And Trump was a lifelong Democrat before a black man was elected POTUS. It's not surprising now that the GOP has moved further to the extreme right that some former Republicans have either become, or begun supporting, Democrats.
The narrative is oversimplified because Bloomberg spent far more money supporting Democrat candidates (and causes like Planned Parenthood) in 2016. The idea that all of that spending was just a cover for his real objective to keep the Senate red in 2016 is just silly.
I don't like that any billionaire can sway public opinion with corporation-level advertising budgets, but that's the state of our elections at the moment and I don't really understand what's fundamentally different about the Kochs, Adelsons, Soroses, NRA, and Waltons funding their preferred candidates vs. someone funding himself. The latter seems preferable to me, even if both options suck.I said that a Trump/Bloomberg succession would prove it's broken, not that it isn't already, but yeah, I agree.
And you still have to win voters. It's a little patronizing to suggest that people are such lemmings swayed by advertising that appealing to them though advertising is "buying an election." The real crisis of Bloomberg's rise is that he hasn't had to participate in debates and answer any tough questions yet from the public.