On a cold night where all former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wanted was a sandwich from Subway, he was attacked and beaten by two women and two men who police say were all wearing suits.
If Wednesday night’s democratic debate was supposed to be a civil engagement of ideas, it turned into an all-out brawl and no one told Bloomberg. In fact, I don’t think anyone told Bloomberg anything as he looked bewildered and punch drunk most of the night where he was called out for his controversial and racist “stop and frisk” policy, his countless non-disclosure agreements with women preventing them from speaking publicly on alleged experiences with sexism and harassment, and his overall douchiness.
If last night’s debate is to be judged fairly, it should be judged on the one criterion that matters: how badly the candidates on stage beat the shit out of Michael Bloomberg. And that’s not me piling on. Bloomberg is a super wealthy, egomaniacal New Yorker with a history of problematic racial doctrine and some viciously derogatory statements about women. Sounds a lot like someone else we know, doesn’t it? Wednesday’s debate was a preview of how each candidate would stack up in a debate with Trump with Bloomberg serving as the punch dummy, and if last night proved anything it’s that the candidate most equipped to beat the daylights out of the current president is none other than:
Elizabeth Warren.
Warren came to slay. And slay she did.
She walked up to the mic, tapped it twice to make sure they could hear her in the back, slathered Vaseline across her face, removed her earrings and proceeded to beat the ever loving shit out of the goofy billionaire.
“[The Democratic field is running against somebody] who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians—and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump…I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.” At this point, Warren could’ve wiped her bloody knuckles on a bandana and walked off stage. But she wasn’t done.
“Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements? So we can hear their side of the story?” the Massachusetts Democrat asked. Bloomberg looked like a new swimmer drowning in the deep end. He was out of his depth the entire night. At one point, he claimed that the NDAs were in place and he’d like to leave it that way and then noted: “None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe they didn’t like a joke I told,” the crowd booed that answer as they did most of the former mayor’s responses.
All of it made its way to Twitter and is now accompanied by the opening to Nas’ Ether.
We watched a little piece of Michael Bloomberg die on this night and it was glorious.
Yes, the other candidates were there and yes they landed a few good blows like when Joe Biden pointed out that Bloomberg didn’t end “stop and frisk”—the racist policy that allowed police officers to search people without cause—rather the Obama administration ordered it ended.
Bernie Sanders didn’t do anything spectacular, and coming in with the lead, he didn’t have to. All Sanders needed to do was hold serve and not come out too bruised or battered, and he left without any scars and that’s a good thing.
When he was confronted about being polarizing, he said that it shouldn’t be polarizing to speak “to the needs and the pain of a long-neglected working class.” He was effective and that’s all he needed to be.
There were a few side battles between South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, which almost left the Minnesota Democrat in tears. Apparently there was an interview with Telemundo that included Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and billionaire Tom Steyer in which they were asked who was the president of Mexico and Klobuchar couldn’t answer. Well, on Wednesday, Buttigieg pointed out that Klobuchar was on all the committees that deal with foreign affairs and her ass couldn’t even name the president of Mexico. Klobuchar’s chin got real shaky, see below:
But Bloomberg did get in one blow on his way to the ground. Before being put to bed, the billionaire, who earned his money and then used it to buy his way into the democratic fray, called out Sanders for being a socialist and a millionaire.
“What a wonderful country we have!” Bloomberg said. “The best-known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses! What’d I miss here?”
Sanders explained why he needed three houses but it still didn’t add up to me. It was a nice zinger from a dying man.
The funniest part was that after Bloomberg was slain, his people tried to use the Beyoncé Formation defense: “You know you that bitch when you cause all this conversation.”
“You know you are a winner when you are drawing attacks from all the candidates,” Bloomberg’s campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, said in a statement after the debate, BuzzFeed News reports. “Everyone came to destroy Mike tonight. It didn’t happen. Everyone wanted him to lose his cool. He didn’t do it. He was the grownup in the room.”
I would love this level of delusional support. Everyone needs a friend like Bloomberg’s campaign manager. We watched a man die on Wednesday and much like videotaped deaths before them, no one will be brought up on charges, but I would like to send my thoughts and prayers to the Bloomberg campaign.