Two Simple Reasons Democrats Would Have Never Nominated Bloomberg

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared he would not seek the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for the White House.

There was no way Bloomberg was going to win the Democratic Party nomination next year and in my view there are two very simple reasons for it - a) he's a billionaire and b) his strong support for Israel.

Even if an alleged billionaire like Donald Trump wasn't President, there is no way Bloomberg's candidacy could co-exist in a party where Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are major players. Last December, Sanders said, "We live in a nation owned and controlled by a small number of multi-billionaires whose greed, incredible greed, insatiable greed, is having an unbelievably negative impact on the fabric of our entire country." AOC was even more explicit on MLK, Jr. Day stating that a system that allows billionaires is "immoral." If a critical segment of the Democratic Party views the very existence of billionaires as immoral then there is no way they would tolerate Bloomberg's candidacy never mind nominate him as their presidential standard bearer.

There is also no way Democrats would turn to a Jewish pro-Israel candidate. This isn't to say Democrats wouldn't nominate a pro-Israel, non-Jewish candidate (Kamala Harris) or a Jewish, anti-Israel candidate (Sanders). But in a party that is showing increasing tolerance of anti-Semitism (i.e. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib) and less sympathy for Israel, Democrats aren't about to nominate a man who flew to Israel in 2014 when the Obama Administration directed the FAA to halt flights to Israel while at war with Gaza.

With all this said, I'm not sure Bloomberg is the best alternative to Trump. But the fact that there's no room for someone like Michael Bloomberg in the widest of all Democratic Party races does not bode well not only for the future of not only liberalism, but the very existence of American pluralism.