, it will suppress the vote of the very people Democrats need to defeat Trump.
Think the political calculus is predicated on who can beat Trump, which means coldly analyzing the general election. Stop and Frisk is an issue for winning the Democratic nomination. When (and how to frame) to raise his support for charters and his denigration of public schools is an interesting question. Teachers unions are not insignificant political contributors. It doesn’t help that Weingarten threw her members under the bus in 2016 by coming out early for Clinton, without getting anything for it – at least that I saw.
I wonder what the teachers are going to do for this primary. Given the exodus of many other unions from the Democratic Party to support Trump in 2016, I sure hope teachers make clear that their support for ANY candidate will be conditioned on a strong stance in favor of public education. I would love to see them holding off any commitments until closer to the nominating convention. Instead make a strong statement about the intrinsic value of public schools, emphasize the greed and financial transgressions of charters, and stop short of endorsement. If it looks like Bloomberg stands a real shot, try to out dance him. If he wins the nomination and nothing has been done to force him to back step his policy, we are screwed. Are teachers going to threaten to work for Trump? Or not to help him prevail over the Republicans?
I abhorred Bloomberg’s educational policies when he was mayor. I think buying his third term was hubris. And I don’t see any changes this go-around that alters any of that. BUT if he is again successful, which could happen, let’s try to act smarter.
Why in the world would teachers back Trump and Betsy DeVos because they would be so disgusted with Bloomberg? When it comes to education, Bloomberg and DeVos are pretty much on the same page. But Bloomberg is not some kind of anti-science religious freak which DeVos is.
I would vote for Bloomberg over Trump without a moment’s hesitation.
But I also feel free to uncover the unsavory things he did as mayor.
As a data obsessive, he will be a big promoter of the surveillance state.
In education, he tried to impose a corporate model and then used a vast PR machine to boast about a non-existent “NYC miracle.”
I would vote for the neighborhood drunk before I’d vote for Trump. But let’s speculate? Trump et al either
(1) won’t let the election play out (we KNOW he doesn’t follow rules of any kind) if it begins to look like he’ll lose; OR,
(2) will cause some sort of catastrophe to postpone his leaving office, in some way making it untenable to change leaders; OR
(3) let the election play out and then, if he loses, call FOUL to the heavens and start every process he can to stop its progress towards his leaving, including inciting violence (which he already does); OR
(4) will win (with or without [cheating] the help of Russia or others) whereas US democracy is over and done with; OR
(5) will start “erasing” specific people, like his opponents, or the press, not only by job-loss or transfer, but by using his jackboots, e.g., the FBI, CIA, etc. who are now being enlisted to “background” (dig dirt on) his political opponents; OR
(6) will die (naturally, or otherwise) and then PENCE, who I think is not a Trumpist, at least in the way Trump is, and who should be prosecuted for his “accomplishments” in Ukraine. OR . . . .
But I think we are really being naive if we think Trump is just going to accept the vote (if it’s actually authentic) if he loses the election. It’s not in his character to do so. We should know that by now. I hope “they” who still have power are planning several “plans B” for what could happen.
One bit of irony: it makes me think twice about getting rid of the gun thing in the second amendment. I wonder what today will bring, and who else will capitulate? But whatever happens now is “ON” the Republicans in the Senate. CBK
I don’t think he can win the general election. My point was not to tell people to sit it out if he wins the nomination, but to caution against it, because it will cause cynicism. I will vote against Trump no matter what.
“The Washington Post found one of what must be many videos where Bloomberg touted his stop-and-frisk policy ”
I knew there were more- that’s why it was so silly to try to block the release.
To me, it goes to honesty, which is a real problem with Donald Trump- Donald Trump lies constantly. I hope we’re not getting another liar.
Why would Bloomberg deny he supported this when he so obviously did? It’s crazy. Lying about it just makes it worse.
He supported stop and frisk vigorously when he was mayor, and as the 2015 Aspen conference (his mayoralty ended Jan. 1, 2013) showed, he stood by it.
When he decided to run for president, he went to a black church in NYC and apologized and said that stop-and-frisk was wrong.
He didn’t lie. He supported it long past his mayoralty. He renounced it when he realized it created a problem with black voters.
About stop-and-frisk (SAF): This may be off-point, but I wonder if the good people in the neighborhoods where SAF was actually implemented felt any safer because of the SAF policy and what occurred there? . . . all those captured guns . . . .
That’s NOT to say (1) there wasn’t institutional racism involved; (2) that the policy was NOT over-done or wrongly-applied; or (3) that there should not have been similar programs and practices in other neighborhoods with different demographics. CBK
Hard to know whether people felt safer. It was their sons and brothers who were stopped and frisked.
The crime stats are undeniable. Crime went down after stop and frisk ended.
Bloomberg’s term in office started Jan 1, 2002 and ended Jan 1, 2013.
Click to access seven-major-felony-offenses-2000-2019.pdf
The city constitution had a two-term limit but he “persuaded” the City Council to drop the two-term limit so he (and they) could run for a third term.
I wonder if anyone close to the issue ever asked that question of those in those same neighborhoods?
I’m sure many people there didn’t like the crime-situation either. And one can wonder: if the crime stats went down after SAF ended, how much of that movement could have been indirectly because of SAF. No event in history can NOT influence history. The question remains: How. CBK
I’m not sure we should really want the new standard for any law to be based on how it makes us feel. That criteria seems like a rather slippery slope.
No. “Good people” in the neighborhood felt victimized.
de Blasio made ending stop and frisk his signature campaign issue. His son starred in the commercial.
It is why he came from nowhere to win the primary against much better known politicians.
There is no question that it was as ridiculous as stopping and frisking everyone who comes within 1/2 mile of a school to prevent school shootings.
Vox posted on 6/23/2017, prri study- white Christians -discrimination blind spot
“One of the most notable markers of differences in how people perceive prejudice in America turns out to be faith identity”.
The research found two-thirds of non religiously affiliated perceived a lot of discrimination against black people. It was 36-50% for white Christians.
Linda: It doesn’t really matter to me, but it’s a stretch to connect your post to mine. CBK
Meanwhile, in the good news department, Bernie triumphed in NH, HURRAH, HURRAH, HURRAH! I don’t think Bloomberg will win the Democratic race but he may help Bernie by siphoning off votes that would go to centrists like Buttigieg who mouths GOP talking points about the deficits. Just what we don’t need, a Democratic deficit hawk.
Bloomberg who allegedly said on the tape, “throw them against the wall…” (in reference to minorities), was invited to speak at the 2016 Democratic convention, a convention that some think was controlled by Hillary’s campaign. At the same convention, Bernie’s black, campaign co-chair was denied her speaking slot.
Hillary’s campaign manager founded CAP, a group that despite the NAACP’s call for a moratorium, supports charters. Until recently, the omission of a black person on the education policy staff at CAP was noticeable. In Michael Moore’s film, Fahrenheit 11-9, the person he chose to ask about Obama’s betrayal of the minority people of Flint was John Podesto, who was Hillary’s campaign manager and who is CAP’s founder.
Why would Bloomberg feel comfortable saying what he is alleged to have said, at the Aspen Institute that credits Bill Clinton with the origin of ed “reform”, an organization that includes the Aspen-Pahara Institute, funded by Gates to promote school privatization?
Or, maybe a cigar is just a cigar, and answers are found in deep pocket$.
What is the point of the innuendo? Bloomberg embraced this policy for years, long before Obama was even President. Are you suggesting Barack Obama approved of stop and frisk? I don’t know and I don’t care. I care that Bloomberg did and that Bloomberg had horrible policies and defended those horrible policies publicly.
Playing these innuendo whispering campaigns using guilt by association is just unnecessary. Why?
Do you know anything about Bernie Sanders’ co-chair Nina Turner’s history with education reform in Ohio? Look it up.
This is about the candidates and the policies they have. Not trying to smear them by “associates” to imply something nefarious. That just helps Trump.
NYC
Yes to 3rd paragraph.
Nina Turner doesn’t have (never had) the money to fund or, the clout to establish “nefarious” (or terrific) public policies.
When Turner fits the profile of Michael Bennett, Jared Polis, Michael Bloomberg, Gina Raimondo and Corey Booker in powerful associates from Wall Street and Silicon Valley and, has their access to capital, report back.
Gates, Arnold, Walton heirs, Koch etc. fund Pahara, Aspen, Mich. State University’s EPIC, Tulane’s ERA, Georgetown’s Future Ed , Stanford’s Credo, Impatient Optimists, professors at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government., etc. There’s no indication that any of them are camping with Bernie’s staff?
If Bernie invites the Sacklers to speak at his convention and denies UnKochMyCampus.org their promised speaking time, it constitutes a parallel situation. When Bernie relies on a bi-partisan lobby shop with wealthy clients or a spin tank supported by the richest 0.1% to run his campaign, it will be a parallel situation.
All skepticism is warranted when politicians refuse to release their speeches to bankers and to the donor class at Aspen. Skepticism should be expressed when all network talking heads have the same talking points, “a democratic socialist can’t win”, “the Democratic Party is in disarray”, “black people won’t vote for Bernie.” The question is where are those talking points coming from?
I believe that underfunded public education, the result of libertarian policy like regressive taxation which has been delivered by Gates, Koch’s, Walton heirs,… led some black people to seek better funded schools. It was reprehensible for neoliberal Democratic and, Republican politicians to exploit the situation for the purpose of enabling profit taking and to steal the black communities’ democracy. The possibility that the motivation is racism shouldn’t be ignored.
The “help” that Trump gets (and, that you propose) was seen in the Mueller Report. Nothing is impeachable unless a person writes and has the document notarized that states- I am an agent of the Russian government and acting in criminal ways to advance Putin-. And, a detailed listing of crimes conveniently tied to statutes has been provided as a condition for progress. Absent that, there are no offenses.
I have been a Warren supporter for over a year now, and would be thrilled if Sanders won the presidency, but I wonder whether all of us who want to turn Trump over to the SDNY in January 2021 should avoid savaging any of the Democratic candidates, no matter how wrongheaded they may be. While Bloomberg is far and away my last choice for Democratic candidate, I would wholeheartedly prefer him (or any Democrat) to Trump for strategic reasons. Sitting out the general election because Bloomberg is the Democratic candidate would be a travesty. I am worried that tearing down any potential Democratic candidate is doing Trump’s work for him. And wouldn’t most readers of this blog already know about Bloomberg’s most famous policy and shun him without the piling on?
I agree with your points. Adding, no, I didn’t know that Bloomberg
had allegedly said, “throw them up against the wall”, which ratchets up my distaste for him. And, I, who am far removed from New York, didn’t know Bloomberg ran for mayor as a Republican.
The huge problem is the source of the network talking points, “a democratic socialist can’t win”, “black people won’t vote for Bernie”, “the Democratic Party is in disarray”- one small primary in Iowa doesn’t constitute hand wringing disarray. Imagine if the neoliberals got behind Bernie, how powerful the party would be.
Bloomberg ran for mayor three times as a Republican. His opponents abided by campaign finance laws, which limited their spending and funded their campaigns. He opted out of the campaign finance regime, and spent about $100 million in 2005. I will have to check the spending on the other elections.
He was also the major benefactor of the Republican State Senate, which protected charter schools and blocked tax increases and all progressive legislation.
It’s necessary to have a primary election, not a primary anointing bacchanal. Any candidate whose past is so heinous it doesn’t stand up during the primary is simply not the best nominee of the party. So while the media savages my preferred candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, I appreciate my candidate and his supporters delineating the reasons why his immutable positions and stalwart actions are superior to the flip flopping, neoliberal positions of an and actions of a racist oligarch.
If Bernie wins the nomination, I will talk about him all day, every day. I will contribute money and time and passion. Of course I will vote. If Bloomberg wins the nomination, I might vote for him. It will be difficult to vote for him, considering all he’s done to cause my students and me harm, but even if I can manage to drag myself to the voting booth for Bloomberg, that’s the most he will get from me. One vote. My true allegiance and all the fight in me: not for sale.
All this is hypothetical anyway because Bernie Sanders is the next president of the United States.
I have been a Warren supporter for over a year now, and would be thrilled if Sanders won the presidency, but I wonder whether all of us who want to turn Trump over to the SDNY in January, 2021, should avoid savaging any of the Democratic candidates, no matter how wrongheaded they may be. While Bloomberg is far and away my last choice for Democratic candidate, I would wholeheartedly prefer him (or any Democrat) to Trump for strategic reasons. Sitting out the general election because Bloomberg is the Democratic candidate would be a travesty. I am worried that tearing down any potential Democratic candidate is doing Trump’s work for him. And wouldn’t most readers of this blog already know about Bloomberg’s most famous policy and shun him without the piling on?
Trump will prolly vote for Bloomberg
You know, that’s prolly true. He never wanted to be president.
We know that stop and frisk should never have been allowed. This is a failed policy based in racism. Despite this and the blunders that Bloomberg has made, he has denounced this former policy and has apologized. This is a difference between him and Trump. Bloomberg has the decency to acknowledge his past mistakes and to change policies. He is also a billionaire that uses his wealth to help people through his philanthropic organization.
It is extremely necessary that we have a candidate who can stand up to Trump and win in November 2020. Bloomberg will have to demonstrate how he intends to make fair gun policies. He has the white conservatives, NRA, and victims of stop and frisk ready to bash Bloomberg in anyway they can. The NRA will be on vicious attack against Bloomberg and he is brave to speak up about the need for sensible gun legislation. There are already misinformation campaigns against him that tell people he will take away guns. My prayers for him is that remains safe and some crazed person doesn’t try to harm him.
We cannot continue to condemn Bloomberg for past mistakes that he made, everyone has made mistakes. He has the potential to restore confidence in our government and restore the checks and balances. There are numerous nonwhite supporters for Bloomberg and they are planning to vote for him.
I would never vote for Bloomberg in the primary because of his deplorable and wrong-headed educational policies and because he would not be for TRUE universal health care. BUT…………if by some fluke he does win in the primary, then I would certainly vote for him in the general election against Trump. Trump is the worst, he should probably be impeached again for his interference in the Roger Stone trial; Stone is one of Trump’s many convicted associates (con men, charlatans and demagogues). Feel the Bern!
Brandi
Nice promo for Bloomberg- textbook PR.
His mistake was just 4 years ago when he had been an adult for 4 or 5 decades. Would you spin the 60 Minutes segment where Bloomberg referred to himself as a God?
Oh, and the fact that he ran as a Republican?
My opinion, Bloomberg is behind the talking points that Bernie can’t win. I’d like your candidate better if he showed the humility of saying, when the people give Bernie the primary win, in spite of the millions Mike’s spent in advertising, he will back Bernie in beating Trump-and actually do it.
Bloomberg’s daughter still working for Zuck?
If Bloomberg wins the nomination, maybe an expat community can be built in a Scandinavian country.
Bloomberg’s daughters promote charter schools and TFA
I also have numerous issues with Bloomberg, but if he is the only one with the wherewithal to beat Trump, then he has my vote. I’m sure he can easily go toe-to-toe with the Prez without breaking a sweat – one New Yorker to another. At the very least, it will be entertaining to watch.
“The only one”… has Bloomberg commissioned the T-shirts and yard signs for pick-up by the gullible?
A self prophesy Michael miracle, democracy bought..
It’s wait and see time.
When Bloomberg ran for mayor of NYC, he ran three times as a Republican
The colossal problem for America in 2020 is that the neoliberals including those who worked for Hillary and Obama prefer Trump has a Republican as his Democratic opponent. Jim Messina, Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign manager, described the N.H. primary as a big win for Michael Bloomberg. BTW- Bernie won the primary.
Hillary and Obama staff always wanted to be with the wealthy and only, minimally deigned to be among and to help the unwashed.
Of course, CAP could prove me wrong by being early endorsers of the front runner- Bernie. I won’t hold my breath.