Rick Santorum has set himself out to become the Republican Party’s culture war candidate, decrying President Barack Obama’s plan to require insurers to provide free birth control, even if the insured is employed by a religious institution that is opposed to the use of contraceptives.

The comments earned Santorum “scumbag” status across the liberal internet, a reference to the “Scumbag Steve” meme that depicts a young man with a grimy expression wearing an obnoxious looking sideways fitted cap.

Reserved for the most hated of public figures, notable internet scumbags include former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Pope Benedict XVI. One is declared a scumbag by placing Steve’s hat on the subject’s head flanked by text highlighting the subject’s observed hypocrisy on the top and bottom of the photo. 

Such memes, usually born from the primordial, digital chaos of 4chan's /b/, may be thought of by Republican strategists as the benign creation of a few neckbeards. However, as the US Congress learned last January, the political will of the internet can be brought to bear on the politicians and legislation that it loathes.