By Judi McLeod —— Bio and Archives February 21, 2020
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Billionaire Bloomberg claims he "could teach anybody to be a farmer," even implying that farmers don't have the same level of "skillset" or "grey matter" as folks in tech jobs.
— Anna Kelly (@AnnaKellyWI) February 17, 2020
So demeaning, elitist, and out-of-touch it's appalling. pic.twitter.com/Auplmdq56m
“Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes the stage tonight in Las Vegas for his first nationally televised debate with fellow Democratic presidential candidates amid new controversy over a one-minute video in which the billionaire describes farming in overly simplistic and, some say, insulting terms. The development, many pundits believe, could pose the biggest threat to Bloomberg's nascent campaign yet, on par with Hillary Clinton's 2016 comments dismissing some Trump supporters as "deplorables"—remarks that have been described as a "political gift" to her opponent. “Even more than a recent stampede of negative headlines about Bloomberg—which include tales of sexual harassment lawsuits, insults about black people and women and criticism about allegedly racist stop-and-frisk police policies during his three terms in office—the farming remarks could prove devastating, observers say. The reason: They provide a powerful visual Trump can use to paint Bloomberg as a condescending coastal elitist to working-class swing voters in the heartland who might otherwise reject the incumbent. "This is very damning because it'll fit neatly into a commercial where Bloomberg will look uninformed and patronizing compared to Trump, who says he's the man of the people—the people who do the real work in the country," says Kent Redfield, political science professor emeritus at University of Illinois at Springfield, who has long studied the politics of agriculture.”
“Bloomberg's camp is complaining that the remarks were taken out of context and exploited by his rivals, specifically Democratic presidential front-runner Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. In a statement, campaign manager Kevin Sheekey pointed out that the clip leaves off "Mike's first sentence where he is referring to agrarian society that lasted 3,000 years, not farmers today.” “Yet the full version of the video does not do much to clarify what Bloomberg is trying to say about the place of farming in the modern economy or demonstrate he understands how highly technological and data-driven agriculture is today. “After his synopsis of how to grow corn, Bloomberg went on to say: "At one point, 98 percent of the world worked in agriculture; today it's 2 percent in the United States. Now comes the information economy, and the information economy is fundamentally different because it's built around replacing people with technology...You have to have a lot more gray matter.”Even “gray matter” cannot stop technology’s surge of Fake News. But Bloomberg didn’t just give leeway to Sanders, he gave television viewers an opportunity to see duelling Dems doing what they do best during last night’s televised televised debate— a screech fest that didn’t cost Daddy Warbucks a dime. Elizabeth Warren’s leeway, which sent her in for the kill to hammer Bloomberg for his alleged sealing off of nondisclosure agreements from people surrounding him, was her most opportune moment to date to try to salvage her failing presidential campaign.
If anything last night’s raucous debate proved that all Democrat presidential hopefuls are “tone deaf” candidates.The end of Michael Bloomberg in 2:19.pic.twitter.com/nN0pGwhkBu
— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) February 20, 2020
“Redfield and others say Bloomfield's remarks are of a piece with the way other presidential contenders' comments have become emblematic of alleged disdain for average voters. (Newsweek)This on a loop is all Trump needs to run as his ads pic.twitter.com/ng1Y4tbQZ7
— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) February 20, 2020
“In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama spent months fending off attacks first from rival Clinton and then from GOP nominee John McCain for describing some out-of-work Midwesterners as "bitter" people who "cling to guns and religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." Four years later, the Obama campaign exploited a remark from GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in which Romney said he'd written off 47 percent of American voters as Obama supporters who "pay no income tax.” “And then, of course, perhaps the most famous (or infamous) comment of them all: In 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton struggled to recover after suggesting that half of Trump supporters belong in a "basket of deplorables," who are "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic.”
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Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience in the print media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.