Jane, Dara, and Matt on Michael Bloomberg’s record as mayor of New York City.
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Hello welcome to an episode of the weeds on the box media podcast network. I'm Matthew with laces here today with Jan Costin Quote public is Darlyn. I wanted to talk today about Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a late entrance into the presidential sweepstakes one who I had not been taking serious, obviously for the first couple of months of his campaign, but he is rocketed
in the polls rocking up even faster in the discourse yeah now I admit to continued bafflement, read out the politics of this, but the weeds being a serious policy podcast. I I've been persuaded that, instead of expressing bafflement unless biogas, we should try to eliminate some aspects.
The things that mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has done and promises to do right, Dick, because I think that there is kind of theirs, the the theory of Michael Bloomberg, which is, if you wanna, be Trump in
who is kind of like trump but way richer, who just hates him a lot and will spend whatever it takes to beat him, which I think for some voters. There's some people talking with a couple weeks ago on Twitter, which is a platform that I should rely on less for the sort of thing, but whatever the idea of like
we did some polling and it turns out all democrats care about is beating Trump and Erika. We got you a guy, we think can do it Michael bombers and meat from ok. So let's talk so bulwark has been a couple of things. He's been a major political donor and we want to talk later about his raw serve in.
National politics as donor, and he was also mayor of New York City for twelve years, originally as a Republican
although it was understood universally at the time that bloomer was actually a moderate Democrat. That, though the way this came together was at New York City is obviously very
Craddock City, Aberdeen Giuliani, had had to terms as mayor a lot of people who, like Giuliani, were sort of afraid of the Democrats getting back into power
and Michael Bloomer really wanted to be mayor. He thought that he was not left wing enough to win a democratic party primary, so he became a Republican, a protrudes republic in a pro by whatever that the standard
two thousand and one was Pro LGBT rights, socially liberal Republican. But critically I mean he pledged to have a continuity with Giuliani on policing and crime control and that was sort of the key common thread than in Bloomberg's governance, which wound up departing from Julian
in a whole lot of ways, but he was like Rudy Giuliani. He won tons of votes from Republicans on Staten Island and the white neighborhoods of queens
He was very closely associated with the New York City police.
Written in the other. Relevant data point here is that he got elected in November, two thousand and one which meant that, instead of having to kind of deal with an ambivalent Giuliani like a situation existed pre September, two thousand and one he got, the massive booth
associated with being rude,
Giuliani, heir apparent at the peak of ready Julie on its popularity ass. I mean I, I just foreground this to understand why policing stuff ways so heavily
rivals, assessments of Bloomberg, because these sense what it meant for Michael Bloomberg to be first, they were public in and then later and independent was specifically that in the context of New York City politics, he sided with the police department against their critics in the civil rights and re active
I'm communities there were other at a time when the police department was kind of at the peak of support among the New York City electorate as yet.
One and this one up and down a minute it had different sort of sort of movements of, and then this in turn has come to be sort of short handed and over simplified, as Bloomberg. Supported, stop and frisk, which he has now apologised for and which you know a lot of people. I guess came to think was bad.
We had Kelly, I'm Conway, criticising it on television, which I guess every morning, although Trump, yet the trump involve made a little bit like the spider man, pointing at the other Spiderman meme, wherever Trump talks about Lake criminal Justice or stop and for its good. I just for fruit. Let's, let's table that for right now, but I think it's worth talking about what was stopping frisk and how do we? How do we think about Bloomberg role in it? As he looks towards a twenty twenty run for the general election,
stop and frisk. There are a couple of separate legal rulings regarding its legality that took place in the new twenty in they twenty tens it. Basically, the idea is that you go into a high crime neighbourhood and you stop people
of whom you have a reasonable suspicion might have been doing, something which is different from probable car, as determined by the Supreme Court and the Terry case of nineteen sixty eight, and so
this ended up, resulting in is a lot of black and brown new Yorkers were stopped and then frisked for peace,
fashion, weapon. Sat there then that the political are the eight. The rhetorical argument was that it was supposed to be a move against illegal guns, because the way to get it
Your guns off the streets wasn't just to find people who had already committed crimes
confiscate their guns, but to identify who my
be engaging and other criminal activity and remove any guns that they weren't lessons to? How do I wish I were, I would say, a even stronger than that, because it's important to link this to Bloomberg and a gun control
you should have separate the tube, and I think that that's why he's spent millions on gun control efforts, put it behind every town, which is our invitation. He largely funds, Yoda Virginia races earlier early last year, were largely one in part. On this issue of gun, Control
and funded by Michael Limber. You can't separate waited sufficient support, movies, a gun, control or and he's a gun control in a eighties
These Democrat
crime or spot ass, not a one off school shooting sense. But if you look at it view statistically deep,
pose. Why does New York unless Angeles in Chicago
have so many more murders, then London and Paris in Berlin. It's not that there's more overall crime. Is it specifically, the crime in American Citys is much more lethal. The climate american Citys is much more lethal, because criminals carry him guns and so drug dealers who get into view.
Disputes should each other. Instead of hitting each other or you know knifing each other and
that the Julian any outside the Bloomberg approach to stop in France was that if you are a young black or letting oh man walking around high crime neighbourhood, the odds are quite reasonably high that you will be stopped and frisked. If you are found carrying a concealed weapon which is illegal re in New York, you will get
do very serious trouble. So now you have a strong incentive. If you get caught no matter who you are but two not carry a weapon right,
To the idea of this was not so much that you would. I mean, was in part that you would catch people with drawings or guns on them, but it
mostly to to disarm the populate
the way of enforcing the city's ban uncaring concealed weapons right, which risk has. Obviously you can't see that somebody's care
concealed weapon right. That's what makes it can. We feel. We should note that this it there is supposed to be stop question and first and then the frisk would only happen if there is suspicion of a possible crime or that has escalated to probable cause.
But that's not generally, how that quite work is he had eaten, really escalate enemy? There had always been some doing of this, but in boomers, first,
here in office their words like mid five figures at number of stopping frisk incidents and its height in his in his the end of his second term? They were doing five hundred thousand yet plus of these year, since, obviously not because the number of people of whom there was probable cause, you know, escalated by a factor of ten. This was a tactical decision and I was were counting before this.
Dear friends from that Giuliani, arrived just Giuliani era and why pity had a similar theory, which was that they wanted to stop as many people as possible and see if they had guns or outstanding warrants, why they basically wanted to do a dragonette and find everybody with a concealed weapon or an outstanding warrant and their approach to it was to become superfluous budget
about anything right. So if the broken Windows series right yeah, but it was like a specific kind of- I think, instantiation of it right
we're trying to maximize the number of people who they get stop. So we lots of rest
ST urinate errors of turnstile jumpers of aggressive panhandler is, I got picked up when I was in high school for drinking beer and park bench, then my friends and I had to skip school to go to court date and we got stopped again as we were truants and would would Bloomberg did. Was he reef folk
from instead of having comps all over the city trying to stop whoever they could catch doing anything. He sent them specifically to high crime, neighborhoods specifically
african american Latino Neighborhood, which were african american latino neighborhoods, and then he just stopped young men in those neighborhoods. Broadly
and then you could get into endless sort of you know like. Is it a duck, or is it a rabbit conversations on what was he stopping people, young men who happen to live in high crime neighborhoods? Or was he stopping young african American? And let you know men because the high crime neighborhoods worthy neighborhoods, where
african margins and Latinos lived right. The whole theory of like, if you take the theory of self interest as articles by Bloomberg in his defenders
It's perfect sense, because it assumes that there is like zero cost to an interaction
the police. For someone who is in fact, an asset that is now
how life worth snow was saying about seven for as the end you know, I think the reason you indeed there have been a lot of threat.
Of the liberal earthly good lightweight, progressive evolution on criminal justice over the last decade, but I think one of the threads that's maybe been under state. It is the extent to which first person accounts of how,
of what what indignity it was to be stopped. Like ten times before you turn twenty one. In a neighborhood, I made a lot of
liberals who hadn't previously been thinking about police
actions as something that actually had, that caused problems for daily life to it, caused them to understand that it it's not just a matter of
like oh, statistically, you're more likely to be stopped and frisked, and that means race.
It's a matter of like this actually had a substantial impact
a generation of black and latino New York, and I think it's important note. Two things. One note frisk was heavily encouraged and was part of encouraged and was part. Pd wanted high stop
question and frisk numbers which encourage the practice and, in general, when you encourage people to do things, that means that they start doing things that perhaps are not within the letter of the law. But I also think it's important to note something that Matt said, I think, is really important for how we need to think about Bloomberg. How many do you think about stopping in context is because, when Matt got stopped for drinking
on a park bench, he was stopped as part of an overall broken windows. Policing effort under a Bloomberg administration Matt does not get stopped at
Oh a african, american or Latino Matt, who is in a specific neighbourhood, might get stopped. But this is very much you ve impetus of stopping frisk was
not a overall crime effort. It was kind of like what, if we let these people over here, go to strokes, concerts and smoke we'd outside, and what, if we told these people over here, that they will get stopped fifteen times before their time
twenty one for various things that they may or may not have done. It was very it aren't you, we ve been hearing the term a kind of a two tier justice system.
Very much is that because it is not is not not, everyone is getting stop. There are people I've. I've talked to a lot of friends
and who were in high school in the in the early two, thousands in New York and it from their perspective. It very much was you we could.
Sickly do whatever it is. We wanted, because we were not considered to be the problem lies elsewhere. Have we read showing p
gear. Their doing over five hundred thousand of these stops to city eight million people, which is a lot, but out of that, a million you know about half are people of color about half of those are men of that group,
than half our gun, and so you know it's it's a lot of stopping of young African.
Again let you know men and but I mean I think it's important to context- relies to an extent that in retrospect this has become because because Bloomberg has three
conceptualize himself. His Democrat in because stop stoppin frisk was ended by judicial order and crime continued to fall, which completely undercuts the the rationale for
doing it because, obviously, like even when Bloomberg was up there right when they were having controversies. There
and saying like yeah. Well, we do this for no reason.
Like they were saying they were doing it to bring crime down and crime was falling. So now it appears as this like big black blemish on Bloomberg's record at the time he was perceived particularly
early in his term to have come down there
toxic relationship between the Nypd and specifically the african American community re Kelly, his police commissioner from us less time at much higher african
Organ approval rating than the Giuliani people had in Bloomberg. First, real action bed: he got about half the black vote. You know he did worse later, but
The understanding of what was happening at that time was that, to an extent, Limburg had stepped a way
from Giuliani, is sort of like thinking like fairly open, like advocacy of police muskets,
act in favour of a more technical sort of approach to running
the city is also happening. It s kind of the leading edge of a broader policing trend towards place based policing and willingly to thousands early twenty tonnes which lake is based in the theory
that you want to men in
to minimize the overall police presence. You have to target it based on the specific intersections that are going.
The biggest problem in that that turns into a balance of equities issue, because, if you're just
focusing on minimizing crime and do not care at all about the civil rights implications. Then sure you can go very very hard on a very few locations, but if you're, if you actually think about
civil rights and community relations. Concerns is something that might be a constraint on that that's going to change your mind and beer is generally
kind of
single source utilitarian, who is not likely to consider civil rights concerns to be a constraint if there is a more if there is a maximally efficacious Paul. What and Emily
Particular I mean I think, to give to you over his do he's a broad brush
non libertarian person right like he
a real pioneer in Anti smoking policy. Is that our?
how very uncontroversial and almost every american jurisdiction has but like at the time that Michael Boom Briggs
you weren't can be allowed to smoke cigarettes in bars. That was considered. Like really dramatic. You dramatic you idea idea. He also tried to ban large sodas, which never took off and now now then
strikes, people is crazy but like at the time he said you couldn't spoken bars in coffee shops that also struck people as as raising. But the point is like
is the kind of social
liberal pro business person who you might sort of glass as like falling in the libertarian quadrant of to access them,
But that's actually not now his view at at all it, and then you know why, on the policing of one of my favorite Seti's, this german Donald, Jeffrey Fagin, Amanda Geller, looks at the effects of local police urges on crime and arrests in New York City. It's a twenty six
and they find that when there were sort of neighborhood
level surges of police personnel. That crime did fall, that you also some more stoppin frisks. Obviously, when they put more
this is there, but that in the neighborhoods, where, for whatever reason, the officers just did less stopping in frisking, the crime reduction was exactly equivalent, and so this twenty sixteen paper. But I think it forecasts the result of the deposit era progressing, which is at least
stop it risks and didn't change anything else. Yes and crime continued to fall any that may not actually be what everybody wants out of policing. You wound up with air garner dying in what was
more of an old fashioned joy, he was genuinely breaking a law, but
do not lose cigarettes. Now, right, let's be real here I mean exactly, but I mean, but that was yeah. That was a step back right was like there will be a lot of police officers, particularly there will be a lot of police
I was in high crime neighbourhoods and they will block for violations of the law, are all right and be really tough on it and that that works. It turns out that works just as well, and there was no point at all rang the random stuff. It's been interesting to see how conservatives have responded to that, because I, what
back and what's with national view, archives on, stop and risk and that they argued repeatedly that stop and frisk was fair and constitutional and basically awesome. Then there is a peace after you ve crime reductions that happened during the debate
zero era were wearing have posted where they basically
we were wrong and stop and for us, because it turns out one day, Kyle Smith, I believe, as the author, he pointed out that, like the reductions and crime have maintained, but also the fact that it is a massive constitutional giant, pile of nonsense that is stopping for us, especially because seventy percent of the people stopped had done, nothing which is seven out of ten people, which is a lot of people to have done nothing, and especially, I think that we ve been there been thinking about this a lot lately. This idea of kind of like there are people for people who should be allowed to commit crimes and people who should not be allowed to commit crimes, and this is kind of the clearest deviation of those
I do want to kind of quickly address a lot of the discourse around stop and frisk when it comes to the candidacy like look. Yes, Michael Bloomberg initially ran for initially ran a offices or republican, but it's not exactly like. There aren't
and in tonnes and tons of democratic politicians, including several passed in current presidential candidates, have who have also who were around olitic in the Eightys and Ninetys, and therefore a spouse drew on criminal justice that are to the rate of where the Democratic Party currently is on Asia. I think that's Atlanta thinking people went after the Clinton administration, the same thing, but like the idea of criminal justice reform a night
ninety two or even in two thousand six looks different, but it just so happens that perhaps going
back. We we're right now, and they were wrong, then, regardless of their fundamental right. But this is all a lot of the kind of controversy run. Bloomberg per SE is that he he's
saying that he's try
to move past any conversation, what's happened. First by saying he's apologized the apology
in question were extremely recent, its
Not it is not being paired with a very progressive current criminal justice platform,
you know like when Martineau malware and for business and president twenty sixteen his record as mayor
of baltimore- was substantially to the right of where he ran as a presidential candidate on criminal justice issues and that in a gate it
also also one was paying attention to Martin O'Malley in twenty sixteen, but like it did do something to blunt some of.
Criticisms that he would have otherwise had coming, and so the question of exactly what should Democrats be saying about past support
or tough on crime policies. Verses where the progressive base of their part
is right now, for it is, I think, an unresolved one that the Bloomberg candidacies allow wing Democrats to people.
Over by saying well he's not really democratic right here, I want you to think, as I want to go.
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One reason, though, that I think it's valid to send so much time on southern frisk issue
and one thing that I do thing makes Bloomberg different from aid like possibly partially repentant Joe Biden or or whatever and criminal justice issues is that this was such a linchpin of what Michael Boom bergs. Politics were
bout. Yeah right did you know the a mayor is only in charge of so many things right.
Computer senator, like boats on all kinds of top right policing is a huge part of any mayors, portfolio and Bloomberg De Bloomberg store, rightly what was Michael Bloomberg doing now. He had plenty of liberal policy positions like he was protrudes. He was programme rights, but those we're things that made it acceptable to vote for a republican and,
independent in a heavily democratic city. They weren't the reason why you would ve forms. So we was what was the purpose of Michael Bloomberg, morality and it was to continue
with a version of Giuliani era, tough on crime policies. That would be the reason that you did it and you know-
up until he decided to run for president here.
He said not just specifically defended the details of stopping frisk, but he would have said. Look at my record. I was a successful mayor. Look how much crime fell during my twelve years here, because
he could you say well, look how I solve the city's housing. Affordability. Prob
he couldn't say: look at how I got the long delayed Second Avenue subway belt. Rikers, like you, didn't do that right. So is what what one of the other big things he did as mayor? Was he got into lots of fights with teachers, unions about the sweet of policies around
educational reform, and you know I think he was right on some of those things. I think he was probably wrong and some of the other things, but I really think that looking back on the education reform era in the early twenty first century,
I think- and I say this as somebody who is a proponent of it- I think you have to say that it it has under delivered right that if you look at the trajectory of New York City, public schools,
in their better in some neighborhoods than in others, it's a vicious know. You, you can't, you could have said on behalf of Michael Boom, bergs criminal justice policies, that the crime rate was much lower by the end of his morality that arise at the beginning. And then you can enter more complicated arguments about it. But, like the high level point that, like what he and other tough on crime mayors promised, you was less crime, and then you got less crime like that. Like makes sense, rank basic level
a clear to me that, like there was a transformation of the k, twelve school system in some huge way- and we also know now- I mean new yorkers- are very solves a stick and a lot of the media is based there, but that for good and bad had like New York Street,
directory, there's just very similar to Washington's Trajectory- Boston, trajectory San Francisco trajectory Seattle. Today
basically Fury historic Port city that was, you know, had
arts community. I was an attractive place for college graduates to live. You have seen a growth in technology sector, employment, a reduction in crime and growing housing, affordability, problems and a lot of big question marks about your
education system right and, like that's true of New York. What is true of all kinds of peer cities like
Homework stands out by being richer and more famous the Reich Adrian plenty, but man that
having heard the in tested. Adrian Freddy, was education reform. You re on the sea had for some of the time Bloomberg was
office and then he lost, and it was like
they began to deal with the other eye like spending, because he he fixed our taxi regulation,
means. Bloomer doesn't even have like an achievement on that report.
Any just. It strikes me that, like the they have, this like bike will get it done.
Tagline thing, which is deliberately ambiguous in its meaning. But, like
for a guy who was mayor for twelve years and had spent tons of money and throwing his political influence around like
but do you have to show for it is like some by claim saintly, there's a large. If you are listening to this podcast, there is a very high likelihood that you have seen a lot of Michael Bloomberg ads on television, because he's
A lot of money on them here, and one of the in one of the motives in the ads is his record on Healthcare is New York City, which is like its he's doing,
it, because it's now become assumed that a president, a democratic presidential candidate, hassle
land to expand, help coverage, but it was unique because it wasn't a thing that
cities were really taking the lead on, it was a state and, to a certain extent, federal issue, and so it
this procedure, certain trump era trend where prick
massive cities are thinking about. What can we do to?
maximize the extent to which our are
are living under progressive policy. Even if that's not true, then
well. But it's not like something that you would
look to a mayor to do right. It's kind of an expansion of federalism in a very interesting direction, but it really goes more so to the idea
I keep thinking about. What I want to hear Matt talk about a little bit is because there is the there's, the Michael Bloomberg, who was the mare of New York City, a real place, a real thing that happened for twelve years, and it's interesting to watch him attempt to extrapolate that outward to being like I,
could be the mayor of New York City of America and the idea of that. I'm just like you do you, like a lot of people have been to New York. You've been there you've done things you you you got from wherever you needed to be to somewhere else, and everything was fine and they basically saying like
I could do that for everywhere and it's interesting to see how the actual ins and outs of his tenure as New York City mayor, where he did some things and then didn't do. A lot of things is almost less important than the idea of that like it was basically
the Plaza pitch except given I dont, know with more money or more effectively like if I can be mayor of merit
largest city and one of the most important cities in the world. I can certainly present of the United States, even though we've heard this heard this before not necessarily of of New York City, but governors of New York State, but the basic conceit of that is that the two things are synonymous when they are not, and so
I think it's interesting to think of how much Bloomberg's candidacy relies on this idea of like well. I've run this thing and then I ran a business, and I was okay at both
things. As far as you know, unless you ve lived in Europe can have very specific opinions about it, most people
live in new and it's interesting to see how that I can extrapolate that outward, and you can just assume that whatever it is, I do New York
do in America, because those who are the same thing, the interesting thing is that Bloomberg pitch relies so much on his record as mayor of New York, when, frankly, the reason that he can run as a democrat and democratic primary and twenty twenty is as much because of the kind of x.
Your curricular, national politics, stuff that he's done during and certainly after his time as mayor of New York with stuff, like mayors against illegal guns, you know he's he's
wrote down on climate he's been he hasn't thrown down.
Money wise on immigration reform as much, but he certainly was one of the kind of nationally prominent business. Slash political figure is doing a lot call for comprehensive immigration.
Form when that was a thing. So he's able to point he's here,
as a record of expressing progressive values on a few issues that have become very important to progressives, and that is
You know, I think, that's some of what is making him palatable to a certain swath of the Democratic Party. Is that like,
the consensus among Democrats, the guns are winning issue for them right now that you know climate
well, maybe not a winning issues like such an employer,
civilization of priority. That it's really really good to have a potential president who understands that we need-
to rain in carbon emissions that, like one of the
things that I've seen in
Immigration world is a certain relief that, like oh, my god,
Finally, someone is running an ad about immigration and which is basically the extent of AIDS. It's not. The Bloomberg has a more progressive platform, then his bread competitors on immigration, it's that he's running an ad saying from is bad
on immigration and like this is not who we are
are which why begins, but I think, is under that's why it's a you know if you were to try to understand. Why is Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat at all right,
look, why was Michael Bloomberg Republican when he decided to run from air integration? One end it was policing right like them. That was the reason that was
there and then why has Bloomberg drifted into the democratic parties? Can pride and that's his interest in gun control, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and immigration
right like that, he has now, like literally for the purposes of this campaign. Over the past, ten minutes has decided that he favors a fifty dollars an hour minimum wage that he thinks the affordable care act is good
He the morning we're recording this. He came out with a Wall Street regulation plan, but that's all like late rack pill
Democrat now, so a minute check these boxes before he was running for president, but specifically before he was running as a Democrat
when he was looking very hard at running as an independent in the two thousand and twelve and two thousand and sixteen cycles, the issues that would have been the left flank of Bloomberg ISM were gun control, climate change and immigration. So I think that this is not a super rational calculus, but I do think to people who work in the immigration world. The fact that immigration is
close to Michael Bulwarks. Heart right is like something that he went and put money into and that he decided was like a big thing that
wrong with conservatives and then went. Donald Trump became the leader of the republican party. Bloomberg officially became a day,
and immigration is clearly at the center of that trumpian realignment.
A lot of people's my item? To be clear, this is not a consensus view at all their here for it when there is, there is actually I, but I just becomes more prominent. I think, there's gonna be a lot of tension in the kind of
a broader civil rights space about how much do you wavy immigration is close to his heart verses v,
on criminal justice in an arrow when a a lot of people have really become attuned to the intersections
I think you already saw this on on climate change right, which is that, like climate change activists are left wing activists like they happen to be left wing accuracy on the subject of climate change, but like
in terms of their personal identity, they are left wing activists and they hate Michael Bloomberg,
as much as all other kinds of left wing accurate serial number
I know there are old people write like old graybeards of
environmental movement who are like hey
Michael Bloomberg has like personally shut down coal power plants like
you mean like yeah. What is what is Bernie Sanders ever actually done for the environment, but, like young activists, don't like me.
Bloomberg, and it's going to be exactly the same. On immigration. There's going to be people who toiled in the
salt mines of bipartisan, comprehensive immigration. Reform who are going to be like Michael Bloomberg, is great
right and then there's gonna, be younger activists have been on the front lines of like fighting with ice about detention, beds for gonna. Think, like Michael, like boomers, a cop bright like in flagrant like who care
he's right, an that's. That's gonna, be the tension all this, and what I feel like Boomer has not done. Is it because he's he's had so much money and he's been able to do so much to adds? Is he hasn't like done a
interview you know we're like he really sits down, and he speaks in the fake heartfelt way, their hearts that politicians do heartfelt stuff and like describe his political evolution right to like, say like why it
is that he now favours a fifteen, our narrow Monroe age and and and all this others up, and you can email
because it's it's actually typical right for if some,
is shocked out of one set of political commitments. If they hear Donald Trump talking about the
ending rapists and you're. Like oh, my god, this isn't the Republican Party I used to know. You then learn over the next eighteen months that you also agree with Democrats by healthcare monitoring normal, but like
Hasn hasn't given voice to like. Why is this x republican Ridge, business bam? Mayor, like I mean it, it's interesting, because I think that he is also indicative and I've heard a lot of this from kind of the Trump skeptical, never Trump, Republicans, who
are very boisterous in some sectors. Are not very boisterous mean he's a great candidate for vat. That's the thing I think I've it. I was trying to think about how best to write this I'm still figuring out, but he is like never trump bait at the at its core because he essentially does speak for the. I was a Republican when the Republican Party looked kind of the way it didn't like nineteen, ninety one, perhaps YO pre Republican Revolution and make ninety four, but not Pat, Buchanan. Ask this idea of the compassionate conservative that you see in the early two thousands conservative movement you he is something akin to them. He is akin to you what, if we really crackdown on crime and the potential of crime or pre crime as minority
we call it, but we also acknowledge climate change and we are pro and pro marriage equality, because that seems fine and cool. I think it's interesting. One of the challenges that we keep seeing is that Democrats
as it is trying to decide on a nominee their hearing from a lot of people who were not Democrats before Donald Trump, but has kind of become Democrats. But wish Democrats were more like them. They have not become more like Democrats. The idea of like you should be attempting to to try to gain voters like us, which there are
You ve, never Trump Republican is probably over represented in media, but there are a lot of trump skeptical, independent, leaning, conservative voters, and we heard from them in primary races and in special elections and in the mid terms in point seventeen, twenty eighteen and twenty,
eighteen, young people who were alike? I generally you. I oppose the affordable care act, but I think tromp is a bigger,
soul, and I don't want to hear anything more from him, and so I think that there are very much. Is this idea like we're looking for someone who kind of we can lean towards, whereas I think a lot of Democrats are like
who is this Johnny lately? Who is saying all these things, but has this record and apparently nuns
audio of saying ridiculous and racists things, and so it has been interesting to see as the democratic tent has widened, not by choice but kind of by circumstance to include a lot of people who would not be Democrats if Hillary Clinton were president or if a host of other things had not taken place. It's interesting to see how much that tension, please into Bloomberg right
as also the criticism of Bloomberg right, I mean the related phenomenon here- is that most of the
were Craddock. Primary electorate is convinced that the most important thing is finding a nominee. You can be Donald Trump examine. The problem is that
several different theories put forward by several different candidates.
Why, then, are the best person to do that? But it's really the core of my ego.
Bernie Sanders has a fairly robust argument for luck. Debility credits, not the core of his candidacy right, the core of MIKE Bloomberg candidacy. Is you
me on that hill right and I do you know it's
something that can be that it has been a very frustrating discourse in the democratic primary for over a year and, frankly, if it is in
when Michael Bloomberg is on the debate. Stage is likely to be something that he makes acquiescent, really to be, isn't the right for
to settle that, it's just theory versus theory we're not going to have a really robust test of any oath variable,
mobility until election day, and
in a while? I understand the extent to which everyone is trying to think there are a lot of we're trying to think strategically. There needs to be a success.
Angel level of humility, about whether you can reasonably predicts that Michael Bloomberg is in fact going to. You know have the
fact on the electorate that he says he's going to have and with the fact that never tried
republicans are so over represented? The commentariat makes it more likely than not that people are going to overstate
the number of them there actually are those you. I think my final point on this is that we ve been having YO. I think in the media we ve been having kind of this under current of a debate of how did Donald Trump, when the presidency and Bernie Sanders is argument of how Donald Trump One is on a host of issues that demo,
have been getting wrong for decades on trade and on you, the getting things wrong, especially with regard to the working class and his ideas. Donald Trump is a symptom he's, not the cause. We have to address a symptom buckle. Bluebirds argument essentially, is like you want Donald Trump out out it Donald Trump out. That's all you need to do it here. He is offering a Donald Trump back to me, and I was the only person who can do it at once. The Donald Trump back to me has taken place would have
You want him to do hills and it's fine he'll figure it out. It's cool. You know he is a multi billionaire. I'm sure that that mean you. I fix that. That means something, but he is offering something very specific.
I actually think that, on those virtues, if you ask voters you do you want you a pot, do you want a positive message of how you download from is a symptom of things that have been going wrong for years? At Obama did wrong that Bill Clinton did wrong you and we can fix all of those things. Or do you just want this guy to go away? I think that with for voters,
that that's actually kind of a difficult question. Yet was all I want to close with it with a bloodless, technocratic critique.
Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, the bloodless yes, okay, so one of the big things that Bloomberg, I think was right about when he was met here, is that there should be congestion, pricing in New York City. They have it in Singapore, they have it in Oslo, they have it in space and they have it in London. They should have in New York Bloomberg champion TEST policy
He did not have the authority to unilaterally get it done. It required action from the New York State Legislature and he was unable to secure the political support for it.
Not the most damning thing in the world, but I've seen some
I like in been investigative reporting reporting like how Bloomberg, through his money,
sounds like make political problems go away, and I saw some people say, like you know, this actually kind of makes burglar, savvy, ineffective and I've.
Some people say, like one good thing about Michael Amber being President is he could just like bright but Joe me,
to vote for climate change bills and stuff, and so it is important to note that, like that did not actually work. I'm like a key policy question. You know like he had a lot of money. He he tried to use. It will influence
he couldn't get. It done. Also important congestion pricing will be coming to New York City in twenty twenty one, and it was achieved.
Who am I dont, know
exactly how to put it, but just like the banal work of politics, you know
in a very normal kind of sense, and I think that actually, like this specific cause, which
not super ideological, it's long been championed by a lot of people. It was
done more effectively by Andrew Cuomo and build the was
who are the pity me of just like hack politicians, you know but like they were convinced over time- that this was the right policy approach and they
did some politics, you I mean I was going to say that, like in Bloomberg defence, that was a particularly dysfunctional air of the New York State Legislature. On the other hand,
then I remember the existence of the United States Senate right, but it's just that each not
True right mean this was some of Donald Trump's pitch
the businessman resident anger and users in a while
lot of ways, Trump has been less cataclysmic than I might have thought as just like somebody who doesn't know what he's talking about, but he's certainly not more effective as a republican party legislature than somebody who knows
what he was doing would be, and it was the same for Michael Bombard, like Michael Bloomberg, without his money, he couldn't have one that election in two thousand one, but he was so par like do were of Michael Bloomberg.
Despite having the money and it's the same thing. Now. It's like the old
reason we're talking about Michael Bloomberg, if Eric Garcetti had sixty billion dollars, like he's the mayor of LOS Angeles, like he could be a top tier presidential candidate right
and like it's fine or not, but like it's, it's not it's a very low cost ineffective like he is like below replacement
politician, I think, whose being lived whose being lifted up by some
hundreds of millions of dollars on everything which is different from the idea that the money,
he's giving him like superpower right, yeah, sick, any eve heard from campaigns, and I think that this is possibly because a lot of people who have worked on campaigns then go talk about it on cable news, because you heard heard this idea. But if I were on a camp
that was was going against, I would be terrified of all this money and I'm like well, I mean sure,
having a lot of money and doing a lot of ads. But that seems to rely- and I keep hearing this, especially in reference to Nevada or South Carolina. The idea of like oh black voters will go for Bloomberg because they've seen all these ads as if black people are just like. Well, we saw an ad for him and we were like sure, let's go with him, I don't think that's how the electorate works, that I also think that we are talking about him because of the money we are talking about him because he is attempting an experiment which is how much money do you need in order to get the nomination for the Democrat Party, and so far I mean it's going: okay, but again he's value below replacement like we're not, and especially because I have not heard him talk and they really interesting to see him in the debate as a
as an actual person, fiscal currently he's become kind of this, like this entity that exists as just a funder of ads and a person who could get it done gives it whenever any room can now at the end. It will be interesting to see him against actual people, because you one thing you can say for several of the candidates and stage specifically Bernie Sanders- is that price index has basically been Bernie Sanders since, like what nineteen seventy eight and the idea of Bernie Sanders may be much larger than human us, increasingly remove from who we actually is as a senator any politician, but it'll be fastened to see them go back and forth about you. If Bloomberg is kind of the the end,
sanders, and I think for some people they might find that appealing. But I also think it is a test of a theory that I dont entirely by I wanted. I think we could probably have an entire other episode about. The kind of
the discourse round. Black one doesn't Bloomberg, but I do want to point out that, to the extent that what worse
Seeing is a correlation between name recognition and support among black voters. That indicates a lack
does he hasn't for any particular candidate, and that is something that were going to want to keep
one? I think it's worth noting that there's been some polling showing that basically democratic voters think all of the democratic candidates are fine and so pretty much
memory, they put forth, erect sure rang whatever like it's not like. There's someone out. There is like I still long for Michael Bennet that there really is
about to what extent negative partisanship is a motivating force and getting people to the polls. Second of the break do white paper. If the last year is taught us anything
it's that we don't know what will happen next, but there's one thing
in all be sure of the only future is one we can all share and leading the charge in building that future his mercy corps
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Down skull yeah, it's got past place, present context the impact of adolescent racial contacts on white racial attitudes. It is by Sir Kay Goldman and Energy Hopkins
I'm. So they start with the the well known stylized fact that white people who live in places where a lot of black people live experience, more express, more negative sentiments about
black people, but there's a lot of variation in that and its consistent with a number of different explanations as to what they do is they look at? Where did people grow?.
And they show pretty clearly that if you sort of factor in where people grow up, there's no correlation between the racial composition of where people live now and their racial attitudes. It's that white people who grow up particularly spend their teen years in places with a lot of black people, express more negative racial sentiments and then, of course, most people. Don't move that far
which explains that the larger stylized fact I mean. I think it's you easy that this is a well known, stylized fact, but I think that it's one of those things its well known in the social science literature, but that
kind of the White Paper sectioned air, with indifference, name for well known, cuts against a very, very closely cherished lake idea of Progressive ISM, which is that, if
people were only more open to diversity in their own inner, like if people like only encounter
and realized different people who were different from
in some fundamental like important way, but we're still people,
They way to have increasing tolerance and love for them, and I you know that is not
were borne out by the social science literature. The effects, the kind of exposure effect can be extra
we contradictory and can depend a great deal on contacts and like preexisting political beliefs, but this kind of the fact that people-
are growing up in more diverse contexts, are more not less
key to have negative stereotypical attitudes. Then people who have grown up in
absence of you know
of anyone who is not like them is like when we
talk about the idea that racism is just going to die out. For example, early when people express shock about the rise of like young,
wingers on racial issues
this is not only is kind of a weird operational effect of the Trump area, even though it looks like
because a lot of it is like from phantom means, it is in large part the fact that
more diverse America is going to create a more real
the conservative White America. Why did you have to think right when you think about like simplistic contact above says? Yes right, given the change over time? What's the official sort of like crazy official stance of american culture right and through the sort of first three quarters of the twentieth century right, the kind of official message people would gain
was one of white supremacy right so deposit. Under these circumstances of nineteen, forty four that, like actually meeting people who were black,
and working with them in some context would shift your attitudes in a more progressive direction. I think makes a lot of sense, because it is that reality ran like undermine the
show propaganda right, but the Contemporary United States right on an official level is very strongly anti racist society right like that is the message that you will get right like Donald Trump, does a Martin Luther King tweet
yeah. You know nobody like that is a huge difference. We didn't United States in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty and the United States in nineteen fifty
and so now, there's no official like abstract propaganda, that actual human interaction would
under caught rang rain. Would you arrogant history? Acts theory does not quite work outside of that extremely specific country. Why would you instead have I'm in which you will also see in american history? Eggs right is that like when people are put into situations where the salient of racial identity goes up right, that's typically because
There is actual yet diversity right. It's because it gives the influx of immigrants to Southern California right when they weren't there. People were sitting around me, am I I'm so white and Yasser right, but they
although this does bring us to like things we discussed on past white paper segments about the question of whether a lake media exposure makes people
feel that they are living in a more diverse right now. Actually, in terms that, like that, you know the
this, at least in my mind,
Woman in Minnesota, who told the New York Times that she was,
worried about the caravans coming.
To her tat. Your note I've been immediately I, but I guess we might look like in my school work. Where I mean when I was a kid was overwhelmingly why there were a couple of kids, but it was so few that it was like a very integrated environment,
to an extent. You know what I mean I get it. You know what it is different from my son school, which is very diverse. It is diverse enough that there can be meaningful social.
Separation between groups of people and that's the kind of contacts in which people's racial and ethnic identity is can become much more important to that
and I think in defence- of the kind of simplistic contact ipods, as we have seen that there is evidence that that works in some cases, and I think it's it's salient too.
The kind of the new wave of that work on deep canvassing has used algae BT attitudes rise, its vehicle and like the kind of like test case for it
because we have seen like a really rapid change in LGBT acceptance in a way that I
That hasn't necessarily been the case for attitudes on that is taking much longer if, under its, not least because it seems like people-
are willing to accept the possibility that
Someone who is a member of their family or a friendly there's like might turn out to be algae bt after they.
A pre existing warm relationship or, like someone
You know someone might be born into their family, whose eligibility anyway
There is a certain extent to which this is also true. In a week,
way of disability rights, activism, which is right now a very late leftwing official movement, but that there are some
kind of broader, there are
There are none left wing constituencies that care a lot about lake, provide
better educational resources for disabled people
because of the kind of oh. It could be, my child that isn't as true for rays, and I think that we really haven't figured out through
I echo is there a structured conversation about race in the way that deep canvassing involves a very like prescribe
process right. This is going
to neutralize negative stereotypical attitudes or is this
evidently a consequence of people living in an inner of people living in aid.
Anti Racist America VIT also in
of high levels of kind of of what appears to be spontaneous,
social segregation, whether or not
actually is bunting ass right because you can't really have a like YO. I was racist and then it turned out that my son was plaque. You don't really have those eggs well
You could have those kinds of moment. The good old anyway rise on a notion of race. That is late, twenty three in me yet, which is not how race were no, it is not it is. It is a understanding of re said
is very argue, networks bad for anti racism in Bavaria, Genetics based in a way that makes me feel weird inside. Yet it seems very much that one of the challenges we face is that this seems to be something that, like you're, the talk therapy, ask theory of how to combat hate and discrimination does not appear, appears to have worked pretty effectively on YO, whereas you set where on eligibility rights, because that was when I was at the human rights campaign. The entire effort behind that was the idea that, if you told people our stories and of more people came out that more people realize gay people look just like you now. This is very controversial among eligibility circles. The idea of should we fight for being just like you, or should we fight for being here
our own separate thing. That's very different does not need to accept what heterosexuals are up to or doing whatever that may be, but either way the basic argument of like we could be
your daughter, your sister, your coworker. We would look like you, but be different in this way- does not work for our conversations of racial
Crimination, that's true- and I also think I was rebreathed
recently an article that my grandfather wrote about the poor peoples campaign and he interviews, Martin Luther King, so bad a month before he was assassin
He did and king says to him. You know so far in the civil rights movement we bid asking for things that dont really require and one to give anything up, and- and that's what that that's the turn. You know that that he's trying to to take here connecting questions of raised questions of class and and other things, and I think it that's broadly true of the sort of posts. Nineteen sixty is racial politics in the United States that the questions are
not a wound, sort of cost, less formal legal quality there around? You know structures of privilege and group for consideration than on the interaction of collective socialist leg of subject
give social status and material resources way. And so I get mean again. This is a case in which, like traditionally, it would be very easy for a voter in Vermont to subscribe to the strong some rights agenda as opposed to the merely formal one, because the something actually at stake right, we're talking about these Bloomberg policing issues, and it turns out to be an easy question, because there wasn't a trade off between stopping and frisking young, black and latino man and getting the murder rate down but like what, if there was swayed, is always going to be the case that there are. These lie right, cost less sorts of things. There are situations in which it might make sense to people to say, like look, I'm not like a lunatic like. I would also feel bad about being stopped in frisked on vague suspicion, but, like the fact is that making this relatively small minority of the population bear this high cost is doing something
fall for all the rest of us. So I wanted to do it right and that's the kind of racial conflict that, like that, only makes sense in the context of a big, diverse city. Like that's the only situation in which a question like that would arise, but I feel like those are. The questions were dealing with right, because I think that is a very different situation when it is your father getting stopped or is that, like? I think that that really plays to this idea. You it's been kind of this overarching idea of democratic politics that, like you, you have so many competing groups, but you, the alternative, is where you just kind of havoc. Well, it's ok of bad things happen to these people, because overall, that would mean that better things are having to all of these people, and it's interesting to see that this become a quota quote identity, politics issue, one, it's more so do about deciding lick who gets too
and if it and who has to bear the cost of specific laws and regulations will end like how do we define the good right leg? Do we do we as a polity care about you know, for example like dropping crime, or do we care about people feeling in
and of an imminent intangible sense included in the community and equal citizens who are not suffering under a two tier justice system ended. We are all equal citizens in the weeds Facebook or where you can try ass. He thanks check it out, comment there I'll be awesome and with that absolute,
so thanks guys, thanks to our sponsors, thanks to your Maladie Brodus, our engineer, Jackson, beer filter, editor, Jeff galled our producer, and the leads will be back on Friday.
Transcript generated on 2021-05-21.