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About

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8th, 1941) is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representative from 1991 to 2007 and currently serves as the junior United States Senator since being elected to the office in 2007. After over two decades of public service as an independent legislator for the state of Vermont, Sanders rose to national prominence with the launch of his campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2016 presidential election on May 26th, 2015.[1] During his campaign, Sanders firmly established himself as a dark horse for the Democratic Party with primary and caucus victories in 22 states. In July 2016, Sanders officially endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate after she secured the number of delegates required for the party's nomination.

History

Political Career

Bernie Sanders was motivated to enter politics at an early age because his father's family was killed during the Holocaust.[42] Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. A self-described democratic socialist, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. Sanders served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to succeed the retiring Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords in the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected by a large margin, capturing almost 71% of the popular vote.[1]

2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign

Sanders announced his intentions to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President on April 30th, 2015. Unlike other presidential candidates, Sanders did not pursue funding through a Super PAC, instead focusing on small individual donations.[1] He would be the first non-millionaire president since Harry Truman from 1945.[39] Notably, much of his support comes from online, where so far he has received $15,000,000 in donations in his first quarter as a candidate as of July 2nd, 2015.[8] On September 30th, 2015, Bernie Sanders stated his goal of 1,000,000 individual online contributions had been met and later that day it was revealed he had raised an additional $24,000,000 in donations in this third quarter as candidate, well surpassing Obama's pace at this time in 2008.[28][29] The individual online contributions have doubled to 2,000,000 with 800,000 of the donors donating a second or third time as of December 17th, 2015.[37] This amount increased to 3,000,000 individual online contributions as of January 30th, 2016.[41]

Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

On July 11th, 2016, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns announced that the pair would be joining each other at a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the following day. On July 12th, Sanders and Clinton appeared together at the Portsmouth High School, where Sanders officially conceded the presidential race to Clinton and endorsed her for the next President of the United States (shown below).

That day, several threads about the event reached the front page of the /r/politics,[74] /r/The_Donald,[75] /r/SandersForPresident[76] and /r/PoliticalDiscussion[77] subreddits. Meanwhile, Donald Trump posted a series of tweets condemning the endorsement and urging Sanders supporters to join his campaign (shown below).[78]

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h To all the Bernie voters who want to stop bad trade deals & global special interests, we welcome you with open arms. People first. Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h Bernie sanders has abandoned his supporters by endorsing pro-war pro-TPP pro-Wall Street Crooked Hillary Clinton Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h Bernie Sanders endorsing Crooked Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out! £78.3K 20K

Also on July 12th, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein released a statement about the endorsement, where she condemned Clinton's voting record and urged Sanders supporters to throw their support behind the Green Party.[79]

"I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton's campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy."

On Twitter, critics of the endorsement expressed their disapproval in tweets using the hashtags #SelloutSanders,[80] claiming that Sanders had compromised his integrity by supporting his former rival (shown below).

Samantha Hagmayer @SHagmayer 2h Bernie betrayed his supporters endorsing the most corrupt politician in Washington today. I feel bad for them! #SelloutSanders £737 70 Nia4 TRUMP @nia4 trump 2h #SelIOutSanders with all those little contributions & BIG promises He now stands alongside the MOST Corrupt nominee Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out! 42 22 23 Bill hicks @Billhic02785574 2h #SelloutSanders I think the people who donated to Bernie want their money back today £740 67 Emily Rutherford @emrutherford90 2h #SelloutSanders endorses his worst enemy #CrookedHillary after a year of bashing her and her policies! 31 62

Bernie Campaign Election Response

Following the election of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders' campaign was asked for comment. A tweet by @freddoso[81] claimed that per a CNN source, the Sanders campaign said "We have nothing polite to say right now."

The tweet caused speculation that Bernie may have been referring to the results of the Democratic Primary, during which he consistently polled far better than Hillary Clinton in head-to-head matchups with Trump. The idea was a major topic of conversation on Twitter[83] the next day, and The Independent[82] published an article claiming Bernie would have won the election had he been the nominee.

2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign

On February 19th, 2019, Bernie Sanders announced that he would be entering the 2020 Democratic Primary, joining a crowded field of Democratic candidates.[84] He made the announcement via an email to supporters on his mailing list and with a campaign announcement video posted to Twitter (shown below). After the announcement, his campaign raised over $1 million in less than four hours.[87]




Traditionally left-wing publications such as Paste[85] and Jacobin[86] responded positively to the news, with Paste declaring that Sanders would easily win the 2020 primary. Twitter users were split on the announcement. People were quick to argue against Bernie using similar criticisms as were brought up in the 2016 primary. For example, Twitter user @PhillipReines posited that a celebration of Bernie was hypocritical considering how he perceived people treated the idea of a Hillary Clinton run (shown below, left). User @TheHoarseWhisperer tweeted that they would auto-block anyone who supported Sanders (shown below, right).

Philippe Reines @PhilippeReines Follow Hillary Clinton, 70 Won 2016 Popular Vote by 2,864,903 Won 2016 Primaries by 3,708,294 Media: go away. Bernie Sanders, age 77 Lost 2016 Primaries by 3,708,294 votes Media: WELCOME BACK! 7:56 AM -19 Feb 2019
The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer Follow Just an FYI, anyone who promotes that galling narcissistic fraud known as Bernard Sanders on my timeline gets auto-blocked. Want to peacock for a charlatan, go nuts. Just not on my timeline. 11:04 AM-19 Feb 2019

Such criticisms drew strong counter-criticism from people who believed the criticisms were unfair, especially compared to other Democrats in the field. For example, user @The_Law_Boy tweeted a parody of people saying Sanders' idealistic ideas were unrealistic (shown below, left). User @AmirArminiMD tweeted his enthusiasm for the campaign as a chance to change the country (shown below, right).


Law Boy, Esq. @The_Law_Boy Follow Bernie Sanders is offering a lot of "pie in the sky" ideas. My campaign is based in reality, and it's founded on a simple truth: you can't have any of those things, you're stupid for even asking, and you're physically an unattractive person. PLease vote for me. 12:23 PM-19 Feb 2019
Amir @AmirAminiMD Followw This is it. The opportunity to not only defeat Trumpism but to transform America and change the world. There's a reason why Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America: He has been fighting for us his entire adult life. Let's join him in this fight -it's OUR fight! Bernie Sanders@BernieSanders I'm running for president. I am asking you to join me today as part of an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign that will begin with at least 1 million people from across the country. Say you're in: . BERMIESAMD 57 12:43 PM-19 Feb 2019

Online Presence

The Sanders campaign maintains an official website, berniesanders.com, where supporters can contribute, learn about campaign events, and "join the revolution."[4] As of February 1st, 2016 the campaign's Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,540,000 likes, the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,950,000 likes, the SenSanders account on Twitter has 1,305,000 followers, the BernieSanders account on Twitter has 1,264,000 followers, and the berniesanders profile on Instagram has 656,000 followers.[5][6][7][20][21] The Bernie Sanders channel on Youtube has had notable success, gaining 91,000 subscribers and his five most popular videos all having over 250,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

On March 12th, 2014, Bernie Sanders posted a video on his youtube channel titled "Health Care: U.S. vs. Canada," in which he and others debated the health care systems of the United States and Canada (shown below). This video garnered 1,383,000 views with 5,900 likes and 181 dislikes as of February 1st, 2016. It is the 9th most viewed result under the youtube search 'Bernie Sanders' as of February 1st, 2016.

On August 17th, 2015, the All In with Chris Hayes account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you"" in which Bernie Sanders states (paraphrased) no matter who is elected, due to the power of Wall Street, corporations, and campaign donors, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing working families within the United States (shown below). As of August 19th, 2015, the video has 5,000,000 views with 62,000 likes and 91,000 shares.

Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you"

Posted by All In with Chris Hayes on Monday, August 17, 2015

On October 13th, 2015, the Occupy Democrats account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders Explains Why He Should Be President" in which Bernie Sanders delivers his introduction in the first debate of the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary in the Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas (shown below). The video quickly vent viral and has 10.8 million views with 160,000 likes and 234,000 shares as of October 15th, 2015.

WATCH: Bernie Sanders' epic intro at the Democratic debate where he explains why he should be President.Video by Occupy Democrats, LIKE our page for more!

Posted by Occupy Democrats on Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Reddit

Even though Bernie Sanders early in the election had not been covered as strongly in the news as other candidates like Hilary Clinton, the popular online site Reddit was continuously showing a large amount of commentary and support for him. As of February 1st, 2016, the top 420 results for 'Bernie Sanders' on Reddit all have 2,000 upvotes, the top 25 results have 6,000 upvotes, and the top result has 12,000 upvotes.[2] Notably, all the top 420 results for Bernie Sanders on Reddit are overwhelmingly supportive of him and his policies. The top 2 most commented results for the search 'Bernie Sanders' both have 20,000 comments and the top 5 each have 10,000 comments as of December 18th, 2015. In addition, the Bernie Sanders subreddit, /r/sandersforpresident, has 164,000 readers as of February 1st, 2015. Reddit was reported to have raised $750,000 for Bernie Sanders's Campaign as of January 10th, 2016.[38] That amount has since increased to $1,000,000 as of January 26th, 2016.[40]

FOR A GRASSROOTS FOR SANDERS PRODUCTION
reddit

On May 19th, 2015, Bernie Sanders participated in an AMA on Reddit on the subreddit /r/IAmA under the account name bernie-sanders. Bernie Sanders had overwhelmingly positive reception, receiving 54,000 upvotes on his IAmA comments alone. There were 7,300 upvotes and 13,000 comments on his IAmA link as of February 1st, 2016.[3]

[-] Paulwebster90 1473 points 2 months ago If you win in 2016, what will your first dispositions be? permalink save report give gold REPLY [-] ADem Minden My first effort would be to rally the American people to demand that Congress pass a progressive agenda which reverses the decline of our middle class. We have got to create millions of decent-paying jobs rebuilding our infrastructure, we've got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, we've got to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and we have to transform our energy system in order to protect us from climate change. If the American people are politically active and demand that Congress act on their behalf, we can accomplish those goals and much more. permalink save parent report give gold REPLY ↑ [S] 3583 points 2 months ago

On September 14th, the official Bernie Sanders Reddit account bernie-sanders posted to /r/SandersForPresident "Let’s talk about one issue that won’t get a lot of discussion in the media: income and wealth inequality. Reddit, I would very much appreciate your help in getting this video out to your friends and family, especially the Republican ones. -B," which linked to a video posted by the Bernie Sanders Facebook account titled "Bernie Sanders: In-Depth Explanation of Income Inequality" (shown below). The Reddit post has garnered 5,300 upvotes and the video has garnered 6,080,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

Let me tell you something about our country that the billionaire class doesn’t want you to know…

Posted by Bernie Sanders on Monday, September 14, 2015

Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash

Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group page devoted to creating and distributing memes, generally image macros and exploitables in support of Bernie Sanders during his campaign for the nomination during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The group is well-known for producing memes about Sanders at a high rate of mutation.

Facebook Groups Removal Controversy

On April 25th, 2016, several Bernie Sanders-related Facebook groups were purportedly removed from Facebook after being flooded with sexually explicit content, including Bernie Sanders For President 2016,[65] Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome,[66] Bernie Sanders Activists,[67] Bernie Believers[68] and Bernie Sanders is my Hero.[69] That day, Redditor jbher315 submitted a post about the removals to the /r/SandersForPresident[70] subreddit, where it received upwards of 9,300 votes (75% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in 48 hours. In the comments section, Redditor BernieTron2000 speculated that the pages were removed due to "Hillary trolls mass-reporting" to take down the pages temporarily. Meanwhile, Facebook user Bee Jay submitted several screenshots to the Bernie Sanders for President 2016 Facebook group,[71] which appeared to show a Facebook user bragging about reporting the Bernie Sanders Activists group for "containing a credible threat of violence" (shown below).

Casey Champagne 12 mins HAI Edd 81+8 11:21 PM ← Support Message You anonymously reported Bernie Sanders Activists for containing credible threat of violence REPORT REVIEWED ACTIW Read 1 Previous Message We removed the group you reported We reviewed the group you reported for having n credible threat of violence Since it violated our Community Standards, we removed it Thanks for your report We let Bermie Sanders Activists know that the group has been removed, but not who reported i Delete LIke Share d-10153560940371762&set-gm, 17404400561776778type 3

Also on April 25th, the Internet news site Heavy[72] published an article about the controversy, which reported that members of the Facebook group Bros4Hillary were behind attacks aimed at inundating Bernie Sanders Facebook pages with false complaints and explicit content. Additionally, the article included a statement by Bros4Hillary Political Director Alex Mohajer, who disavowed any connection to the Facebook page raids. Additionally, Mohajer claimed the Facebook user connected to the harassment had been removed from the Bros4Hillary group.

"Bros4Hillary was created as a way to provide a positive and supportive community for supporters of Hillary Clinton to gather, and as a direct response to the hateful and divisive rhetoric used by other campaigns during this election cycle,” he said. “We have not and do not approve of or condone harmful or offensive rhetoric or harassing behavior targeting supporters of any other candidate in the race…"

By the end of the day, all the Facebook groups had been reinstated. The following day, the Sanders campaign Social Media Manager Aiden King responded to concerns about the closing, claiming that the pages may have been temporarily shut down due to a Facebook bug. Also on April 26th, Snopes[73] published an article about the Facebook group controversy.

Support

Berniebros

"Berniebro" is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactic aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.

Rally Turnouts

Numerous news outlets and Reddit have reported Bernie Sanders drawing significantly large crowds for his rallies. "I am surprised by the size of the crowds. In Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday, we had close to a thousand people," Sanders told reporters on June 11th, 2015, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C.[15] These numbers were however dwarfed by another rally he had on June 21st, 2015, in the University of Denver, which had at least 5,500 Coloradans listening to him speak inside the gymnasium.[16] Another rally Bernie Sanders had on July 19th, 2015, drew another larger amount of supporters, having over 11,000 people listening to him speak in downtown Pheonix, Arizona.[17] On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders hosted a rally which gained over 15,000 people, after having been blocked from speaking at Westlake Center due to #BlackLivesMatter protestors disrupting him.[18] A day later on August 9th, 2015, nearly double this number appeared at a Portland rally, with over 19,000 people inside the Moda Center and over 9,000 people outside it. On September 3rd, 2015, people filled the 26,000 person capacity inside the Boston Convention Center for a Bernie Sanders Boston rally, with a large quantity of people also outside the center.[30] On March 21st, 2016, Bernie Sanders hosted 3 rallies across Washington which attracted a combined total of over 30,000 people.[63]

A FUTURE TO AFUTURE TO BELIEVE IN BELIEVE IN A FUTURE TO URE T LIEV A FUTURE T BELIEVE IN A FUTURE TO A FUTURE TO BELIEVE IN, 삶VIURETO BELIEVE IN AFUTURE TO BELIEVEI BELIEVE IN A FUTURE TO IEVE IN FUTUR BELIEVE INE A FUTURE TO BELIEV AFUTURE A FUT EVE IN A FUT BELIE WWW.BERNIESANDERS.COM E TO AF BEE I ELIEVE

Deez Nuts' Endorsement

On August 23rd, 2015, the presidential candidate Deez Nuts (aka Brady Olson) endorsed Bernie Sanders. Brady Olson posted on Facebook “just gonna throw this out there now. This is not for the general election. My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.” In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Deez Nuts wrote that he didn’t want to “see Clinton, Bush, or Trump in the White House, so I guess I’m just trying to put up a fight.”[23]

Reputation

Bernie Sanders has established a reputation for having highly progressive views and being consistent with his voting and political views throughout his lifetime. He is notably far left and has gained a reputation for garnering large crowds at his rallies.

Progressivism

Since his election to the Senate, Sanders has emerged as a leading progressive voice on issues like income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform. He rose to national prominence on the heels of his 2010 filibuster of the proposed extension of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy. Sanders is also outspoken on civil liberties issues, and has been particularly critical of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act.[1]

Criticism

Bernie Sanders has faced two primary criticisms: his appeal to African Americans, and for his stance on gun control -the latter criticism often pointed out by Hillary Clinton. Sanders had blamed some of his issues with minority voters on the fact that he represents a state, Vermont, that is 95% white, and had planned to begin campaigning in the American South with an event in Charleston, South Caroline on the day after the 2015 Charleston Church Shootings, which he was forced to cancel due to the violence.[12] He has a D-minus voting rating by the NRA and often points this out when defending from attacks on his moderate gun control stance. [62]

Black Lives Matter Protests

Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement have disrupted multiple Bernie Sanders rallies. On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders was supposed to give a speech, but was blocked by Black Lives Matter protesters in a fashion similar to the Black Lives Matter disruption he dealt with three weeks prior (shown below). Conspirists on Reddit have claimed Billionaire George Soros is influencing this behavior by giving millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously being a Hillary Clinton supporter. A likely motivation for this would be the fact Bernie Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.[19]

Barnie Sandlers

@BarnieSandlers, a Twitter parody account of Bernie Sanders, posts a series of political advertisement parodies featuring fake quotes attributed to Bernie Sanders. The first example of the modern template used for "Barnie Sandlers" Quotes was posted via Bernie Sander's official Twitter account on May 20th, 2015 (shown below).[24]

GG Every American who has the desire and ability should be able to get an affordable college education. That's why l am working to end tuition at public colleges and universities around this country." Bernie 2016 BERNIESANDERS.COM

The image has been frequently exploited for parodies online, especially on the @BarnieSandlers[25] account on Twitter which has about 150 followers as of July 29th, 2015, and on the Barnie Sandlers profile on Facebook[26] which has over 9,000 likes as of July 29th, 2015. The "Barnie Sandlers" quotes typically contain the words "dank" or "meme" or have a reference to weed. Oftentimes, the image used in the background is replaced with an image of Bernie Sanders having obnoxious hair or have memetic items photoshopped onto him. The name "Barnie Sandlers" is likely a pun made from combining the name Bernie Sanders with the names Barney (the Purple dinosaur) and Adam Sandler.

The Republican candidates are saying that our gay brothers and sisters shouldn't have the right to make memes. Idisagree. WWW.BARNIESANDLERS.COM
Incredibly, it is still legal to fire someone for looking at memes on the job. That is unacceptable and must change. FE WWW.BARNIESANDLERS.COM
Barnie 2016 If a police officer tries to take your dank memes, I believe that you have the right to resist that officer. nme BARNIESANDLERS.COM
Barnie 2016 mfw I make a dank meme and post to Facebook but no one likes on shares my meme BARNIESANDLERS.COM

Feel The Bern

Feel The Bern is a heavily spread phrase and chant of Bernie Sanders supporters. The phrase's origin is presently unknown but has strong roots in Reddit.[43] This phrase has been heavily applied by the Bernie Sanders campaign for marketing purposes.[44] The twitter hashtag #feelthebern[45] has received a massive amount of retweets. An alternate hashtag, #feelthebarn, was inspired by the Barnie Sandlers meme. Numerous news outlets have been reporting on various important people and states feeling the bern.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52] A notorious example of the phrase was displayed by Bernie Sanders himself on Stephen Colbert's The Late Show, where Bernie Sanders briefly spoke about a 'Feel the Bern' mug.[53] Another reference was made to the phrase when Bernie Sanders was shown dancing onto the stage of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to the song 'Disco Inferno' to the lyrics 'burn baby burn'. His dancing from that appearance has since spread on the internet for being funny and cringe-worthy.[54]

FEEL

Bernie Sanders' Hair

While discussion of his policy stances in the mainstream media has been comparably sparse, there have been several news media mentions of Senator Sanders' hair, which often becomes unkempt during campaign events. On April 29th, 2015, the day before Sanders' official campaign announcement, the Washington Post published an article titled "Great Moments in Bernie Sanders' hair", featuring photographs of his hair waving about accompanied by humorous captions.[9] On May 15th, 2015, New York Magazine collected media quotes about the Senator's hair, saying that the press had been obsessed with his physical appearance in a way that wasn't present for any other candidate.[10] On August 17th, 2015, Bernie Sanders berated a reporter for asking about his hair, stating "O.K., Ana, I don't mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?"[22]

BERNIE SANDERS Political memes Blogspot.com THE MESSIER HIS HAIR GETS THE MORE POWERFUL HE BECOMES
BERNIE- FUTURE FOR THE

#BernieSoBlack

#BernieSoBlack is a satirical hashtag created by social progressives in response to Bernie Sanders' perceived excessive focus on economic issues to the detriment of social issues. It was created by Roderick Morrow, a podcaster and comedian, after an altercation between Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter protesters at a Netroots Nation conference (a convention for left-leaning political activists). Sanders's supporters promptly defended his record on social issues online, pointing out in particular that he participated in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with Vox,[14] Morrow explained the reasoning behind his creation of the hashtag.

Whenever he's asked a question, he goes into a spiel on economics -- which is fine, obviously, people do want wage and class equality. But certain issues are race issues, and they do need to be talked about, at least from a candidate that I would like to vote for. […] And it seems like any time black people bring this up on Twitter, there's all these people who, I don't know, they're just sitting around searching his name on Twitter or something, they just come and get in your mentions and start harassing you, they start saying the same things over and over to you, like, "He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King" […] I'm not denigrating that work, but it's almost as if they're trying to say, "You shouldn't expect him to continue this" or, "Because he's done stuff in the past, you shouldn't question him now."

The hashtag quickly began trending, spawning several notable examples.




#DamnEmails

During the first debate for the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary held on October 13th, 2015, Sanders addressed Hillary Clinton to comment on a political scandal regarding sensitive government emails sent via her personal email account, saying "the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails" (shown below).

Immediately after, Twitter users began tweeting about the statement along with the hashtag "#DamnEmails,"[32] gathering upwards of 1,800 mentions in the first 24 hours according to Topsy.[31] Additionally, the @damnemails[33] Twitter feed was launched, featuring tweets about the debate exchange. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Sanders comment, including Wired,[34] Yahoo[35] and NY Daily News.[36]

tyla @freestylerr # Follow Hillary is getting investigated by the FBl..but let's just forget about because I'm tired of hearing about the #damnemails #logical RETWEETS FAVORITES 9:35 AM-14 Oct 2015
Jesse Ventura @GovJVentura Follow #DamnEmails is the quote of the night! #OraPolitics #Dem Debate RETWEETS FAVORITES 50 79 9:49 PM-13 Oct 2015 23
Bob Cesca @bobcesca go Follow Thank you @SenSanders. #damnemails #DemDebate RETWEETS FAVORITES 9:49 PM-13 Oct 2015
Damn Emails @damnemails # Follow Awkward. #damnemails RETWEETSFAVORITES 13 14 9:56 PM-13 Oct 2015 1

Bernie or Hillary?

Bernie or Hillary? refers to a series of fake campaign posters supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary against Hillary Clinton in which Sanders is depicted as being more knowledgable than Clinton on a series of popular but apolitical topics.

Bernie or Hillarv? Be informed. Compare them on the issues that matter. Isue Robot Uprising lyelling at Roomba] "BRING IT ONN A------!!" nervous metallic laugh HA HA HA obvious plant

"Bernie Sandwiches" and "Bernie Sandals"

Following Sanders' victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary on February 9th, 2016, he was mistakenly referred to as "Bernie Sandwiches" by MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes and "Bernie Sandals" by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Immediately after, the Mashable News Vine feed posted clips of the gaffes (shown below).

That evening, Twitter user @jennychawla_[55] posted a photoshopped picture of a pair of sandals with a Sanders campaign promotional image printed on the top (shown below, left). Meanwhile, other Twitter users posted photoshops and jokes about Bernie Sanders sandwhiches (shown below, right).[56][60][61] In the coming days, several news sites reported on the online reactions to the gaffes, including The Daily Dot,[57] UpRoxx[58] and NPR.[59]

Laguna for Bernie @laguna4bernie Follow A Bernie Sandwich will nourish your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A Bernie Sandwich is meal of #democracy 10:50 PM-9 Feb 2016 わ다 33 77

Birdie Sanders

Birdie Sanders is the nickname given to a bird that flew onto the podium in front of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his speech at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon in late March 2016.

#BernieMadeMeWhite

#BernieMadeMeWhite is a hashtag used to joke about the media’s representation of Bernie Sanders supporters as Caucasian during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The hashtag became popular after media reports of Sanders victories depicted diverse states, including Hawaii, as being “white and rural.”

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks Hoax

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks is a viral hoax image aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks.

How TO MAKE BERNIE SANDER'S GLOWSTICKS! YOU WILL NEED. -(1) 2 Liter Bottles found at Wal-Mart (1) pool chlorinating tablet found at Wal-Mart isopropyl alcohol (70% concentration) Also found at Wal-Mart First, peel the label off of the 2 liter bottle so you can see that blue glow. then crush up the pool chlorinating tablet and shove the pieces down the neck of the bottle (the smaller the pieces the brighter it will glow but it also won't last as long). Finally, pour your trusty isopropyl alcohol into the bottle, cap the bottle TIGHTLY, and shake it up. Now just tun out the lights and watch it GLOW! Impress your family and friends with your Bernie Glowsticks! *Note The higher concentration of isopropyl alcohol you use the longer it will last. Bernie FEEL BERN Bemie Sanders Approves this How-to Glowstiek Tutoriall

#BernieLostMe

#BernieLostMe is a hashtag used by supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to share their reasons as to why the rival candidate Bernie Sanders is the less suitable nominee for the Democratic National Convention, which began trending after Sanders refused to denounce some of his supporters who behaved violently at the Nevada Democratic Convention in May 2016.

Search Interest

External References

[1] Wikipedia – Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign

[2] Reddit – Search: Bernie Sanders

[3] Reddit – I am Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President of the United States -- AMA

[4] Bernie Sanders (via Wayback Machine) – BernieSanders

[5] Facebook – Bernie Sanders

[6] Twitter – Bernie Sanders

[7] Instagram – Bernie Sanders

[8] CNN Politics – Bernie Sanders' campaign raises $15 million in his first quarter as candidate

[9] The Washington Post –
Great moments in Bernie Sanders’s hair

[10] New York Magazine – Bernie Sanders’s Hair Is a Media Magnet

[11] Bustle – Bernie Sanders’ Stance On Israel Has Caused Some Tension For Him In The Past

[12] Newsweek – BERNIE SANDERS TRIES TO NEGATE HILLARY CLINTON’S GUN CRITICISMS AT CRUCIAL TIME IN ELECTION SEASON

[13] Reddit – /r/sandersforpresident

[14] Vox – #BernieSoBlack creator explains why he's so frustrated with Sanders's supporters

[15] Huffington Post – Bernie Sanders 'Surprised' By Size Of Crowds At His Campaign Rallies

[16] Common Dreams – Bernie Sanders Rally in Denver Draws One of Biggest Crowds in Election Cycle

[17] The Washington Post – Bernie Sanders draws his biggest crowd yet -- in Arizona of all places

[18] Seattle Pi – Bernie Sanders draws 15,000 people at UW, state’s biggest political crowd since 2010 Obama visit

[19] Reddit – Billionaire George Soros, a Hilary Clinton supporter, has given millions of dollars funding to the BlackLivesMatter movement, while that movement continues to disrupt rallies of Clinton's main contender, Bernie Sanders. Sen. Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.

[20] Facebook – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

[21] Twitter – Bernie Sanders

[22] Yahoo Finance – Bernie Sanders just berated a reporter for asking about his hair

[23] The Boston Globe – ‘Deez Nuts’ endorses Sanders for Democratic bid

[24] Twitter – Bernie Sanders

[25] Twitter – Barnie Sandlers

[26] Facebook – Barnie Sandlers

[27] In These Times – Bernie Sanders: “Your Pay Is Too Damn Low”

[28] The Wall Street Journal – Sanders Campaign Says It’s Hit One Million Online Contributions

[29] The New York Times – Bernie Sanders Raises $24 Million, Powered by Online Donations Exceeding Obama's 2008 Pace

[30] U.S. Uncut (via Wayback Machine) – Bernie Sanders Brings Out Record-Breaking Crowd in Boston

[31] Topsy – #DamnEmails (page unavailable)

[32] Twitter – #DamnEmails

[33] Twitter – @damnemails

[34] Wired – Sanders Campaign Wins Over Facebook with #DamnEmails Moment

[35] Yahoo – Hillary Clinton Goes Viral After Democratic Debate for No Answer About #DamnEmails

[36] NY Daily News – Sanders #damnemails comment

[37] National Public Radio – Sanders Passes 2 Million Donations, Nabs Two Endorsements

[38] Reddit – Reddit has officially raised $750k for Bernie 2016. Congrats Reddit.

[39] Wikipedia – List of United States Presidents by net worth

[40] Reddit – We just raised $1,000,000 for Bernie Sanders! This is what a grassroots campaign is all about! This is ALL thanks to you!

[41] Reddit – Bernie Sanders reaches 3,000,000 individual contributions!

[42] The Christian Science Monitor – Bernie Sanders: 'I’m proud to be Jewish'

[43] Reddit – feel the bern

[44] Bernie Store – Feel The Bern

[45] Twitter – #feelthebern

[46] Celeb Stoner – Video: Tommy Chong 'Feels the Bern' for Sanders

[47] WCBV5 – Susan Sarandon feels the 'Bern' in Iowa (page unavailable)

[48] Daily Globe – Minnesota feels the Bern: More than 20,000 pack St. Paul, Duluth venues to hear Sanders’ hour-long stump speech

[49] Screener TV (via Wayback Machine) – Ben & Jerry’s co-founder feels the Bern with limited edition flavor, ‘Bernie’s Yearning’

[50] indystar – Cartoonist Gary Varvel: Hillary feels the Bern

[51] Observer – Breaking: Joe Biden ‘Feels the Bern’--Boosts Bernie Against Hillary

[52] Cullman Today – Birmingham Feels The Bern

[53] NBCNews – Bernie Sanders Sits Down With Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Show'

[54] People – Bern, Baby, Bern: Bernie Sanders Shows Off His Disco Dance Moves on Ellen

[55] Twitter – jennychawla_

[56] Twitter – @Laguna4Bernie

[57] The Daily Dot – MSNBC and Fox News hosts just totally botched Bernie Sanders name

[58] UpRoxx – MSNBC Anchor Called Bernie Sanders Bernie Sandwiches

[59] NPR – Memeofthenight – Bernie Sandwiches

[60] Twitter – @allikatz

[61] Twitter – @kitscheart

[62] OnTheIssues – Bernie Sanders on Gun Control

[63] The Washington Post – Bernie Sanders draws more than 30,000 to stops around Washington state Sunday

[64] Reddit – Bernie Groups are Gone From Facebook

[65] Facebook – Unofficial – Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[66] Facebook – Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome

[67] Facebook – Bernie Sanders Activists

[68] Facebook – Bernie Believers

[69] Facebook – Bernie Sanders is My Hero

[70] Reddit – Bernie Groups are Gone from Facebook

[71] Facebook – Bee Jay Post

[72] Heavy – Why Were Bernie Sanders Groups Removed From Facebook?

[73] Snopes – Bernie Sanders Facebook Groups Controversy

[74] Reddit – Sen Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton Megathread

[75] Reddit – Sanders Fans Meltdown after Hero Endorses Clinton (quarantined community)

[76] Reddit – Endorsement Megathread

[77] Reddit – Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary Clinton today in New Hampshire

[78] Twitter – @realDonaldTrump

[79] Jill2016 – Jill Steins response to Sanders endorsement of Clinton

[80] Twitter – #SelloutSanders

[81] Twitter – @freddoso

[82] The Independent – Donald Trump would have lost US election if Bernie Sanders had been the candidate

[83] Twitter – Bernie Would Have Won search

[84] - New York Times – Bernie Sanders Joins the 2020 Presidential Race

[85] Paste – Bernie Sanders Is Going to Win the Democratic Primary, and It's Going to Be Easy

[86] Jacobin – Bernie Is Running, Thank God

[87] The Hill – Sanders campaign says it raised $1 million in less than 4 hours



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Politician Bernie Sanders

Bernie Sanders

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About

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (born September 8th, 1941) is an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representative from 1991 to 2007 and currently serves as the junior United States Senator since being elected to the office in 2007. After over two decades of public service as an independent legislator for the state of Vermont, Sanders rose to national prominence with the launch of his campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2016 presidential election on May 26th, 2015.[1] During his campaign, Sanders firmly established himself as a dark horse for the Democratic Party with primary and caucus victories in 22 states. In July 2016, Sanders officially endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential candidate after she secured the number of delegates required for the party's nomination.

History

Political Career

Bernie Sanders was motivated to enter politics at an early age because his father's family was killed during the Holocaust.[42] Sanders is the longest-serving independent in U.S. congressional history. A self-described democratic socialist, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. Sanders served as a congressman for 16 years before being elected to succeed the retiring Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords in the U.S. Senate in 2006. In 2012, he was reelected by a large margin, capturing almost 71% of the popular vote.[1]

2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign

Sanders announced his intentions to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for President on April 30th, 2015. Unlike other presidential candidates, Sanders did not pursue funding through a Super PAC, instead focusing on small individual donations.[1] He would be the first non-millionaire president since Harry Truman from 1945.[39] Notably, much of his support comes from online, where so far he has received $15,000,000 in donations in his first quarter as a candidate as of July 2nd, 2015.[8] On September 30th, 2015, Bernie Sanders stated his goal of 1,000,000 individual online contributions had been met and later that day it was revealed he had raised an additional $24,000,000 in donations in this third quarter as candidate, well surpassing Obama's pace at this time in 2008.[28][29] The individual online contributions have doubled to 2,000,000 with 800,000 of the donors donating a second or third time as of December 17th, 2015.[37] This amount increased to 3,000,000 individual online contributions as of January 30th, 2016.[41]

Endorsement of Hillary Clinton

On July 11th, 2016, the Sanders and Clinton campaigns announced that the pair would be joining each other at a campaign event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the following day. On July 12th, Sanders and Clinton appeared together at the Portsmouth High School, where Sanders officially conceded the presidential race to Clinton and endorsed her for the next President of the United States (shown below).

That day, several threads about the event reached the front page of the /r/politics,[74] /r/The_Donald,[75] /r/SandersForPresident[76] and /r/PoliticalDiscussion[77] subreddits. Meanwhile, Donald Trump posted a series of tweets condemning the endorsement and urging Sanders supporters to join his campaign (shown below).[78]


Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h To all the Bernie voters who want to stop bad trade deals & global special interests, we welcome you with open arms. People first. Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h Bernie sanders has abandoned his supporters by endorsing pro-war pro-TPP pro-Wall Street Crooked Hillary Clinton Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h Bernie Sanders endorsing Crooked Hillary Clinton is like Occupy Wall Street endorsing Goldman Sachs Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 5h I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out! £78.3K 20K

Also on July 12th, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein released a statement about the endorsement, where she condemned Clinton's voting record and urged Sanders supporters to throw their support behind the Green Party.[79]

"I join millions of Americans who see Hillary Clinton's campaign as the opposite of what they and Bernie Sanders have fought for. Despite her penchant for flip flopping rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has spent decades consistently serving the causes of Wall Street, war and the Walmart economy."

On Twitter, critics of the endorsement expressed their disapproval in tweets using the hashtags #SelloutSanders,[80] claiming that Sanders had compromised his integrity by supporting his former rival (shown below).


Samantha Hagmayer @SHagmayer 2h Bernie betrayed his supporters endorsing the most corrupt politician in Washington today. I feel bad for them! #SelloutSanders £737 70 Nia4 TRUMP @nia4 trump 2h #SelIOutSanders with all those little contributions & BIG promises He now stands alongside the MOST Corrupt nominee Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump I am somewhat surprised that Bernie Sanders was not true to himself and his supporters. They are not happy that he is selling out! 42 22 23 Bill hicks @Billhic02785574 2h #SelloutSanders I think the people who donated to Bernie want their money back today £740 67 Emily Rutherford @emrutherford90 2h #SelloutSanders endorses his worst enemy #CrookedHillary after a year of bashing her and her policies! 31 62

Bernie Campaign Election Response

Following the election of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders' campaign was asked for comment. A tweet by @freddoso[81] claimed that per a CNN source, the Sanders campaign said "We have nothing polite to say right now."

The tweet caused speculation that Bernie may have been referring to the results of the Democratic Primary, during which he consistently polled far better than Hillary Clinton in head-to-head matchups with Trump. The idea was a major topic of conversation on Twitter[83] the next day, and The Independent[82] published an article claiming Bernie would have won the election had he been the nominee.

2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign

On February 19th, 2019, Bernie Sanders announced that he would be entering the 2020 Democratic Primary, joining a crowded field of Democratic candidates.[84] He made the announcement via an email to supporters on his mailing list and with a campaign announcement video posted to Twitter (shown below). After the announcement, his campaign raised over $1 million in less than four hours.[87]




Traditionally left-wing publications such as Paste[85] and Jacobin[86] responded positively to the news, with Paste declaring that Sanders would easily win the 2020 primary. Twitter users were split on the announcement. People were quick to argue against Bernie using similar criticisms as were brought up in the 2016 primary. For example, Twitter user @PhillipReines posited that a celebration of Bernie was hypocritical considering how he perceived people treated the idea of a Hillary Clinton run (shown below, left). User @TheHoarseWhisperer tweeted that they would auto-block anyone who supported Sanders (shown below, right).


Philippe Reines @PhilippeReines Follow Hillary Clinton, 70 Won 2016 Popular Vote by 2,864,903 Won 2016 Primaries by 3,708,294 Media: go away. Bernie Sanders, age 77 Lost 2016 Primaries by 3,708,294 votes Media: WELCOME BACK! 7:56 AM -19 Feb 2019 The Hoarse Whisperer @HoarseWisperer Follow Just an FYI, anyone who promotes that galling narcissistic fraud known as Bernard Sanders on my timeline gets auto-blocked. Want to peacock for a charlatan, go nuts. Just not on my timeline. 11:04 AM-19 Feb 2019

Such criticisms drew strong counter-criticism from people who believed the criticisms were unfair, especially compared to other Democrats in the field. For example, user @The_Law_Boy tweeted a parody of people saying Sanders' idealistic ideas were unrealistic (shown below, left). User @AmirArminiMD tweeted his enthusiasm for the campaign as a chance to change the country (shown below, right).


Law Boy, Esq. @The_Law_Boy Follow Bernie Sanders is offering a lot of "pie in the sky" ideas. My campaign is based in reality, and it's founded on a simple truth: you can't have any of those things, you're stupid for even asking, and you're physically an unattractive person. PLease vote for me. 12:23 PM-19 Feb 2019 Amir @AmirAminiMD Followw This is it. The opportunity to not only defeat Trumpism but to transform America and change the world. There's a reason why Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America: He has been fighting for us his entire adult life. Let's join him in this fight -it's OUR fight! Bernie Sanders@BernieSanders I'm running for president. I am asking you to join me today as part of an unprecedented and historic grassroots campaign that will begin with at least 1 million people from across the country. Say you're in: . BERMIESAMD 57 12:43 PM-19 Feb 2019

Online Presence

The Sanders campaign maintains an official website, berniesanders.com, where supporters can contribute, learn about campaign events, and "join the revolution."[4] As of February 1st, 2016 the campaign's Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,540,000 likes, the U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders profile on Facebook has 2,950,000 likes, the SenSanders account on Twitter has 1,305,000 followers, the BernieSanders account on Twitter has 1,264,000 followers, and the berniesanders profile on Instagram has 656,000 followers.[5][6][7][20][21] The Bernie Sanders channel on Youtube has had notable success, gaining 91,000 subscribers and his five most popular videos all having over 250,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.

On March 12th, 2014, Bernie Sanders posted a video on his youtube channel titled "Health Care: U.S. vs. Canada," in which he and others debated the health care systems of the United States and Canada (shown below). This video garnered 1,383,000 views with 5,900 likes and 181 dislikes as of February 1st, 2016. It is the 9th most viewed result under the youtube search 'Bernie Sanders' as of February 1st, 2016.



On August 17th, 2015, the All In with Chris Hayes account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you"" in which Bernie Sanders states (paraphrased) no matter who is elected, due to the power of Wall Street, corporations, and campaign donors, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing working families within the United States (shown below). As of August 19th, 2015, the video has 5,000,000 views with 62,000 likes and 91,000 shares.


Bernie Sanders: "Let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you"

Posted by All In with Chris Hayes on Monday, August 17, 2015

On October 13th, 2015, the Occupy Democrats account on Facebook posted a video titled "Bernie Sanders Explains Why He Should Be President" in which Bernie Sanders delivers his introduction in the first debate of the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary in the Wynn hotel-casino in Las Vegas (shown below). The video quickly vent viral and has 10.8 million views with 160,000 likes and 234,000 shares as of October 15th, 2015.


WATCH: Bernie Sanders' epic intro at the Democratic debate where he explains why he should be President.Video by Occupy Democrats, LIKE our page for more!

Posted by Occupy Democrats on Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Reddit

Even though Bernie Sanders early in the election had not been covered as strongly in the news as other candidates like Hilary Clinton, the popular online site Reddit was continuously showing a large amount of commentary and support for him. As of February 1st, 2016, the top 420 results for 'Bernie Sanders' on Reddit all have 2,000 upvotes, the top 25 results have 6,000 upvotes, and the top result has 12,000 upvotes.[2] Notably, all the top 420 results for Bernie Sanders on Reddit are overwhelmingly supportive of him and his policies. The top 2 most commented results for the search 'Bernie Sanders' both have 20,000 comments and the top 5 each have 10,000 comments as of December 18th, 2015. In addition, the Bernie Sanders subreddit, /r/sandersforpresident, has 164,000 readers as of February 1st, 2015. Reddit was reported to have raised $750,000 for Bernie Sanders's Campaign as of January 10th, 2016.[38] That amount has since increased to $1,000,000 as of January 26th, 2016.[40]


FOR A GRASSROOTS FOR SANDERS PRODUCTION
reddit

On May 19th, 2015, Bernie Sanders participated in an AMA on Reddit on the subreddit /r/IAmA under the account name bernie-sanders. Bernie Sanders had overwhelmingly positive reception, receiving 54,000 upvotes on his IAmA comments alone. There were 7,300 upvotes and 13,000 comments on his IAmA link as of February 1st, 2016.[3]


[-] Paulwebster90 1473 points 2 months ago If you win in 2016, what will your first dispositions be? permalink save report give gold REPLY [-] ADem Minden My first effort would be to rally the American people to demand that Congress pass a progressive agenda which reverses the decline of our middle class. We have got to create millions of decent-paying jobs rebuilding our infrastructure, we've got to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, we've got to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and we have to transform our energy system in order to protect us from climate change. If the American people are politically active and demand that Congress act on their behalf, we can accomplish those goals and much more. permalink save parent report give gold REPLY ↑ [S] 3583 points 2 months ago

On September 14th, the official Bernie Sanders Reddit account bernie-sanders posted to /r/SandersForPresident "Let’s talk about one issue that won’t get a lot of discussion in the media: income and wealth inequality. Reddit, I would very much appreciate your help in getting this video out to your friends and family, especially the Republican ones. -B," which linked to a video posted by the Bernie Sanders Facebook account titled "Bernie Sanders: In-Depth Explanation of Income Inequality" (shown below). The Reddit post has garnered 5,300 upvotes and the video has garnered 6,080,000 views as of February 1st, 2016.


Let me tell you something about our country that the billionaire class doesn’t want you to know…

Posted by Bernie Sanders on Monday, September 14, 2015

Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash

Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash is a Facebook group page devoted to creating and distributing memes, generally image macros and exploitables in support of Bernie Sanders during his campaign for the nomination during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The group is well-known for producing memes about Sanders at a high rate of mutation.

Facebook Groups Removal Controversy

On April 25th, 2016, several Bernie Sanders-related Facebook groups were purportedly removed from Facebook after being flooded with sexually explicit content, including Bernie Sanders For President 2016,[65] Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome,[66] Bernie Sanders Activists,[67] Bernie Believers[68] and Bernie Sanders is my Hero.[69] That day, Redditor jbher315 submitted a post about the removals to the /r/SandersForPresident[70] subreddit, where it received upwards of 9,300 votes (75% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in 48 hours. In the comments section, Redditor BernieTron2000 speculated that the pages were removed due to "Hillary trolls mass-reporting" to take down the pages temporarily. Meanwhile, Facebook user Bee Jay submitted several screenshots to the Bernie Sanders for President 2016 Facebook group,[71] which appeared to show a Facebook user bragging about reporting the Bernie Sanders Activists group for "containing a credible threat of violence" (shown below).


Casey Champagne 12 mins HAI Edd 81+8 11:21 PM ← Support Message You anonymously reported Bernie Sanders Activists for containing credible threat of violence REPORT REVIEWED ACTIW Read 1 Previous Message We removed the group you reported We reviewed the group you reported for having n credible threat of violence Since it violated our Community Standards, we removed it Thanks for your report We let Bermie Sanders Activists know that the group has been removed, but not who reported i Delete LIke Share d-10153560940371762&set-gm, 17404400561776778type 3

Also on April 25th, the Internet news site Heavy[72] published an article about the controversy, which reported that members of the Facebook group Bros4Hillary were behind attacks aimed at inundating Bernie Sanders Facebook pages with false complaints and explicit content. Additionally, the article included a statement by Bros4Hillary Political Director Alex Mohajer, who disavowed any connection to the Facebook page raids. Additionally, Mohajer claimed the Facebook user connected to the harassment had been removed from the Bros4Hillary group.

"Bros4Hillary was created as a way to provide a positive and supportive community for supporters of Hillary Clinton to gather, and as a direct response to the hateful and divisive rhetoric used by other campaigns during this election cycle,” he said. “We have not and do not approve of or condone harmful or offensive rhetoric or harassing behavior targeting supporters of any other candidate in the race…"

By the end of the day, all the Facebook groups had been reinstated. The following day, the Sanders campaign Social Media Manager Aiden King responded to concerns about the closing, claiming that the pages may have been temporarily shut down due to a Facebook bug. Also on April 26th, Snopes[73] published an article about the Facebook group controversy.

Support

Berniebros

"Berniebro" is a pejorative term referring to fanatical male supporters of 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary candidate Bernie Sanders who supposedly oppose his rival candidate Hillary Clinton based on sexist cultural biases. Since its coinage in late 2015, many Clinton supporters have asserted that the term accurately underscores the basis of Sanders’ affinity with young male Democrats, while others have dismissed it as a straw man argument or smear tactic aimed at detracting criticisms surrounding Clinton’s campaign platform.

Rally Turnouts

Numerous news outlets and Reddit have reported Bernie Sanders drawing significantly large crowds for his rallies. "I am surprised by the size of the crowds. In Keene, New Hampshire, on Saturday, we had close to a thousand people," Sanders told reporters on June 11th, 2015, at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C.[15] These numbers were however dwarfed by another rally he had on June 21st, 2015, in the University of Denver, which had at least 5,500 Coloradans listening to him speak inside the gymnasium.[16] Another rally Bernie Sanders had on July 19th, 2015, drew another larger amount of supporters, having over 11,000 people listening to him speak in downtown Pheonix, Arizona.[17] On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders hosted a rally which gained over 15,000 people, after having been blocked from speaking at Westlake Center due to #BlackLivesMatter protestors disrupting him.[18] A day later on August 9th, 2015, nearly double this number appeared at a Portland rally, with over 19,000 people inside the Moda Center and over 9,000 people outside it. On September 3rd, 2015, people filled the 26,000 person capacity inside the Boston Convention Center for a Bernie Sanders Boston rally, with a large quantity of people also outside the center.[30] On March 21st, 2016, Bernie Sanders hosted 3 rallies across Washington which attracted a combined total of over 30,000 people.[63]


A FUTURE TO AFUTURE TO BELIEVE IN BELIEVE IN A FUTURE TO URE T LIEV A FUTURE T BELIEVE IN A FUTURE TO A FUTURE TO BELIEVE IN, 삶VIURETO BELIEVE IN AFUTURE TO BELIEVEI BELIEVE IN A FUTURE TO IEVE IN FUTUR BELIEVE INE A FUTURE TO BELIEV AFUTURE A FUT EVE IN A FUT BELIE WWW.BERNIESANDERS.COM E TO AF BEE I ELIEVE

Deez Nuts' Endorsement

On August 23rd, 2015, the presidential candidate Deez Nuts (aka Brady Olson) endorsed Bernie Sanders. Brady Olson posted on Facebook “just gonna throw this out there now. This is not for the general election. My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.” In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Deez Nuts wrote that he didn’t want to “see Clinton, Bush, or Trump in the White House, so I guess I’m just trying to put up a fight.”[23]

Reputation

Bernie Sanders has established a reputation for having highly progressive views and being consistent with his voting and political views throughout his lifetime. He is notably far left and has gained a reputation for garnering large crowds at his rallies.

Progressivism

Since his election to the Senate, Sanders has emerged as a leading progressive voice on issues like income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform. He rose to national prominence on the heels of his 2010 filibuster of the proposed extension of the Bush-era tax rates for the wealthy. Sanders is also outspoken on civil liberties issues, and has been particularly critical of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act.[1]

Criticism

Bernie Sanders has faced two primary criticisms: his appeal to African Americans, and for his stance on gun control -the latter criticism often pointed out by Hillary Clinton. Sanders had blamed some of his issues with minority voters on the fact that he represents a state, Vermont, that is 95% white, and had planned to begin campaigning in the American South with an event in Charleston, South Caroline on the day after the 2015 Charleston Church Shootings, which he was forced to cancel due to the violence.[12] He has a D-minus voting rating by the NRA and often points this out when defending from attacks on his moderate gun control stance. [62]

Black Lives Matter Protests

Activists aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement have disrupted multiple Bernie Sanders rallies. On August 8th, 2015, Bernie Sanders was supposed to give a speech, but was blocked by Black Lives Matter protesters in a fashion similar to the Black Lives Matter disruption he dealt with three weeks prior (shown below). Conspirists on Reddit have claimed Billionaire George Soros is influencing this behavior by giving millions of dollars to the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously being a Hillary Clinton supporter. A likely motivation for this would be the fact Bernie Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.[19]

Barnie Sandlers

@BarnieSandlers, a Twitter parody account of Bernie Sanders, posts a series of political advertisement parodies featuring fake quotes attributed to Bernie Sanders. The first example of the modern template used for "Barnie Sandlers" Quotes was posted via Bernie Sander's official Twitter account on May 20th, 2015 (shown below).[24]


GG Every American who has the desire and ability should be able to get an affordable college education. That's why l am working to end tuition at public colleges and universities around this country." Bernie 2016 BERNIESANDERS.COM

The image has been frequently exploited for parodies online, especially on the @BarnieSandlers[25] account on Twitter which has about 150 followers as of July 29th, 2015, and on the Barnie Sandlers profile on Facebook[26] which has over 9,000 likes as of July 29th, 2015. The "Barnie Sandlers" quotes typically contain the words "dank" or "meme" or have a reference to weed. Oftentimes, the image used in the background is replaced with an image of Bernie Sanders having obnoxious hair or have memetic items photoshopped onto him. The name "Barnie Sandlers" is likely a pun made from combining the name Bernie Sanders with the names Barney (the Purple dinosaur) and Adam Sandler.


The Republican candidates are saying that our gay brothers and sisters shouldn't have the right to make memes. Idisagree. WWW.BARNIESANDLERS.COM Incredibly, it is still legal to fire someone for looking at memes on the job. That is unacceptable and must change. FE WWW.BARNIESANDLERS.COMBarnie 2016 If a police officer tries to take your dank memes, I believe that you have the right to resist that officer. nme BARNIESANDLERS.COM Barnie 2016 mfw I make a dank meme and post to Facebook but no one likes on shares my meme BARNIESANDLERS.COM

Feel The Bern

Feel The Bern is a heavily spread phrase and chant of Bernie Sanders supporters. The phrase's origin is presently unknown but has strong roots in Reddit.[43] This phrase has been heavily applied by the Bernie Sanders campaign for marketing purposes.[44] The twitter hashtag #feelthebern[45] has received a massive amount of retweets. An alternate hashtag, #feelthebarn, was inspired by the Barnie Sandlers meme. Numerous news outlets have been reporting on various important people and states feeling the bern.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52] A notorious example of the phrase was displayed by Bernie Sanders himself on Stephen Colbert's The Late Show, where Bernie Sanders briefly spoke about a 'Feel the Bern' mug.[53] Another reference was made to the phrase when Bernie Sanders was shown dancing onto the stage of The Ellen DeGeneres Show to the song 'Disco Inferno' to the lyrics 'burn baby burn'. His dancing from that appearance has since spread on the internet for being funny and cringe-worthy.[54]


FEEL

Bernie Sanders' Hair

While discussion of his policy stances in the mainstream media has been comparably sparse, there have been several news media mentions of Senator Sanders' hair, which often becomes unkempt during campaign events. On April 29th, 2015, the day before Sanders' official campaign announcement, the Washington Post published an article titled "Great Moments in Bernie Sanders' hair", featuring photographs of his hair waving about accompanied by humorous captions.[9] On May 15th, 2015, New York Magazine collected media quotes about the Senator's hair, saying that the press had been obsessed with his physical appearance in a way that wasn't present for any other candidate.[10] On August 17th, 2015, Bernie Sanders berated a reporter for asking about his hair, stating "O.K., Ana, I don't mean to be rude here. I am running for president of the United States on serious issues, okay? Do you have serious questions?"[22]


BERNIE SANDERS Political memes Blogspot.com THE MESSIER HIS HAIR GETS THE MORE POWERFUL HE BECOMES BERNIE- FUTURE FOR THE

#BernieSoBlack

#BernieSoBlack is a satirical hashtag created by social progressives in response to Bernie Sanders' perceived excessive focus on economic issues to the detriment of social issues. It was created by Roderick Morrow, a podcaster and comedian, after an altercation between Sanders and #BlackLivesMatter protesters at a Netroots Nation conference (a convention for left-leaning political activists). Sanders's supporters promptly defended his record on social issues online, pointing out in particular that he participated in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. In an interview with Vox,[14] Morrow explained the reasoning behind his creation of the hashtag.

Whenever he's asked a question, he goes into a spiel on economics -- which is fine, obviously, people do want wage and class equality. But certain issues are race issues, and they do need to be talked about, at least from a candidate that I would like to vote for. […] And it seems like any time black people bring this up on Twitter, there's all these people who, I don't know, they're just sitting around searching his name on Twitter or something, they just come and get in your mentions and start harassing you, they start saying the same things over and over to you, like, "He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King" […] I'm not denigrating that work, but it's almost as if they're trying to say, "You shouldn't expect him to continue this" or, "Because he's done stuff in the past, you shouldn't question him now."

The hashtag quickly began trending, spawning several notable examples.






#DamnEmails

During the first debate for the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary held on October 13th, 2015, Sanders addressed Hillary Clinton to comment on a political scandal regarding sensitive government emails sent via her personal email account, saying "the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails" (shown below).



Immediately after, Twitter users began tweeting about the statement along with the hashtag "#DamnEmails,"[32] gathering upwards of 1,800 mentions in the first 24 hours according to Topsy.[31] Additionally, the @damnemails[33] Twitter feed was launched, featuring tweets about the debate exchange. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the online reaction to Sanders comment, including Wired,[34] Yahoo[35] and NY Daily News.[36]


tyla @freestylerr # Follow Hillary is getting investigated by the FBl..but let's just forget about because I'm tired of hearing about the #damnemails #logical RETWEETS FAVORITES 9:35 AM-14 Oct 2015 Jesse Ventura @GovJVentura Follow #DamnEmails is the quote of the night! #OraPolitics #Dem Debate RETWEETS FAVORITES 50 79 9:49 PM-13 Oct 2015 23 Bob Cesca @bobcesca go Follow Thank you @SenSanders. #damnemails #DemDebate RETWEETS FAVORITES 9:49 PM-13 Oct 2015 Damn Emails @damnemails # Follow Awkward. #damnemails RETWEETSFAVORITES 13 14 9:56 PM-13 Oct 2015 1

Bernie or Hillary?

Bernie or Hillary? refers to a series of fake campaign posters supporting Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary against Hillary Clinton in which Sanders is depicted as being more knowledgable than Clinton on a series of popular but apolitical topics.


Bernie or Hillarv? Be informed. Compare them on the issues that matter. Isue Robot Uprising lyelling at Roomba] "BRING IT ONN A------!!" nervous metallic laugh HA HA HA obvious plant

"Bernie Sandwiches" and "Bernie Sandals"

Following Sanders' victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary on February 9th, 2016, he was mistakenly referred to as "Bernie Sandwiches" by MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes and "Bernie Sandals" by Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. Immediately after, the Mashable News Vine feed posted clips of the gaffes (shown below).



That evening, Twitter user @jennychawla_[55] posted a photoshopped picture of a pair of sandals with a Sanders campaign promotional image printed on the top (shown below, left). Meanwhile, other Twitter users posted photoshops and jokes about Bernie Sanders sandwhiches (shown below, right).[56][60][61] In the coming days, several news sites reported on the online reactions to the gaffes, including The Daily Dot,[57] UpRoxx[58] and NPR.[59]


Laguna for Bernie @laguna4bernie Follow A Bernie Sandwich will nourish your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A Bernie Sandwich is meal of #democracy 10:50 PM-9 Feb 2016 わ다 33 77

Birdie Sanders

Birdie Sanders is the nickname given to a bird that flew onto the podium in front of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during his speech at a campaign rally in Portland, Oregon in late March 2016.



#BernieMadeMeWhite

#BernieMadeMeWhite is a hashtag used to joke about the media’s representation of Bernie Sanders supporters as Caucasian during the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary. The hashtag became popular after media reports of Sanders victories depicted diverse states, including Hawaii, as being “white and rural.”

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks Hoax

Bernie Sanders Glowsticks is a viral hoax image aimed at tricking supporters of the 2016 Democratic presidential primary candidate Bernie Sanders into making chlorine bombs by providing false instructions for making homemade luminescent light sticks.


How TO MAKE BERNIE SANDER'S GLOWSTICKS! YOU WILL NEED. -(1) 2 Liter Bottles found at Wal-Mart (1) pool chlorinating tablet found at Wal-Mart isopropyl alcohol (70% concentration) Also found at Wal-Mart First, peel the label off of the 2 liter bottle so you can see that blue glow. then crush up the pool chlorinating tablet and shove the pieces down the neck of the bottle (the smaller the pieces the brighter it will glow but it also won't last as long). Finally, pour your trusty isopropyl alcohol into the bottle, cap the bottle TIGHTLY, and shake it up. Now just tun out the lights and watch it GLOW! Impress your family and friends with your Bernie Glowsticks! *Note The higher concentration of isopropyl alcohol you use the longer it will last. Bernie FEEL BERN Bemie Sanders Approves this How-to Glowstiek Tutoriall

#BernieLostMe

#BernieLostMe is a hashtag used by supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to share their reasons as to why the rival candidate Bernie Sanders is the less suitable nominee for the Democratic National Convention, which began trending after Sanders refused to denounce some of his supporters who behaved violently at the Nevada Democratic Convention in May 2016.

Search Interest

External References

[1] Wikipedia – Bernie Sanders Presidential Campaign

[2] Reddit – Search: Bernie Sanders

[3] Reddit – I am Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President of the United States -- AMA

[4] Bernie Sanders (via Wayback Machine) – BernieSanders

[5] Facebook – Bernie Sanders

[6] Twitter – Bernie Sanders

[7] Instagram – Bernie Sanders

[8] CNN Politics – Bernie Sanders' campaign raises $15 million in his first quarter as candidate

[9] The Washington Post –
Great moments in Bernie Sanders’s hair

[10] New York Magazine – Bernie Sanders’s Hair Is a Media Magnet

[11] Bustle – Bernie Sanders’ Stance On Israel Has Caused Some Tension For Him In The Past

[12] Newsweek – BERNIE SANDERS TRIES TO NEGATE HILLARY CLINTON’S GUN CRITICISMS AT CRUCIAL TIME IN ELECTION SEASON

[13] Reddit – /r/sandersforpresident

[14] Vox – #BernieSoBlack creator explains why he's so frustrated with Sanders's supporters

[15] Huffington Post – Bernie Sanders 'Surprised' By Size Of Crowds At His Campaign Rallies

[16] Common Dreams – Bernie Sanders Rally in Denver Draws One of Biggest Crowds in Election Cycle

[17] The Washington Post – Bernie Sanders draws his biggest crowd yet -- in Arizona of all places

[18] Seattle Pi – Bernie Sanders draws 15,000 people at UW, state’s biggest political crowd since 2010 Obama visit

[19] Reddit – Billionaire George Soros, a Hilary Clinton supporter, has given millions of dollars funding to the BlackLivesMatter movement, while that movement continues to disrupt rallies of Clinton's main contender, Bernie Sanders. Sen. Sanders has vocally opposed financial influence in politics for decades.

[20] Facebook – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

[21] Twitter – Bernie Sanders

[22] Yahoo Finance – Bernie Sanders just berated a reporter for asking about his hair

[23] The Boston Globe – ‘Deez Nuts’ endorses Sanders for Democratic bid

[24] Twitter – Bernie Sanders

[25] Twitter – Barnie Sandlers

[26] Facebook – Barnie Sandlers

[27] In These Times – Bernie Sanders: “Your Pay Is Too Damn Low”

[28] The Wall Street Journal – Sanders Campaign Says It’s Hit One Million Online Contributions

[29] The New York Times – Bernie Sanders Raises $24 Million, Powered by Online Donations Exceeding Obama's 2008 Pace

[30] U.S. Uncut (via Wayback Machine) – Bernie Sanders Brings Out Record-Breaking Crowd in Boston

[31] Topsy – #DamnEmails (page unavailable)

[32] Twitter – #DamnEmails

[33] Twitter – @damnemails

[34] Wired – Sanders Campaign Wins Over Facebook with #DamnEmails Moment

[35] Yahoo – Hillary Clinton Goes Viral After Democratic Debate for No Answer About #DamnEmails

[36] NY Daily News – Sanders #damnemails comment

[37] National Public Radio – Sanders Passes 2 Million Donations, Nabs Two Endorsements

[38] Reddit – Reddit has officially raised $750k for Bernie 2016. Congrats Reddit.

[39] Wikipedia – List of United States Presidents by net worth

[40] Reddit – We just raised $1,000,000 for Bernie Sanders! This is what a grassroots campaign is all about! This is ALL thanks to you!

[41] Reddit – Bernie Sanders reaches 3,000,000 individual contributions!

[42] The Christian Science Monitor – Bernie Sanders: 'I’m proud to be Jewish'

[43] Reddit – feel the bern

[44] Bernie Store – Feel The Bern

[45] Twitter – #feelthebern

[46] Celeb Stoner – Video: Tommy Chong 'Feels the Bern' for Sanders

[47] WCBV5 – Susan Sarandon feels the 'Bern' in Iowa (page unavailable)

[48] Daily Globe – Minnesota feels the Bern: More than 20,000 pack St. Paul, Duluth venues to hear Sanders’ hour-long stump speech

[49] Screener TV (via Wayback Machine) – Ben & Jerry’s co-founder feels the Bern with limited edition flavor, ‘Bernie’s Yearning’

[50] indystar – Cartoonist Gary Varvel: Hillary feels the Bern

[51] Observer – Breaking: Joe Biden ‘Feels the Bern’--Boosts Bernie Against Hillary

[52] Cullman Today – Birmingham Feels The Bern

[53] NBCNews – Bernie Sanders Sits Down With Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Show'

[54] People – Bern, Baby, Bern: Bernie Sanders Shows Off His Disco Dance Moves on Ellen

[55] Twitter – jennychawla_

[56] Twitter – @Laguna4Bernie

[57] The Daily Dot – MSNBC and Fox News hosts just totally botched Bernie Sanders name

[58] UpRoxx – MSNBC Anchor Called Bernie Sanders Bernie Sandwiches

[59] NPR – Memeofthenight – Bernie Sandwiches

[60] Twitter – @allikatz

[61] Twitter – @kitscheart

[62] OnTheIssues – Bernie Sanders on Gun Control

[63] The Washington Post – Bernie Sanders draws more than 30,000 to stops around Washington state Sunday

[64] Reddit – Bernie Groups are Gone From Facebook

[65] Facebook – Unofficial – Bernie Sanders for President 2016

[66] Facebook – Bernie Sanders 2016 – Ideas Welcome

[67] Facebook – Bernie Sanders Activists

[68] Facebook – Bernie Believers

[69] Facebook – Bernie Sanders is My Hero

[70] Reddit – Bernie Groups are Gone from Facebook

[71] Facebook – Bee Jay Post

[72] Heavy – Why Were Bernie Sanders Groups Removed From Facebook?

[73] Snopes – Bernie Sanders Facebook Groups Controversy

[74] Reddit – Sen Sanders Endorses Hillary Clinton Megathread

[75] Reddit – Sanders Fans Meltdown after Hero Endorses Clinton (quarantined community)

[76] Reddit – Endorsement Megathread

[77] Reddit – Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary Clinton today in New Hampshire

[78] Twitter – @realDonaldTrump

[79] Jill2016 – Jill Steins response to Sanders endorsement of Clinton

[80] Twitter – #SelloutSanders

[81] Twitter – @freddoso

[82] The Independent – Donald Trump would have lost US election if Bernie Sanders had been the candidate

[83] Twitter – Bernie Would Have Won search

[84] - New York Times – Bernie Sanders Joins the 2020 Presidential Race

[85] Paste – Bernie Sanders Is Going to Win the Democratic Primary, and It's Going to Be Easy

[86] Jacobin – Bernie Is Running, Thank God

[87] The Hill – Sanders campaign says it raised $1 million in less than 4 hours

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