Roughly since the election of Andrew Jackson, American politicians have also been brands, competing for mindshare in the markets for “liberal blowhard,” say, or “Second Amendment crank.” In this field Mayor Mike Bloomberg of New York owns the trademark on “apolitical technocrat,” a Northeastern niche market in which the absence of charisma is, like the hand-printed label on a jar of farmer's market jam, a signifier of authenticity.
But the secretive, imperious Bloomberg is also a billionaire whose fortune is tied to the world of international finance, giving rise to suspicions that he is motivated by more than a desire for congestion pricing on the bridges into Manhattan. Julian Brash, an assistant professor of anthropology at Montclair State University, thinks he knows what that motivation is. In Bloomberg's New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City, he argues that Bloomberg's results-oriented, numbers-driven, post-ideological pragmatism masks an unspoken agenda to advance 'the interests and desires of the postindustrial elites' seeking 'a new class hegemony' over the non-Gulfstream-owning masses.
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