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
@Avid Squirrel
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can I ask what it is about Clinton that’s so much worse than Sanders or Stein, though? Or Obama, assuming you support him?
I;m starting to think that America deserves to have Trump win, Provided He doesn’t start world war 3 maybe 4 years with him in charge will be the wake up call the country needs.
Can’t get the quote function to work.
How about if the Trump campaign itself is the wake up call and he’s soundly defeated in the general election instead? Same thing accomplished, lot less loss of life and liberty.
I supported Bernie and will vote for Hillary, the alternative is just too grim to contemplate. My hope is that Sanders actually has started a revolution, that the thousands of good people energized by his campaign continue to work on both the national and local scene.
@Berdache
Washington State ballots are due tomorrow and only 14% have been turned in. I was hopeful that at the very least this whole mess would get more people voting, but I’m a lot less hopeful now. 🙁
Edit: for anyone wondering, this is the primary ballot. It includes senator, governor, treasurer, judges, and a few others I can’t remember.
@Squirrel
Hiya, I’m Axe! Welcome aboard
You live in the South, so I’m assuming that means a state that doesn’t matter. If so, please vote however you like. Not my concern. This is:
You’re wrong. The Republican Congress he comes in with will definitely back him on building a border fence (wall is too expensive), while deporting as many Latinxes as possible, including ‘dreamers’. They’ll back him in limiting access to birth control and abortion. They’ll back him in cutting taxes and social programs. They’ll back him in bathroom bills. You get the idea. Trump isn’t that different from any other Republican. They agree on this stuff
Even still, you’re also wrong in that Trump needs Congress to do damage. The President has massive powers in foreign policy. NATO, gone. Iran deal, gone. America’s international standing, gone. He wants to have the families of suspected terrorists killed as a matter of policy. Trump isn’t a well oiled war machine. He’s a defective machine, given to dangerous malfunction and spontaneous combustion
Finally the Supreme Court. A Republican Senate will confirm his nominees without a 2nd thought. Hobby Lobby, Heller, Citizen’s United, Shelby. That’s the tip of the iceberg. We got gay marriage out of this Court to soften the blow, we won’t be so lucky with a 6-3 (or, perish the thought, 7-2) bench
Vote for whoever, I don’t care. But please don’t downplay the seriousness of a Trump presidency. He’s not just a buffoon, he’s a real danger to real people
Oh, and here’s a welcome package 🙂
l’m so sick of hearing that my bodily autonomy has to take a backseat because other matters are more important. Never mind that right wing Republicans will be so much worse than the status quo on issues like war, economics, and the prison industrial context anyway. And it’s all my fault that I made invivoMark sad. Never mind that I too experience insomnia, depression, and anxiety on top of worrying about a supreme court stacked with right wingers who want to remove my right to make decisions about my body.
And as a cishet white culturally Christian person, I’m still pretty privileged. Others must worry even more about a Trump administration.
But I made a man sad guys, that’s more important. Hey, never mind all the harm that a Trump presidency would bring to people. I can still take comfort in the fact that I made invivoMark sad. Because girls are sooooo mean!
I’m still waiting to hear how a Hillary Clinton presidency would be worse than the last 8 years, or why, if it’s the same, it’s important to draw the line in the sand right this minute.
I’m really having trouble with it too. It makes me almost physically ill that people who claim to be on our side can just dismiss all the harm that would be done if Trump won. I don’t know if all these people are young and don’t remember what the Bush administration was like, or what. But that was bad enough and Trump would be so much worse.
These Bernie or bust types never consider our feelings before busting in here with their false equivalency “lesser of two evils” crap. But when we object, we’re the ones being mean. It’s that sort of subconscious misogyny. Women are supposed to be understanding of men’s feelings and prioritize them above our own feelings and needs. It’s not something progressive men are immune from.
I’m not going to play the game of being the emotional caretaker in progressive spaces though. Even though conversations like this make me upset, I feel like I have to have them because I’m capable of getting through it (so far) and not everyone else is.
@Avid Squirrel
I’m sorry if you do that you are throwing me, most of my family, my lgbtq family and friends and Muslims (yes even if you are married to one!) under the bus to make a point.
There is NO WAY on God’s Green earth that Hillary is a worse choice than Trump. Bernie himself is helping to get her elected because he knows what you and your husband obviously do not: How the system works. Don’t feel bad about this, most people in this country have no idea how the system works. Because of the 12th amendment and the two party system it will be a cold day in hell before your skipping through the tulips for Stein does ANYTHING other than murder me.
See the comic voted above.
And go fuck yourself as you vote your conscience this November and are okay with electing a literal Fascist Demagogue. Again TELL ME HOW THE HELL THAT IS BETTER THAN CLINTON. Excuse my anger BUT THIS IS MY LIFE. I am 1/2 Mexican. My mother, my abuela, most of my family… it won’t matter that we’ve lived here since before America was a fucking place, they’ll still round us up. History shows us this. And if you think Trump is the kind of man who lets laws stop him….? You might want to talk to the woman accusing him of tying her to a bed and raping her AT THIRTEEN. A crime for which he will likely not face Jail Time because he intimidated her until the statue of limitations ran out. TELL ME AGAIN HOW THE HELL CLINTON IS WORSE. Please. I’m fucking listening. Go ahead. TELL ME.
I’ll. Wait.
and @Mels, no problem, that sums up every fucking problem I have with Bernie or Busters and the Green party who just wants an ass in the seat and doesn’t care about real change and oh IS IN TO VACCINE DENIAL AND JILL STEIN LITERALLY THINKS WIFI HURTS CHILDREN. Not computer devices, the literal fucking wireless signals. How is that sanity!!? How is that a pro science stance? AUGH I JUST CANT. THE LOGIC FAILS. THEY BURN.
Quoth the dudebro, BOOOTH SIIIDES!
No. It is not BOTH SIDES. It’s no more BOTH SIDES than #GG is. If there are any Clinton supporters who abuse Bernie supporters, then they’re assholes and I denounce them right now (guys, if you’re out there, YOU’RE NOT FUCKING HELPING), but I’m yet to see any actual proof of their existence, much less of them being some organised force equal to the BernieBros. And it’s hardly as if I haven’t been looking. What, do they all live in Canada?
“Ridiculous” might hurt your feelings, but “Stupid anti-American d**e w***e c**t” – to quote one BernieBro after I told him I wouldn’t vote for Stein even if Clinton wasn’t an option, because I don’t vote for anti-vaxxers – hurts the entire country.
@Johanna Roberts – about Jill Stein being anti-vaccine – I only did a quick search, but based on this article at least, she claims not to be. She said she was only criticizing the regulatory bodies for bowing to corporate influence.
That said, she went on to complain about GMOs. Now, being anti-GMO seems like dubious science to me. While I’m no fan of Monsanto’s business practices, I doubt that genetically modified foods themselves are unhealthy. It just seems to me like the glorification of “natural” products. E.g. I saw a henna hair dye yesterday that said it had “no chemicals” in it. (What’s it made of, then? Curious minds want to know.) 🙂
…I’m easily distracted. As for the main point here, if I were American, I’d vote Democrat. Not only for Hillary Clinton as a politician, but also for the Democrat platform (which is much, MUCH safer for marginalized groups and people in general than Trump’s is – as Axe, WWTH, Johanna and others eloquently pointed out).
@Avid Squirrel – Welcome, and I like your name! I’ve given my opinion above, but what you said about strengthening third parties makes sense. I’m just not sure it will work anytime soon. I live in Canada, and when I think about the US, the Democrat/Republican binary seems 1) a bit odd to me (not that our third party the NDP ever wins, but anyway) and 2) very, very entrenched. It’d be interesting to hear more of your thoughts on this!
@Epitome — She herself doesn’t hold the stance from what I can tell but keeps pushing the “people have real questions” bullshit (THERE ARE NO QUESTIONS VACCINATE UR DAMN KIDS) and is anti-gmo (hungry people are bad, aren’t they Miss Stein?!) and anti-sanity with her fucking wifi stance which is a thing she did actually say. That wifi hurts children. That she doesn’t hold anti-vax views herself doesn’t mean jack to me when she courts the White Rich Pretentious Yuppie vote HARD with her ALL NATURAL~ shit that totally ignores that hey, not all science is out to kill us and ALL food is genetically modified, just regulate the damn company and its pesticides better, you know?
Things, incidentally, that are pretty much all in the democrat platform. The protections and the actual WORK involved. Not the magic spell of falling into a chair and fixing the world’s problems that Dr. Stein seems to believe in. And this hurts, I’ve always been a DFLer (family, yo) but I did seriously flirt with the Green Party out of high school the the romantic ideal… but they never are interested in actually DOING the work, so I stayed DFL. No regrets. I’ll change things from the inside out here and I hope that makes some sort of sense.
@Johanna
Hey, I agree with you about Stein, but please don’t call her “Insane.” I actually am “Insane” and I don’t buy into any of that conspiracy bullshit.
@Scented Fucking Hard Chairs OMG, I didn’t catch that. My husband’s severely mentally ill too and I normally try to watch myself. I apologize profusely. The long day isn’t an excuse.
Please accept this picture of two ferrets in sweaters and again, my apologies. <3
http://favim.com/orig/201107/02/adorable-cute-ferrets-photography-sweaters-Favim.com-90880.jpg
@Johanna
Ah, no worries then, slip-ups happen. Go get a coffee or take a nap. =)
@Johanna – Well said, thanks for the explanations. That makes a lot of sense. The whole “real questions” thing sounds like she’s trying to retain the anti-vaxxers’ vote without supporting them wholesale, which seems a Trumpish thing to do. 🙁
Also, I had to look up DLFer and I learned something new (DLF stands for the Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labour party, https://www.dfl.org/). Thanks!
@Johanna
” Bernie himself is helping to get her elected because he knows what you and your husband obviously do not: How the system works.”
And that’s the rub, isn’t it? So many Bernie (and Trump) supporters don’t understand how the system works. It’s not People; you are voting for Party and Policy. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were running to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President: Not king, not queen, not PM, not policy maker, not The Light Bringer Who Was Promised. Which ever of the two was the nominee would advance the party policy; set not by the candidates in a vacuum but by the Party and its delegates. And that party’s policies are diametrically opposed to the Republican Party’s policy. That’s what you’re voting for; the actual person who leads it is nowhere as relevant as (too) many voters think. And the majority of Democrats chose Clinton to lead them.
A Democrat as President would still represent every Democrat from your local dog catcher to the Senate Minority Leader; they would still advance agenda that’s pro-choice, LGBTQ tolerant, provides a social safety net, and doesn’t relegating POC to second class status…It’s strange that anyone would think those same people – from the lowest Democratic volunteer to the highest office holder – will all be virtuous champions of light if Bernie is the nominee; but all turn into greedy war-mongering corporate stooges now that Hillary is the nominee.
No matter what ornament you put at the top of the tree – the rest of it is decorated the same.
I don’t know if I’m beating a dead horse at this point because I don’t know if invivoMark is coming back or still reading but I do feel like it’s crucial to add that reproductive justice is an essential part of economic justice. I brocialist types want economic justice, they need to be concerned about the right to an abortion and access to affordable family planning. Since so many bills restricting abortion access are brought before courts, part of caring about reproductive justice is voting for the Democratic candidates who will not stack the courts with anti-abortion theocrats like Antonin Scalia.
There’s a lot of research out there showing significant evidence that access to abortion, as well as contraception is critical economic justice. This is a decent summary http://www.demos.org/blog/6/29/16/reproductive-rights-are-economic-rights-expanding-reach-supreme-court%E2%80%99s-abortion-decisi
When people aren’t responsive to the argument that if nothing else, you should vote for the Democratic candidate because of judicial appointments being so critical to women’s rights, I can only conclude they don’t care as much about economic inequality as they say they do.
@epitome — Yep, we’re an odd little branch with a huge and vibrant history and honestly we likely have more reason to be mad at the DNC than the Bernie supporters given what the DNC did to its support of our labor unions, she said with a false sense of brightness. But we keep chugging along because we know the system. Like feartheminotaur says, they were voting for the nominee, not for King/Queen/Khaalisi of the Party. The party is only suddenly vile and terrible if they want to make it that way. If they actually want that political revolution? You have to WORK for it. That’s what scares them. There is sweat and blood involved in politics, if you’re not willing to shed either get the hell out of the ring. XD
@SFHC — oh I plan on crashing asap. Actual sleep will escape me until I can replenish my pain meds on Wends. Then… THEN I SHALL REST. Until then caffeine is love
Oh, and anyone who wants a 3rd party: Vote blue, and vote often. Up and down the ticket. Destroy the other team. End their whole fuckin careers, the lot of em. The 1st law of party politics is that there will always be at least 2 parties. There have been times in US history with 1 party. That shit didn’t last long. Either the other party got its shit together, or the existing party split in 2. The Dem-Reps split into the Dems and the Whigs, which eventually led to our 1st real 3rd party (Lincoln’s Republicans) wining in 1860. The old Progressives/Populists (as Johanna mentioned the DFL) came, more indirectly, from Jackson’s Democrats. Look outside of Murica too. In Ireland, pro and anti treaty Sinn Fein became Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail (sorry, Irish folks if I got that wrong)
Destroy the Republicans. They’re too strong locally, but they can be dealt with nationally. Either they stop being shit to save themselves, or they fall away to state politics. The Dems are already starting to fracture (only a little bit, thankfully) between the Obama/Clinton wing and the Sanders/Warren wing. It ain’t fast or sexy, but it’s the only reasonably likely way to get a 3rd, more ‘left wing’ party
The best way I’ve heard this put: “If Clinton is elected, then it could be four years of a bad president, and then we can vote for another one. America has had bad presidents before. But if Trump wind, that’s it. We’re done.”
And let’s face it: If Trump wins, Pence is going to have one hell of a say in the government. And I want that man as far away from my feminist, pagan, genderflux, pansexual ass as possible.
We could hum and hah about the lesser of two evils, but I’d rather vote for someone who I know has a damn good chance of winning and is a little awful than let a presidency happen that I’m not sure if I’ll live through, and that I know others will not. Better the devil you know and all that.
Thanks a lot for that article, although it depresses me all the more that RationalWiki once had a similar “brogressive” article but it was deleted and replaced by an essay that dismisses the idea. An essay by someone who thinks activism is a threat to all liberty and began the site’s article on sexual objectification in order to say it’s a myth because Camille Paglia said so (RationalWiki‘s feminists swiftly took it over from him), all in the most pretentious pseudo-intellectional tone possible. And now he’s voting for Trump. What a surprise.
Hopefully the Bernie or Bust types will get the site to recognize that brocialists are a thing.
Just a quick note to the 3rd-party supporters: Saying #NotAll3rdPartySupporters doesn’t help the situation being described in this article. It’s absolutely true that people can have major misgivings about Clinton without being misogynistic and anti-Semitic about it. But that’s not what the article was talking about. David was reporting about a pro-Bernie Facebook page, with hundreds of thousands of members, that is proudly posting and upvoting blatantly anti-Semitic content. That’s not a smear tactic against third party voters; that is straightforward, honest-to-goodness thing that’s really happening, and it’s a problem.
Saying that it’s a problem in no way implies that all non-Clinton voters are themselves misogynists and anti-Semites. But saying bluntly, “This is a problem”, without burying it in a bunch of qualifiers and #notall’s, is really, really important. Repudiating anti-Semitism and misogyny must be done clearly and concretely. It needs to be allowed to have top billing. It’s not reasonable to expect that an article decrying anti-Semitism should go out of its way to applaud the 3rd party voters who aren’t seething buckets of hatred. It goes back to not getting a human for meeting the minimum requirements of decent humanity.
This is something I’ve had to work through with my religion; I’d see someone writing a scathing article against [XYZ group of Christians] who had said or done an Awful Thing, and I’d want *so badly* to rush into the comments in order to clarify that #NotAllChristians.
Because I’m nice! I care about social issues! I don’t agree with bigoted things! *I’m* not a bad person! Please acknowledge that some of us aren’t bad people! …But ultimately, the fact that my buddies and I aren’t creeps has no bearing whatsoever on the Awful Thing the article is talking about.
If the Awful Thing is truly awful, then my job is not to derail with “hey now, we’ve got some good folks, too, and I feel affronted that you didn’t acknowledge me”. My job is to affirm, “Yes, that is an Awful Thing, and Christians shouldn’t do it” and then a) make sure I am not contributing to the Awful Thing myself; b) do my part in my own peer group to condemn it; c) not tone-police people who are directly affected by the Awful Thing or demand that they express their pain in such a way so as not to bruise my own feelings.
If you are a Bernie and/or third-party supporter who is not a reactionary anti-Semitic misogynist, then cool. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. But your cool-person-ness doesn’t change the fact that a non-trivial number of Bernie and/or third-party supporters are being loudly anti-Semitic and misogynist–which is confusing, seeing as Bernie is Jewish, and alarming, because it throws fuel on the Trump dumpster fire (Trumpster fire?). And that is a problem. We need to be able to talk about it as a problem.
I get why this subject can be painful. But be careful that your desire to be recognized as one of the good ones does not derail from a unified, full-throated condemnation of racism and sexism. It does not harm your party to firmly reject the anti-Semitic turdwaffles in it.
@Vivo
Vivo, we don’t personally hate you. I have been in your place, where a political discussion set off a switch and I had a little meltdown and I blew up. In my experience, you’ll soon feel ashamed for blowing up. Do not feel ashamed, it’s okay, we all have our moments.
I know its hard, but try not to take it personally, I’m sure you are a good person who’s going through a rough patch. I am sorry for your feelings and the moment you’re going through. Are you getting help? I hope you are, I advise you to. And we’re always up for talking, at least I am.
And as sorry as I am, personal feelings arent relevant in a political discussion. Everything is collective. So, politically, it is a waste of time for me or anyone else to be gentle to your personal feelings. And also, ideals don’t win elections, votes do. So maybe you should think about that. Maybe not. Its your call. But some people just cant or won’t afford betting on ideals, and these people are scared and fierce, so, independent of your personal feelings, in a political discussion, we can’t help but being harsh.
Personally, though, I am sorry for what you’re going through and im here. Don’t worry, we would never take advantage of the sore emotional wound you exposed and hurt you there.
Unrelated but still related: DON’T LET PLANNED PARENTHOOD END, PLEASE. Other countries take us as example and this would set everyone far back.
@Paradoxical Intention
I understand that a lot of people have to look at the election this way to get out and vote. But I really feel bad having to call a woman who has been working her entire career on progressive causes “the devil”. There’s a lot of longstanding lies that have been repeated enough times to stick in a lot of people’s minds and an endless string of soft misogyny backing them. But even though she’s not perfect (no candidate is) she’s not evil and she’s not the devil.
*not getting a cookie for meeting the minimum requirements. This is what I get for posting so late.
The Berniebros’ “true left” going full far-right. Riiiiight. And I would’ve supported Bernie, by the way, but I’m not American. And right now, I’m so glad that I’m not and that I get to watch the house burn from the relative safety of the other side of the street. To those who don’t have that luxury : you have all my admittedly limited support. Doubly so if you’re among the millions who’d have to justify their very existence under a Trump presidency.
I get that people are tired of lesser-evilism. I get it, really.
But, huh, if your alternative is to derail the whole train and watch what happens, then there might be something a liiiiittle bit wrong with your reasoning. Just saying.
Look at what happened in England. Folks voted Leave to mess with Cameron, and two days later asked if they could change their vote. Too late now. Boris Johnson and his hair are laughing at you.
Wanna mess with the american political establishment ? Go ahead, do it. I’m with ya. Spoiler alert : letting Trump (and his hair) win would have the opposite effect. Making the establishment worse isn’t gonna screw it up : it’s just gonna make it worse.
INSTEAD, you could, I dunno. Join a BLM crowd. Vocally, loudly denounce the Republicans’ shitty rhetoric and platforming against anyone who isn’t a rich straight white christian male. Demand accountability from politicians, police, institutions. Work with and for the victims of everyday political violence. Y’know, activism. You can do all that with Clinton as president. With Trump, however, I don’t think you’ll be able to.
But hey, what do I know. I’m just a pansy ass pinko.