He correctly focuses in on
Well said!
Bloomberg’s clichéd call for a New Politics. This shtick exploits democracy’s Achilles’s heel — the same that Mussolini and Hitler exploited to dramatic effect. Bloomberg has cast himself as a man of action who will fix our broken political system by transcending partisan differences.
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Bloomberg’s dream of a New Politics transcending partisan bickering is deeply seductive. Who wouldn’t want to live in a society where government just did good things without interference from special interests and other forces of selfishness? A big part of John F. Kennedy’s appeal was his claim to represent a New Politics based on what Bloomberg now calls “managerial competence.” As JFK said: “Most of the problems ... that we now face, are technical problems, are administrative problems,” best left to the best and brightest, starting with JFK himself.
That was nonsense then, and it’s nonsense now. Calling it “managerial competence” won’t make political decision-making any less political.
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Democracy isn’t about agreement, but disagreement. People have different interests and ideals. Getting rid of parties — or “transcending” them — won’t get rid of disagreements. To believe otherwise is the height of utopianism.
Obviously, Bloomberg is no Mussolini or Hitler. He’s not even a dime-store JFK. But if this “man of action” thinks he has the “managerial competence” to take the politics out of politics, he’s as utopian as they come and deserves to be president of no place.
Read the whole thing here.
