Nevertheless, He Persisits

The ego and the altruism of Mike Bloomberg.

- VANESSA GRIGORIADIS

THE MORNING AFTER PRESIDENT TRUMP delivered his self-congratulatory State of the Union speech while still in the midst of impeachment, several reporters are waiting in a Providence, Rhode Island, vegan café for Michael Bloomberg. Most of them came from Philadelphia last night, where they covered his nighttime rally that had a laser-light show, buffet, open bar, and rap performance. Like the rest of the media at the time, they have been caught up in a kind of fever dream in which, suddenly, in the brief interval between the Iowa collapse of Joe Biden and the appearance of Bloomberg himself on a Nevada debate stage, it seems possible that a plutocrat could waltz his way to the Democratic nomination as comfortably as he had to the New York City mayoralty, including an extralegal third term. How plausible a fever dream? The reporters are themselves unsure. One of them, picking at a coconut-yogurt-açai-organic-oat bowl, asks somewhat idly, “Were there real people there last night?”— meaning, was it stocked with paid Bloomberg staffers and spouses and neighbors or were the bodies in the hall actual Bloomberg supporters? “They were real people,” says a tall cameraman, cocking his head. “It was kind of amazing.”