If the remaining #BernieOrBusters want to convince the world that they are something other than “ridiculous” — as the far more grounded Bernie fan Sarah Silverman so aptly characterized them at the DNC last week — the Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash on Facebook isn’t exactly helping.
Bernie himself has bowed to political realities, endorsing Hillary and lending his support for her fight against Trump. Not so Bernie’s Dank Memers. The anti-Trump memes there are surprisingly few and far between. Far more common are memes supporting the Green party’s Jill Stein. And far more common than those are memes attacking Hillary and her supporters with all the subtlety of a channer who’s just mastered MSPaint.
While the anti-Hillary sentiment isn’t that much of a surprise, what is surprising, even a little shocking, is how utterly backwards many of the memes are, echoing classic misogynistic tropes and tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories, and in a few cases, even more bizarrely, repurposing antisemitic propaganda popular amongst GamerGaters and Internet Nazis.
Why would the supporters of a Jewish socialist repeatedly post pictures of Hillary Clinton as the “Happy Merchant?” You’ll have to ask them.
Let’s take a look at some of the more, well, colorful memes.
There’s this lovely reworking of an old sexist joke:
And this slightly more original offering.
Here’s Hillary as a beauty pageant winner.
And as a porn star:
Here’s a meme inspired, I guess, by Pokemon Go?
This one manages to add transphobia to the mix:
This meme links Hillary with a woman who was famously not convicted of murdering her daughter. At least in a court of law; in the court of public opinion she was considered guilty, guilty, guilty. Apparently in the mind of the mememaker, Hillary not being indicted for deleting emails is the literal equivalent of Casey Anthony getting away with murder?
There are memes that echo Trump’s, er, “critique” of Hillary:
This one, while directed at disgraced DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, offers an apologia of sorts for Melania Trump’s plagiarism.
And here’s one promoting a hashtag that originated with far-right attack dog — and fervent Trump fan — Mike Cernovich.
And no, I have no idea what’s really going on with her tongue.
There are some memes that reek of conspiracy theory, though it’s a little hard to tell how many Bernie fans take these seriously.
There are a surprising number of memes depicting Hillary as a reptilian space alien. I’m going to assume they’re all meant as jokes, because it’s too depressing to contemplate otherwise.
Naturally, there are more than a few memes attacking Sarah Silverman for her “ridiculous” remark, with many of the mememakers assuming she was paid to make it.
But it’s the “Happy Merchant” memes that truly baffle.
Here’s a typical “Happy Merchant” meme, using the now-infamous cartoon that originally appeared in a neo-Nazi newsletter.
And here’s Hillary in the same role, from the Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash:
The most depressing thing? This isn’t just some random Facebook page. The Bernie Sanders Dank Meme Stash page has more than 438,000 members. I can only hope most of them are less backwards than those posting memes on the page today.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
@Ddog
I’m peddling alternative medicine — even though I have nothing to sell.
You’re warning people against a real and present danger — but I’m reasonably sure that I won’t see you in front of Whole Foods this weekend, protesting their sale of homeopathic remedies.
https://www.boironusa.com/wheretobuy/
I think it’s important to push back on woo woo medicine and junk science, even if it’s just someone’s opinion. There are always lurkers reading and I’d rather them see what science actually says about any given topic if possible. I don’t really see what is objectionable about it, I guess.
It’s amazing what Cuba has done with health care, especially given that their GNP per capita is $2,270 (2005 figures). At the very least, one could conclude that alternative medicine hasn’t hurt them.
Family Medicine in Cuba: Community-Oriented Primary Care and Complementary and Alternative Medicine
http://www.jabfm.org/content/18/4/297.full
Re: Jill Stein’s Wifi Woo
What Scildfreja said.
This link to xkcd might help put things into perspective:
https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/
http://xkcd.com/radiation/
http://xkcd.com/radiation/sources.html
The “wifi” conspiracy misinformation takes advantage of the average person’s fuzziness about science. It piggy backs on the message all “radiation” is bad, forgetting that visible light is radiation.
All the “concerns” I’ve read originate from the “woo-sphere”, with non reproducible studies of dubious provenance. For more, Google
wifi radiation snopes site:message.snopes.com
@BVH
Thanks for that info. I had a look at the chart, some of the links, and Snopes.
Joel Moskowitz, PhD, at the University of California School of Public Health believes that we need stronger cell phone radiation regulations. He’s got testimony submitted to the FCC on his website. A long list of experts and organizations agree with him, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. So that does seem to support Jill Stein’s concern about cell phones and children.
I tried several times to post a link to Moskowitz’s website without success. Please do a search for this:
joel moskowitz cell phone
I think the Bernie being a Jewish atheist thing really upset voters. It’s not a done thing in US politics to be irreligious. We had a Jewish atheist Labour leader in Ed Milliband. The papers papped him eating a bacon sandwich.
Jeremy Corbyn has been wiser than to let the press know his spiritual beliefs or lack of them. He comes from a Methodist family, and has been personally involved with multi faith groups. When asked by the Huff Post, he claimed his environmentalism was a for of ‘spiritualism’ and that he was not an atheist.
In the USA, I doubt this would have been good enough. See how Drumpf has got himself ‘in’ with the evangelicals, despite having no former Christian faith. There is actually a video of him and a great swarm of prosperity preachers including TD Jakes, Kenneth Copeland and the Crouches laying hands on him for an ‘anointing’. This is truly sickening, and an affront to honest Christians because they only worship the God of Mammon. Trump is like the Golden Calf.
OK, so you all know I’m a commie, but you might be surprised I am not an atheist. (Although I draw the line at calling myself ‘Christian’ as it is used to often to imply bigotry and ‘moral superiority’, I do no such thing) They do not have to go together, the main reason they do is that the Church establishment props up the ruling class, just like the CofE does in England. Even Nietzsche considered socialist ethics to be bound to Christian moral teachings. What Jesus, historical or otherwise taught was socialistic. I believe in fairness, healing the sick, feeding the poor etc. The problem is, what I mentioned on another thread, that Calvinism, the form of religion which calls itself Christian in the US sees material wealth or ‘prosperity’ as a blessing from God, and poverty as a result of sin. You see this writ large when you see stories in the right wing press about white trash families with loads of kids on welfare, covered in tattoos and drinking whiskey out a boot! We have this too, it’s called the Daily Maul, thank you Murdoch. The demonisation of the working class is part of the process.
It’s worth watching the Michael Moore documentary ‘Capitalism, a Love Story’, if only for the scene when he talks to a number of priests about Capitalism being unscriptural, unchristian and exploitative.
Bernie showed that now in the wake of the Occupy movement, people frustrated with party politics had a glimpse of a different style of politics. He, like our Corbyn is a Socialist Democrat, not a commie, not a trot, more like a Bennite, a reformist working Socialist ideas into an established capitalistic system. But talking about socialism on the world stage is a big step forward.
Maybe Bernie was not the right man for the job, being too old, to atheist to pull in the popular support, but maybe another will rise in his wake?
@ Virgin Mary
That wasn’t anything to do with religion though.
The story was all about how he’d tried to make himself look suitably working class (as opposed to Cameron eating a hot dog with a knife and fork) but cocked it up. In all fairness it is hard to eat a bacon sarnie with dignity and I liked the ‘eat a bacon butty for ed’ thing that’s sprung up with people posting photos of very messy sandwich eating.
(Notwithstanding that we shouldn’t eat poor piggies)
ETA: also it wasn’t a pap thing; it was a pre-arranged photo-op.
@alan
Now with Corbyn it’s Pot Noodles, Marrows and granola bars!??
http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/779104/stream_img.jpg
@kat
Sorry to bring up Michael Moore again, but have you seen his documentary ‘Sicko’?
He actually takes some patients from the USA, including a few 9/11 hero firefighters to Cuba to get medical assistance they could not afford back home.
The government actually tried to try him for treason.
@ Virgin Mary
It does amuse me how obsessed we get with politicians’ personal food habits. Of course that’s all down to spin doctors and trying to show their clients have “the common touch”. Hence all the forced smiles as a PM downs a pint of bitter in a pub.
Personally I don’t care if you’d rather have a gin & tonic (just remember to not leave your daughter behind); just tell me about your policies.
Speaking of which, I wonder what Ed thinks now that Theresa May has adopted his “far too leftish” economic policy. I think he’s entitled to a bit of a splutter and some snarky emails to Milbank.
@Virgin Mary
Yes! Liberation theology.
Hmm. I don’t think his kind of of belief in God would have gone over with either believers or nonbelievers. But yeah, I hope another leader comes along to inspire us.
ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bernie-sanders-finally-answers-the-god-question/2016/01/26/83429390-bfb0-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html
And I’m not surprised that you’re not an atheist. Jesus wasn’t either.
@Virgin Mary
No, I haven’t seen Sicko. Your video is blocked in my country. Too bad!
I am not uncritical of Cuba, but I am excited about their excellent health care system. There have been legal tours from the USA to Cuba for years now to study the health care system. And you probably know that medical school is free there, even to foreigners — stunning!
OK – you asked “Why?”
The reason is because they have deserted Bernie Sanders and have have gone to Stein.
They have decided “Never Hillary”; even though, as Bernie has said, “Going forward and continuing the struggle is what matters. And, in that struggle, the most immediate task we face is to defeat Donald Trump.”
They really shouldn’t be using Bernie’s name any more.