I write in support of Michael Bloomberg as the next president of the United States.
After months of premature and over-hyped “debates” (with countdown clocks no less!), many qualified Democrat contenders have abandoned the field, and those still standing are largely engaged in battering each other, and now Bloomberg. What happened to the Democratic momentum to oust President Donald Trump after the Mueller report and impeachment?
Bloomberg served three terms as mayor of the nation’s largest and most contentious city from 2002 to 2013. He presided over the city’s healing from the trauma of 9/11 and pursued a broad agenda of urban improvement on many fronts and for many constituencies.
During Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure, I visited New York (my childhood hometown) frequently as an urban researcher and conference organizer. I interacted with several of his top staff and studied exciting new projects ranging from the spectacular High Line, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and Riverbank State Park in Harlem to neighborhood miniparks, urban gardens, and greenways all over the city.
I contributed to an assessment of the city’s world-renowned water supply system and studied the impacts on the city from Hurricane Sandy. My overall conclusion from these studies: “New York has much to teach 21st-Century megacities worldwide on how to sustain nine million contentious people and their degraded but newly-appreciated natural environment.”
When Bloomberg left office, The New York Times (Dec. 28, 2013) editorialized : “New York is once again a thriving, appealing, city where more people are moving in than out. . . . The crime rate is down, the transportation system is more efficient, the environment is cleaner. After inheriting a $3-5 billion deficit, he leaves a $2.4 billion surplus.”
The Times further lauded Bloomberg for making “public service a valued vocation for a new group of urban experts … He hired mostly top-notch professionals without political pedigrees and challenged them to try new ideas.”
Bloomberg’s foremost failure as mayor was his support for the racist “stop-and-frisk” policy which subjected hundreds of thousands of young people in minority neighborhoods to arbitrary police searches for illegal weapons. The practice was held unconstitutional by a federal court in 2012.
This debacle understandably raises questions about Bloomberg’s fitness to be the Democratic nominee, as most notably expressed by New York Times columnist Charles Blow. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, however, notes that Bloomberg has since achieved “a sterling record of advocacy and accomplishment on some issues about which progressives care deeply, including climate change and gun control.”
The Bloomberg website lists over 100 “Mayors for Mike,” including several who are African-American or Hispanic. Three members of the Congressional Black Caucus endorsed him on Feb. 12, including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York City. Conversely, Bloomberg contributed to the campaigns of 21 newly-elected members of Congress, all but six of them women, which produced the House Democratic majority that impeached Trump.
Advocates for a Green New Deal have a valid point that the appalling climate crisis calls for an “all hands on deck” response equivalent to the original New Deal response to the Great Depression. Just as President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the best minds (“Brain-Trusters”) to Washington to tackle the economic crisis in 1933, Bloomberg is the only Democrat contender who has proven experience in this role — namely in leading New York’s rebound from 9/11.
Climate change threatens human civilization and the planet’s life support systems. Trump sabotaged our nation’s bipartisan environmental reforms of the past half-century by withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement.
Michael Bloomberg is committed to reviving U.S. leadership on climate and many other progressive issues. Like FDR, he may prove to be the imperfect but essential instrument to lead America in the face of a world-shattering crisis.
Rutherford H. Platt lives in Florence.