Tycoon Battle-Bots Battle Bernie

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

We should welcome Bloomberg’s candidacy. It’s proof that the term plutocracy as it applies to the US isn’t just hyperbole but now an uncontested fact. The DNC’s willingness to bend their own rules to allow anyone into the candidate fold who can pay their way in – even an open sewer oligarch whose racism and sexism rivals Trump’s – just confirms our worst fears and vindicates the cynics: Elections are no more than rigged matches between tycoon Battle-Bots both engaged in a struggle to liberate billionaires from taxes, Wall Street from its regulators, and most urgently, the DNC from Bernie Sanders.

This most recent, history-repeating Democratic Primary fiasco is no exception, save for the fact its un-democratic agenda is no longer an embarrassing leak from a trove of emails, but an openly stated threat to the party’s frontrunner: You are not welcome here. This stage is reserved exclusively for the Very Important Plutocrat who bought the arena, and his now sidelined ‘centrist’ stooges all united to shore up delegates for him. Sanders’ modest (to a fault) incrementally implemented policies are framed as the Unabomber manifesto by his own party’s candidates because of Sweden/ISIS . . . same thing.

Expect a senior advisory role for Pete Buttigieg should Bloomberg add the presidency to his already vast portfolio, Amy Klobuchar to make latte runs, and Joe Biden to massage his new Master’s feet when they are tired after a long day of stomping on the Bill of Rights. It’s easy to sacrifice ideals you don’t have (universal healthcare) for the real interests you serve (pharmaceutical and insurance giants). And of course, Israel. After wiping the floor with Bloomberg on the Nevada debate stage, Elizabeth Warren might find use for that sharp tongue of hers. White House silver doesn’t polish itself.

Long before Bloomberg threw his top hat into the ring, he was seeding his eventual campaign trail with donations to “progressive” organizations, who would in turn remain silent during the destruction of their own stated agendas. (Principles are worth more dead than alive, so you might want to abandon your own to pay for their overhead.)

You have to wonder if Bloomberg’s entry into the Democratic primaries is not so much the spontaneous decision of a bored billionaire, but a bipartisan loyalist to the plutocratic cause, well-primed in advance to serve at Her Majesty’s request. Now that Bernie Sanders is poised to secure his party’s nomination despite the DNC’s best efforts to derail his campaign, Nancy Pelosi has resorted to Plan B and launched a Trump clone into the race. When the party elite hires ‘muscle’ to shake down their enemies, it’s no longer some bat-wielding goon from the outer boroughs, but a golf-club swinging real estate tycoon from Manhattan. It proved successful for the Republicans in 2016. It remains to be seen how it will work for their friends waving to them from the other end of the swamp.

Whoever takes on Trump had better be a foul-mouthed, openly racist sack of garbage with ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Otherwise, we’ll all end up with universal healthcare. The stakes are very high, at least for the one-percent whose mostly untaxed wealth will be taxed slightly or not at all depending on which FOJ (friend of Jeffrey) wins.

Whatever regime we ‘choose’ to live under, war spending will remain impervious to the sort of budget cuts that could curb its appetite for global destruction. Exit Tulsi Gabbard . . . and any talk EVER of (redacted) during televised debates. Enter Michael Bloomberg with a war chest big enough to sink the SS Sanders, and any hope of the electorate ever wresting power from the unhinged, swamp-dwelling, golf-club-swinging psychopaths who make up the establishment candidate fold. If the Pentagon readily expends billions of dollars daily to blow up Bedouins, then it’s no stretch to imagine the money Bloomberg is willing to forfeit to sink a dinghy that is somehow chugging ahead of him in the polls.

If cynics feel vindicated by the arrival of ‘The Frisker’ to take on his fake nemesis ‘The Grabber’ in yet another masked Gladiator slap-fest between political allies, then alarmists should feel emboldened enough to announce that the sky is falling. At this stage, they should have no fear of being maligned and scorned for stating the obvious: The sky really is falling. It’s flooding the markets with freshly printed money, while raining locusts on farmers in Kenya, and spreading airborne plague everywhere else. It’s bearing down on ninety-nine percent of the human and wildlife population with the force of a dominatrix as she thrashes her billionaire client in his wine cave. Look up and you’ll see foreclosed homes, trailer parks and tent cities swirling above you as tornados unleashed by Wall Street convey them off the edge of the horizon to make room for another convention center/luxury housing complex.

November’s outcome, rigged by the DNC to secure their own party’s defeat is no longer a doomsday prognostication, but the nearly fulfilled prophecy of the ruling class. Death Match 2020 could spell doom for the Sanders campaign while offering salvation to those who want to abandon all hope and vacate planet earth before it officially expires.

Jennifer Matsui is a writer living in Tokyo and a columnist for the print edition of CounterPunch magazine.