In the span of a week, the Democratic presidential primary has morphed into a war for the party’s soul. Former front-runner Joe Biden has collapsed, giving way to a contest that essentially boils down to a war between Bernie Sanders and billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The latter has used $400 million of his own money thus far (pocket change to him) to catapult his candidacy to third place nationally and to dominate a number of Super Tuesday states in advance.
The existential struggle to save the republic from Dictator Drumpf has devolved from a melee between some of the party’s most promising talents in elected office to a twilight struggle between a septuagenarian socialist who wants to abolish billionaires and a septuagenarian caricature of evil billionaires. Most terrifyingly, the two appear to be welcoming this offensively idiotic war.
Bloomberg’s strategy makes perfect sense. With tons of cash to burn on the ground, the businessman can afford to expend his social media efforts on a Very Online offensive designed to bait the dregs of the Bernie Bros.
We need to unite to defeat Trump in November. This type of “energy” is not going to get us there. https://t.co/bPuUZMs2d6 pic.twitter.com/Tdp6mpWjcX
— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) February 17, 2020
Most astounding is Sanders’s willingness to play the game. Rather than ignore Bloomberg and allow the news cycle to cover other (relative) centrists such as Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg still fighting for a place in his lane, Sanders has intentionally prolonged the war, all but choosing to crown Bloomberg as Biden’s successor in the race. Below, a recent sampling of remarks from top Bernie flacks:
The only coalition Bloomberg needs to win are the coalition of zeros in his bank account. We have to resist lowest-common-denominator politics & come together around principles we believe in. pic.twitter.com/vnZJztnjNw
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) February 17, 2020
And another one?? #BloombergIsRacist https://t.co/Pk7hRzbCdo
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) February 18, 2020
And a particularly Trump-y entry for you:
It’s truly hilarious — and I mean, laugh out loud hilarious — that a pundit paid by billionaire Jeff Bezos wants you to think that some tweets from me & a few others are as powerful as billionaire Mike Bloomberg, his army of operatives & his hundreds of millions of dollars of ads https://t.co/bijAPGBkmK
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) February 18, 2020
For how often President Trump boasts of his wealth, he didn’t run a billionaire campaign, but rather the campaign of a celebrity. Over the course of his entire campaign, Trump spent no more than $66 million of his own cash, earning $2 billion in free advertising from the media instead. Bloomberg has claimed that he’d be willing to spend $1 billion, having already spent nearly half that in a matter of months. Bloomberg, a sinophilic authoritarian arguably worse on civil liberties than Bernie, is effectively buying his way through the primary, and shockingly, the candidate who claims the most moral rectitude in standing up for ordinary folks is letting him do it.
Why? Because what could be better for Sanders’s message than to run against a literal version of the villain he has spent so many years vilifying as a metaphor?
It’s a match made in hell, but it’s one that will suck up all the air in the primary. By ensuring that the news cycle stays stuck on Bloomberg, Sanders hopes to close out accounts on Buttigieg and Klobuchar, all the while hoping the media won’t hold his own campaign to account.
