 Well, we all knew that this was coming, but now it's official. The former mayor of New York City who banned big gulps and implemented the notoriously racist stop and frisk policy, Mike Bloomberg, is jumping in the 2020 race. And yes, it is almost December. And in case you weren't keeping track, this is the second billionaire to jump into the 2020 Democratic Party primary. So we have three billionaires running for president if you count Donald Trump. Now, Mike Bloomberg to say he's rich would be an understatement because he is really rich. We're talking ninth richest person in the United States, 14th richest person in the world, and he is worth an estimated $54 billion. And he's also a piece of shit. Evidence being here's him hanging out with Harvey Weinstein. And speaking of sexual predators, here he is hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein's friend Gislaine Maxwell, who allegedly found girls for Epstein to rape. And here he is hanging out with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who let me remind you is a murderous dictator who is literally culpable for the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And here he is with fellow billionaire Donald Trump, who he claims is horrible, but I guess, you know, not horrible enough to be buddy buddy with apparently. And unsurprisingly, you know, he's a he's a greedy billionaire who is a terrible person. But what makes this worse is that he has managed to buy his way into the race by spending millions upon millions of dollars. In fact, he's spending $30 million in television advertisements in 29 states in just one week, which is more than all of his 2020 rivals have spent all year. And unsurprisingly, you know, flooding the markets with your message actually helps because he's already pulling at 2.3 percent. And this is an incredibly crowded field. So he just announced and he's already in seventh place ahead of Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Tom Steyer. And in the video where he announces his decision to run for president, you know, you can already tell that the reception is great because he disabled likes and dislikes along with comments. So that's definitely an indication that the people are really feeling it. Now, in the event you haven't already saw this ad because there's a chance that that ad played before this video, literally. Well, here's the ad that he is running on. You're going to see that there's zero policy substance to be found here. Mike Bloomberg started as a middle class kid who had to work his way through college, then built a business from a single room to a global entity, creating tens of thousands of good paying jobs along the way. He could have stopped there. But when New York suffered the terrible tragedy of 9-11, he took charge becoming a three term mayor who brought a city back from the ashes and brought back jobs and hope with it, creating tens of thousands of affordable housing units so families could have a decent place to live, raising teacher salaries and kids graduation rates and creating a more open and livable city for the millions who call it home. He could have stopped there. But when he witnessed the terrible toll of gun violence, he put his money where his heart is, helping to create a movement to take on the NRA and the politicians they own to protect families across this country and help turn the tide. And he's funded college educations for thousands of deserving low income and middle class kids and supported lifesaving medical research and stood up to the coal lobby and the outright denial of this administration to protect the only home we have from the growing menace of climate change. But now he sees a different kind of menace coming from Washington. So there's no stopping here because there's an America waiting to be rebuilt where everyone without health insurance is guaranteed to get it. And everyone who likes theirs can go ahead and keep it where the wealthy will pay more in taxes and the struggling middle class will get their fair share. And jobs that just allow you to get by will become jobs that let you get ahead. Mike Bloomberg for president, jobs creator, leader, problem solver. It's going to take all three to build back a country. So in a nutshell, orange men bad, I'm rich and I used my money to do some good things and also Medicare for all is bad. And what he says about Medicare for all is insanely vague. He says where everyone he believes in a system where everyone without health insurance is guaranteed to get it. And everyone who likes theirs can go ahead and keep it. Now, I assumed just by watching that that he's basically endorsing a public option, but when you go to his website, it's even more vague than that. He really doesn't say anything. He states that his goal is to expand Obamacare and Medicare as a way of achieving universal coverage, which what does that even mean? That's not a policy prescription. That's a vague non-commitment to make our current system, I guess, slightly less shitty. I don't even know what to take away from that. But the only reason why any of us are talking about Mike Bloomberg, the reason why people are taking him seriously is because he is a billionaire. And more specifically, he is the billionaire deemed the savior of the Democratic Party, since Joe Biden is most likely going to lose because I mean, he's face planted, he has a gaffe every 30 seconds. It's evident that voters aren't really feeling Joe Biden and the electibility argument isn't holding much water now. So in comes people like Deval Patrick and billionaire Mike Bloomberg to save the day. But the one candidate, the only candidate, rather, who's truly taking on the billionaire class, had something to say about Mike Bloomberg and why he shouldn't expect to win. We do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections. And that is why we are going to overturn Citizens United. That is why multi billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election. That is why we're going to end voter suppression in America, because we believe and I believe this from the bottom of my heart. Look, I would run for office many, many times per month. Most of the times I've won, but I've lost. But it never, ever occurred to me as a candidate or as a senator to figure out how I could suppress the vote of my opponents. If I can't win an election based on my ideas, I shouldn't win that election. Now, on top of that, as Owen Higgins of Common Dreams reports, Sanders in a statement Friday in advance of Bloomberg's entrance into the race said he was disgusted that Bloomberg believed the race could be bought. I'm disgusted by the idea that Michael Bloomberg or any other billionaire thinks they can circumvent the political process and spend tens of millions of dollars to buy our elections. Sanders said, and that's exactly it. The fact that this is possible, it really speaks to how we don't really live in a democracy. This is an oligarchy, right? If you have to be rich to win an election and if having more money and spending more money boosts your chances, this isn't really a true democracy. This is an oligarchy where money wins and anyone else, maybe they have a better message, well, if they didn't have enough money, then that doesn't matter because we, again, live in a capitalist system where everything has been commodified, including the democratic process itself. Now, on top of that, Bernie Sanders speech writer David Sarota thinks that the timing of Bloomberg's entrance into the race says a lot. Quote, according to Sarota, the timing of Bloomberg's announcement lines up with Sanders rise in the polls and a well reported meeting between the media mogul and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of the two wealthiest men in the world, alongside Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Bloomberg is also close with Disney's Bob Iger, Sarota said. So what this is about is the elite class see that, you know, their go to guy, Joe Biden is failing and Pete Buttigieg might be a surging, but I mean, they realize he's probably not going to win. And not just lose the Democratic Party primary, but if he were the nominee, he'd lose the Donald Trump, so they need a new horse to back someone who can assure them that their tax cuts will, in fact, remain permanent. And, you know, they want to make sure that the status quo isn't upset too much. So they want to stop Bernie Sanders and even Elizabeth Warren, albeit to a lesser extent, from winning. That's what this is about. They see that someone like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren is probably going to win. And Michael Bloomberg is their candidate sent in at the last minute to win. Now, what I want you to consider is not just the fact that Bloomberg himself is spending millions of dollars, but if you have your really rich friends like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos behind you, they could also potentially bankroll you, right, spend even more money. Now, what his strategy is, is really, I think it speaks to how narcissistic billionaires are, because he's choosing to basically swear off, you know, any type of campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire or not necessarily swear off, but forgo campaigning there in hopes of really ramping up campaign efforts in states like Texas and South Carolina, states that are more delegate rich, because if he doesn't get the momentum that candidates usually need from winning Iowa and New Hampshire, he's hoping that he could basically win this thing by winning the states with the most amount of pledged delegates. Now, he's doing this specifically by, you know, running lots and lots of television ads. I mean, these ads are everywhere. You have probably seen it already. So he's not trying to win by having a real grassroots, you know, ground game. He's winning just by flooding the media markets. And that really is shameful. That is absolutely shameful. And guess what? It's working. He's at 2.3 percent. So the fact that he's already one of the top contenders in the top 10, it goes to show you that our democracy is broken and to even call it a democracy is incredibly charitable, because this really isn't a democracy to have a political system where a billionaire can not only buy his way into the race, but make himself actually, you know, in a position to win certain states. It's a downright disgrace. So everyone should look at this situation with disgust and realize that the fact that we have not one but two billionaires running in the Democratic Party primary that speaks to the fact that we don't live in a democracy. We live in an oligarchy and billionaires are no longer just funding elections by picking puppets to back. They're cutting out the middlemen and they're running themselves. That's disgusting. And we're seeing democracy die before our very eyes. If you even want to argue that there's any life left in our democracy in the state that it's in, it's it's a really sad thing to see, you know, see your country change for the worse and see the Democratic process be commodified like other industries, you know, everything that shouldn't be a profit driven venture is turned into a commodified game where rich people can jump in and gain the process. It's sickening.