Billionaires running for president . Not a good Idea .

 (1)>>So why then are so many billionaires running for president in the 2020 cycle or shopping for the office? Naturally, the presence of another billionaire in the race for the White House has irked other candidates who balk at the idea of buying one’s way to the presidency. After all, for all intents and purposes, the United States is already run by its billionaires. They should care about us enough to make things official.But hey, billionaires: Running for president is actually a bad idea. You’re very unlikely to win, it’s not clear that you have the skills to do the job well, and there are much, much better ways to make a difference in the world with your billions.   If you like America, you should put a ring on it! Faux billionaire Donald Trump is obviously in again. (He’s been running since he was elected the first time.) There’s a billionaire in the White House and two of the top Democratic rivals for Trump’s job That hasn’t stopped another billionaire, hedge-fund mogul (1.2)>>Tom Steyer, running for the Democratic nomination. And now former New York mayor (2)>>Mike Bloomberg, founder of the eponymous media empire, is also making moves to enter the race, fired up by the billionaire bashing. Ironically, Bloomberg (net worth $52.3bn) signaled his intention to get in the race by getting his name on the ballot in Alabama, one of the poorest states in the union with a median household income of $48,123.  The most troubling aspect of this is the prospect that Bloomberg might actually think this could happen—that he has enough name recognition (and positive name recognition at that), enough broadly appealing ideas, enough political wizardry, and enough money to pull it off .  (2.1)>>The myth of the political outsider has given raise to these ultra rich wannabes . A billionaires' takeover of the U.S. government was not one of Trump's signature campaign promises, but in retrospect it was obvious he wasn't going to bring in the sustainability MBAs—he doesn't know any. Instead, he set up a government of, by and for his peers (or men the famously insecure Trump wishes to call his peers). (3)>>His Cabinet of millionaires and billionaires is the richest in American history. The New York billionaires, though, have more in common with Russian oligarchs and Nigerian petro-magnates than with almost any other Americans—whether they are flipping burgers at McDonald's. One of the Bloomberg ads, titled “Promise”, explains: “Mike is running for president to beat Trump and have the wealthy pay their fair share to build an economy that works for everyone.” But many see Bloomberg’s entry into the race as further evidence of anxiety among the ultra-wealthy about the prospect of Sanders or Warren raising their taxes … somewhat. The phenomenon has become very real in the past few years. While Ross Perot was considered a curiosity when he ran as an independent in 1992 and 1996, brand-name business figures no longer seem unusual in presidential politics. In this election cycle alone, Schultz, Michael Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Steyer, Mark Zuckerberg and Mark Cuban have all been floated as potential challengers to Trump. Name recognition, an apparent record of success in business and personal resources were enough for Trump, these candidates seem to say, so why wouldn’t it be enough for them? Trump spent $66.1 million of his own money on his 2016 campaign. For billionaires with a bigger bottom line and a larger sense of themselves, such a price seems a bargain too good to ignore. But Mr. Bloomberg could also reshape the race in other ways, intensifying the Democrats’ existing debates about economic inequality and corporate power, and offering fodder to the party’s rising populist wing, led by Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who contend that the extremely rich already wield far too much influence in politics. Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly expressed discomfort with certain policies favored by both Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders.   (4)>>The 2020 election was already slated to be a record-breaking political advertising event. Now that Bloomberg and Steyer have both jumped into the race, advertising spend on the presidential race alone could exceed the $3 billion predicted by experts. Billionaires often have high approval ratings, but their image tends to take a battering when they enter the public arena. In part, that’s because people were evaluating them as (hugely successful) people, not as politicians, and they’ll inevitably turn off many voters as they start to take stances on the issues. In part, it’s because negative stories that probably wouldn’t have come out had they stayed off the political radar are now more likely to emerge. The latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll bears out how uncomfortable Democrats are with a wealthy self-funding candidate possibly leading their ticket. When asked what type of candidate they'd be most excited about as a presidential candidate, a majority of Republicans said a business executive. Among Democrats, that choice was near the bottom. The American public’s mounting frustration with this corrupt system has, in part, led to the rise of populist candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Now has to welcome Bloomberg and Steyer on the ticket . American political system is no longer a democracy but rather a plutocracy. 








NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>So why then are so many billionaires running for president in the 2020 cycle. Compared to the professional presidential candidates who have achieved maximum political socialization by running for city councils, working in state legislatures or other governments, or serving in Congress, the billionaire candidate stands as a loner, somebody who has gotten good at balancing at the top of the hierarchy and barking orders to underlings.The U.S. has also long passed the point at which it was a democracy, since the DNC and the intelligence agencies are proving with this "resistance" and "impeachment" that our elections do not matter anymore.  Meanwhile, the neolibs/neocons continue to pump unlimited funds into the foreign empire and the domestic patronage (aka our massively overleveraged welfare state).  I wonder how long the U.S. has.  We desperately need bad times to produce strong people, as the gravy train of good times has run for far too long on borrowed time and has produced the weakest people imaginable.  Billionaire or not, the politicians and leaders we need really have to start leveling with the American public, and folks need to stop with the magical thinking that somehow we can escape all of the bad times that lay ahead. (1.2)>>Tom Steyer. Steyer, meanwhile, has attracted attention spending millions on a campaign to impeach the president. The former hedge fund manager – who’s said he’ll decide on a White House run early in the new year – kicked off a town hall tour this month in South Carolina, the first southern state to vote in the primary and caucus calendar. That tour will also bring him to New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada, other early-voting states. Steyer has also built up a vast email distribution list through his “Need to impeach” drive and NextGenAmerica, the grassroots advocacy organization he created five years ago. In an announcement video, he talked about how corporations have “bought our democracy” and “we’re trying to make democracy work by pushing power down to the people.” His policy positions have much in common with those of Sanders and of Warren, who he’s spoken positively of — but he’s still decided to run against both of them.  (2)>>Mike Bloomberg. Is already bombarding the airwaves with his commercials, for a guy who has not participating in a public debate is rather troubling , and arrogant by standards . Mike Bloomberg is throwing another $9.5 million into television ads in select competitive districts to boost his presidential run — less than a week after purchasing $30 million in spots to launch the long-shot 2020 bid.  A CNBC analysis of data provided by Advertising Analytics found that Bloomberg has put $13.2 million of those dollars to work on television ads across the 14 Super Tuesday states. That sum is more than any other candidate’s total spend for the primary so far, and is nearly as much as the rest of the field combined. In the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, on the other hand, Bloomberg has spent only $21,480, less than any other candidate and a mere 0.06% of his total TV spend across the country. (2.1)>>The myth of the political outsider has given raise to these ultra rich wannabes . A candidate like Trump, an "outsider", came to the forefront because voters were sick of Democrats and Republicans doing nothing for them and doing everything for corporations and for the most wealthy. Steyer, an "outsider", comes to forefront because voters and most Democratic voters specifically are sick of Democratic "leadership" doing nothing.The Democratic Party is especially vulnerable for failing to bring impeachment charges against Trump after running on "hold Trump accountable". People are still in love with the "run government like a business" trope that has been proven, time and again, to not be a magic bullet. I thought the GWB administration would, once and for all, lay to rest the BS notion of a CEO president. Nope. Along comes the worst businessman and biggest con man in America to win over a swath of people for reasons that still escape me. In theory, any American citizen meeting the specified qualifications for office can become President. This is a good thing, and wealth, or lack of it, should not in itself impede anyone's access to the office. Not all millionaires and billionaires are made equally: some are ethical, humane, and philanthropic, while others are selfish, entitled, and mean (for example, see Donald John Trump). A very wealthy person can be an effective, even exemplary President, should they enter office with enough humility to learn what they did not know going in, and exercise their powers with sincere intent to serve the public good. I believe Steyer would do all those things were he to gain any office of public trust, quite unlike the current President. I do believe it is fallacious to try to govern the country as if it were a business. The country was not set up as such, and discrete monetary profit is not the goal of the unfolding of the republic and its affairs. But one need not be a very wealthy individual to make this mistake, and a very wealthy person will not necessarily regard the nation as if it were a business.  (3)>>His Cabinet of millionaires and billionaires is the richest in American history. That Trump has a predilection for the super-rich in his inner circle is hardly a secret. Even though he denounced the oppressive power of Wall Street during the campaign, he has chosen many of its leading figures to serve by his side. Among the billionaires and multimillionaires in his cabinet are Betsy DeVos (estimated family net worth: $5.6 billion) as education secretary, Wilbur Ross ($2.5 billion) as commerce secretary, Steve Mnuchin ($500 million) as Treasury secretary, and Rex Tillerson ($325 million) as secretary of state. Trump has also scoured the executive ranks of the banking giant Goldman Sachs for many of his senior advisers, including Gary Cohn as his top economic adviser and Dina Powell as a special adviser on economic initiatives. (4)>>The 2020 election was already slated to be a record-breaking political advertising event.  I find also Ironic while these wealthy American oligarchs have money to self sustain a campaign but the The New York Times published a terrifying study on how just 158 wealthy families have provided nearly 50 percent of the funds raised for presidential candidates with their eye on the White House. They were mostly white, rich, older, and male, and hailed from the finance and energy sectors.