Bloomberg is the only Democrat who can beat Trump, and Trump knows it

President Trump is on his way to re-election, and he has lots of help, in some cases from unexpected places. The most predictable comes from donors who are always there for the incumbent president. In Trump’s case from billionaires, one of whom, Nelson Peltz, held a fundraiser at a half-million dollars per couple last weekend. And no matter what he says or does, the base cheers Trump on. NPR recently reported on a Trump supporter who had his land cut in two by the wall on our southern border, and there he was on sticking by Trump even as some of his property was rendered useless by his president.

Even though he has no serious opposition, Trump voters are showing up in historic numbers in the primaries to vote for their president. Trump’s greatest assets, however, appear to be the Democratic candidates on the primary circuit where they feature regular bouts of jabs and counterjabs at each other that will surely weaken the ultimate Democratic contender this fall.

There is some great material in the Democratic primaries. Sen. Bernie Sanders calls himself a Democratic Socialist. If “socialist” doesn’t turn off most voters, it will be Bernie’s Medicare plan for all, especially the part about forcing the insured out of their employer insurance plans.

The Sanders campaign has found other ways to undermine the Democratic primaries. While the candidate disavows any role in tearing down his fellow candidates or bullying supporters of his Democratic rivals, Bernie Bros are spoiling the Democratic primaries and give us a glimpse of what life would be like under a Democratic president as far to the left as Trump is to the right. Their threats and dirty tricks look more like Trump and his base rallies than anything the Democratic Party had hoped to model as the loyal opposition.

Elizabeth Warren is running a close second to Bernie when it comes to proposals that pile on the budget deficit, which may explain her poor showings in the primary returns. And with her recent attacks on Michael Bloomberg, she’s just the latest candidate to feast on a fellow Democrat. Then there’s Pete Buttigieg, who comes to the campaign with enough managerial experience to deserve another term as South Bend mayor, but hardly the chops to be the next American president.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is not doing as well in the primaries as his supporters expected, but he does poll well in one-on-one polls against Trump in key states. Unfortunately, his son’s connections to Ukraine could give Trump a field day in the fall campaign. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is also showing poorly in recent primaries.

The challenge for Democratic primary voters will be to distinguish between the candidates who warm the cockles of their liberal hearts from the candidate who will have Trump shaking in his boots and then defeating him in November.

The candidate most likely to send Trump back to full-time residency at Mar-a-Lago — this time at his own expense, not the taxpayer’s — is the Democratic candidate who is surging in the polls and who had the greatest lead over Trump among the Democratic candidates in an early February poll. Forty-seven percent of respondents said they would vote for Michael Bloomberg if he were nominated to run against Trump, while 40 percent said they would vote for Trump, and 13 percent were undecided.

Michael Bloomberg is Donald Trump’s greatest nightmare. Bloomberg is everything Trump is not. Trump’s casino and hotel businesses declared bankruptcy four to six times, depending on which fact check you use. Bloomberg built his own financial empire without Daddy’s help and with no bankruptcies. Bloomberg served as mayor of New York City while Donald Trump was playing the boss on the TV show, The Apprentice. Bloomberg is a major philanthropist while Trump is a deadbeat who failed to pay his bills over the years.

Bloomberg has shown no hesitancy using his substantial fortune to flood the airwaves with campaign commercials. As billionaire Trump’s campaign war chest grows, Democrats will need the largesse of another billionaire who will spend what it takes to retire Trump. And Bloomberg aims his commercials and campaign speeches solely at Trump, not the other Democratic candidates.

Are there issues in Bloomberg’s past that should be of concern to Democratic voters? Sure, just like all the other candidates, but compare those concerns to the track record of Donald Trump.

With a racist and sexist history going back years, Trump has bragged about grabbing women’s genitals, hinted to his base in a veiled threat that the Second Amendment might take care of his opponent in the last election, poked fun at the disabled and mocked religion and the faithful at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. As far as which Democratic candidate has the purest record on race relations, voters should remember the real enemy here. Trump, along with his father, made front page news in 1973 when the Justice Department filed a civil rights lawsuit against them for discriminating against blacks in the Trump housing empire. As president, he has followed up with racist rhetoric and actions that has earned him a 33% approval rating on race relations in an AP poll last year.

Instead of picking apart past comments of Democratic candidates, primary voters just need to reflect on the countless times Trump has trashed our culture and violated the democratic norms of our constitutional system of government. Let’s hope Democrats by the time they get to the convention will choose a candidate based on only one criterion — who has the best chance of beating Donald Trump. From how things look at this point, that candidate is likely to be Michael Bloomberg. Only time will tell whether Democrats see it that way.