Shock? Disgust? Admiration? Perhaps the best way to describe how I felt last night as I watched Michael Bloomberg’s meme takeover of the internet was a creeping sense of horror.

Within the last 24–48 hours, Bloomberg’s campaign launched a well coordinated assault on the internet, covering up (presumably) every notable instagram meme page that money can buy.

In a completely self-aware “Fellow Kids” style bid for attention, the ads disarmingly incorporate authentic truths about Bloomberg: that he is old, white, male, wealthy beyond imagination, and completely out of touch with normal people.

All truths that might otherwise be inconvenient for the Bloomberg campaign cleverly made more palatable by the power of memes.

For example:

And, in a space where humor moves lighting fast, his ads even demonstrate an agility that is truly rare in politics.

Here’s another one hijacking a Bernie meme that lived and died only within the past 72 hours:

Note to the others: you can’t do this successfully if your marketing strategy is log jammed with focus groups and concerns about optics. By the time your five action committees approve of the joke, the internet will have moved on.

Was this Meme Campaign a Smart Political Move for Bloomberg? Undoubtedly, yes.

Bloomberg isn’t the first person to try and meme his way to the top, but make no mistake: his campaign got this right. In a notoriously tricky and fickle space, he reached the right people with the right messaging, and his reward is that over 60 million people thought about Michael Bloomberg today.

In a game where name recognition and personal branding is everything, this is what a success looks like.

Lest we forget, in 2016, Trump enjoyed an enormous wave of sustained free publicity on the back of pepe and MAGA memes. Reddit and 4chan saturated the internet with Trump memes that supplemented what Facebook has called the best modern social media advertising campaign to date.

Bloomberg, no doubt, is hoping to build a similar momentum on the internet. And, truth be told, Bloomberg is so rich that if he wants to show up on your favorite meme page every week from now until election day, he can.

But Is this Good for Our Country? Indisputably, No.

Regardless of how you feel about Michael Bloomberg as the potential nominee winner or president (believe me, I will cast my vote for any Democratic nominee over Trump, including Bloomberg), this advertising campaign surfaces two troubling truths about politics in 2020:

Sober discussions about policy and substantive matters has taken a back seat to… memes (and other forms of superficial media consumption). The Presidency, now more than ever, is up for sale.

If Bloomberg does meme his way to the top, he’ll be the second billionaire in a row to be elected president. Perhaps even more concerning, he will be the first billionaire to shamelessly buy the presidency outright.

And this is the source of my existential horror. Bloomberg has abandoned any pretenses of hiding his wealth or the influence his wealth can so readily purchase.

Most Billionaires Have the Self Preservation Instinct to Keep Their Wealth Largely Out of the Public Eye.

And for good reason. As long as you don’t flaunt it, a billion dollars is so much wealth that regular people can’t even comprehend the disparity.

History is littered with examples of what happens to the ultra wealthy when they flaunt their well too excessively and the commoners finally wrap their heads around the disparity. Spoiler: what follows is never pleasant for the ultra-wealthy.

So what do most billionaires do? They give to charity to court public good will, and when they want to swim in a pool of gold coins, they have the common decency to do it on a private island somewhere you’ll never see. (Or in the case of politics, they form super PACs and work behind the scenes to whomever is beholden to their interests elected to power).

But as this meme takeover demonstrates, Bloomberg has no shame about simply buying his way to more power. It’s transactional, opportunistic, and dangerous.

If a Billionaire–Any Billionaire–Can Simply Purchase the Presidency, Americans Will Never Recover.

There will be two classes: the billionaire class, who can (and will) seize power to direct the state to serve their whims, and everyone else, who will be subject to their oligarchical rule.

Superficially, our Republic may limp on for a while. But a Bloomberg win will confirm what many already suspect is true: we are now living in the Age of Oligarchs.

Have a comment or feedback? I’d love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter ranting about politics and posting memes at @MrJPWeaver.

PS: here’s more of the Bloomberg memes if you care to stare further into the abyss.