The Wealthy Launch a Last-Minute Plot to Stop the Left

Deval Patrick and Michael Bloomberg jump into the 2020 race to save billionaires from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders

Paul Blest
GEN

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Credit: Paul Marotta/Getty

TThe late entry of Michael Bloomberg and Deval Patrick into the 2020 Democratic primary is based on a simple premise: The left — Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — must be stopped at any cost.

Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, announced his run on Thursday, telling reporters “wealth isn’t the problem, greed is the problem” and that he doesn’t support a wealth tax or Medicare for All. That should be unsurprising: like Mitt Romney he’s an alumnus of Bain Capital and had a stint on the corporate board of one of the worst subprime lenders of the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg—the billionaire former New York City mayor—and his nascent campaign have already acknowledged that he has no shot at making the debates or winning early states, but that it isn’t an issue because he’s focusing on Super Tuesday states, something he can only do because his obscene wealth would allow him to stay in the contest for, I don’t know, probably a couple hundred years if he wanted to blow it all. It’s an arrogant move by an arrogant man, one who’s capitalizing on the fear of his fellow travelers in the one…

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Paul Blest
GEN
Writer for

Journalist based in Raleigh, N.C., ex-Splinter and INDY Week. Bylines at GEN, The American Prospect, The Outline, VICE, The Nation. Twitter: @pblest