२१ जानेवारी, २०२१

Maybe the reason these Bernie memes are so big is that a lot of us feel like that now.

If you're asking What Bernie memes? then go here (The Verge), where you can see the original picture  — Bernie Sanders, scrunched up and bundled up, sitting in a folding chair, with no one around him, waiting for the inauguration ceremony to get going — and you can also see lots of photoshops putting this Bernie image in various amusing settings. 

If you're asking Feel like what now?, you have reached the topic I want to talk about.

६० टिप्पण्या:

Temujin म्हणाले...

Left out in the cold.

wendybar म्हणाले...

Buckle up....they are just beginning.

David Begley म्हणाले...

How do I feel? Mostly resigned to the fact that the Left won and that America is now headed for decline. China will be the new number one shortly. I’m particularly upset about how the Green New Deal will cost me money and make me miserable.

I’m also afraid. There will be some type of crisis in the next four years and the Biden-Harris Administration will do all the wrong things.

Winnie म्हणाले...

Deja vu. I was tired of the Obama team members 4 years ago and already weary of seeing them again. Ditto the fawning media coverage. It's exhausting.

wendybar म्हणाले...

Just History repeating itself....and not the good history.

Browndog म्हणाले...

This photo shop is pretty creative

I totally tuned out yesterday. No tv, no internet, no Althouse. Even this morning I have no desire to "join the discussion" on Althouse.

I'm on my own. So are you.

Bob Boyd म्हणाले...

Feel like what now?

Some are feeling like this.


And some are feeling like this.

stevew म्हणाले...

That's pretty funny, and quite accurate. Feeling left out, in the cold, and ignored. Perfect for what the Democrats wanted to do and accomplished. For me, if Trump was going to lose I would have preferred he lose to Bernie. I bet for the same reason the Democrats wanted to defeat him: as POTUS Bernie would pursue his agenda, not that of the Democrats, and so would face opposition from both parties in Congress. He would have accomplished very little, done minimal damage.

With Trump gone I feel left out too - there is no one in our Federal government that cares about my well being, nor that of the United States. It's going to be a cold four years.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

Even his mask is on the left.

Browndog म्हणाले...

Odd, that many feel "alone" after a President left office. Didn't see that coming. Nor did I see I'd be one of them.

Laslo Spatula म्हणाले...

It is a fitting update of the Sad Keanu meme.

I am Laslo.

Eleanor म्हणाले...

The pattern to knit Bernie's mittens is trending on Ravelry.

Gabriel म्हणाले...

Bernie Sanders has served his purpose (giving radicals a reason to vote for the Democratic candidate) for which he is well compensated; and it's silly to think that he expected to be anywhere other than where he is.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

David Begley said...How do I feel? Mostly resigned to the fact that the Left won and that America is now headed for decline. China will be the new number one shortly

People always say stuff like that and it's never true. First of all, you don't have to be that good to be better than everybody else. China is just the next Russia. No, wait, Japan! No, wait, Germany! Challengers come and go. They always screw it up at the key moment. Which the Chinese are doing right now. The whole world except the United States is Brazil (forever the country of tomorrow).

Second, much as you may hate handing power over to people you don't like or trust, the reality is the transfer of power is key to maintaining our vitality. Any group in power for too long (it doesn't matter which group) will become sclerotic and destructive.

The American Century has been declared over about once a decade, but the United States is doing fine compared to everybody else and there's no reason to think that will change in our lifetimes.

MayBee म्हणाले...

On the knitting websites, people are all about his mittens.

Lucid-Ideas म्हणाले...

Bernie should pull the "wistful Ben Affleck". You know...get a giant dragon back-tat, wrap a towel around himself and stare at the ocean asking where it all went wrong.

THIS is how you resonate with young people. Social justice and tattoos....but mostly just tattoos.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

You're misreading Bernie. He's feeling he lost.

You're into denying responsibility for the collapse of the structure that channeled political feelings. "Well, it has nothing to do with me." A loss of sorts but not one women can figure out.

Darkisland म्हणाले...

Perhaps not a meme and I posted it in the open thread last night but this post screams out for this story:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/bernie-sanders-mural-defaced-pepe-the-frog-b1789371.html

I heard about this through Tim Pool's daily news podcast. Someone painted Pepe the Frog on a Bernie sign and the DC police are investigating it as a "hate crime"

John Henry

rhhardin म्हणाले...

It's not fawning media coverage. It's soap opera with the same characters as before. That's their business model.

gilbar म्हणाले...

The whole world except the United States is Brazil (forever the country of tomorrow).

the problem is: the Unites State is (going to become) Venezuela

Eric the Fruit Bat म्हणाले...

Maybe the reason these Bernie memes are so big is that a lot of us feel like that now.

Isn't he a bit like you and me?

rehajm म्हणाले...

...and there's no reason to think that will change in our lifetimes.

Are we dying next month?

Debt to GDP is one reason, for starters, though if the US goes all the parasitic nations go too. I guess on a relative basis you could be right.

David Begley म्हणाले...

Tim maguire:

You WAY underestimate the Chinese. Look at their population numbers and history. They want to be restored to glory and what they think they deserve.

They are totalitarians ruling roughshod over a docile culture.

I met a Chinese movie director at the American Film Market in 2019. We were sitting at the bar at the Casa Del Mar. I asked him about the freedom movement and protests in Hong Kong. He told me the Chinese people don’t care. They just want to make money and go on nice vacations. Bread and circuses. He is part of the circus.

Darkisland म्हणाले...

Just to be clear, painting Pepe on a Bernie sign may be vandalism.

My amusement is that it is a "hate crime" under the District's hate crime law.

John Henry

Inga म्हणाले...

I’m sorry you folks aren’t feeling so hot this AM. Don’t feel alone, after all you have 74 million people with you, no?

As for the rest of us, reasons to feel hopeful.
1. Biden has already fired three of Trump’s worst appointees
2. Biden will be signing 10 more EOs and invoking the Defense Production Act to combat Covid 19.

Darkisland म्हणाले...

Why is Bernie feeling left out and in the cold?

He has NEVER been a member of the Democrat Party. He has never fund raised for them. Never stumped for their candidates.

He has always been a proud "independent" saying for 30 years or more "A pox on both parties"

So why should the Demmies have anything to do with him?

I was always bemused by how much they let him in their tent in the first place given all the criticism and loud and explicit non-entry he had boasted about all those years.

John Henry

Gusty Winds म्हणाले...

The memes of him out this morning are great. They lonely man in that Goodwill jacket and mittens trying to look poor while owning three houses. Isolated on the fringes because he let them do it to him twice. They guy is an empty shell. He knows the truth of what went down. He’s a coward for not calling it out. Man of ZERO conviction. Now he’s a clown.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

David Begley said...
Tim maguire:

You WAY underestimate the Chinese. Look at their population numbers and history. They want to be restored to glory and what they think they deserve.


My point is, it doesn't matter what they want. I assume the worst about them from top to bottom. China is a modern day Nazi Germany. I mean that in the truest sense. China apologists ARE today's Nazi apologists. Joe Biden is Neville Chamberlain. (Trump is Churchill. We had them in the wrong order.)

But desire and determination is not enough to overcome reality. And the reality is, China is a ramshackle "nation" much like the Soviet Union--an agglomeration of disparate parts that are held together by brute force alone. And they are sitting on a demographic time bomb. It is already too late for them to get rich before they get old. They have too many men and not enough women to go around. They have reserves to throw around and that will hide the initial stages of their decline, but they are already in decline. Like Hannibal in the 2nd Punic War, they may continue to win victories, but each year their position will get weaker.

The United States' success is built on a formula that America's challengers and even most Americans don't understand. That's why people continually predict it's all about to end, and yet it never does.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"If you're asking Feel like what now?"

Feel like things could have been even worse? That we dodged one? That as absurd as the election of Slow Joe B was, electing grandpa Bernie would have been truly insane?

Mikey NTH म्हणाले...

Feel like what? I'm not feeling much like anything other than wait and see. There are a lot of predictions, many of which are highly emotional, but my experience is that few of those come to pass.

Gusty Winds म्हणाले...

Maybe the reason these Bernie memes are so big is that a lot of us feel like that now.

I don’t feel like Bernie. In my own little way, I fought the good fight. He sits there complicit in the corruption that installed Biden. He had a chance to align his populist support with Trump’s and really make a difference for the forgotten man he too claimed to champion. Instead he went along with the race card, the gender card, the global warming dooms day card….

Bernie is the Democrat Party’s blow up fuck doll. What a loser.

Darkisland म्हणाले...

Remember when the Japanese were going to take over the US?

Back in the 90s they were buying up all of the hot properties. Two that I specifically remember were Rockefeller center and Pebble Beach golf course. They paid more than they were worth.

Then, not many years later they sold them for perhaps 25% less than they had paid for them.

In the meantime we got plants from Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and many secondary suppliers. That injection of new blood and re-injection of old production philosophies (Like Henry Ford's "Toyota Production System" or Deming, Shewhart et al) revitalized our auto industry. Not necessarily the legacy manufacturers who we should have let sink or swim. Starting with Chrysler in 79.

So how's that Japanese take over of the US going these days?

John Henry

Kate म्हणाले...

Handknit wool mittens with fleece lining? Nicey.

Now that I've left twitter, I miss the memes. And cat videos.

What are we feeling? The Bernie photo is poetry. Don't try to dissect it. Its truth is in the juxtapositions that flit through our consciousness.

David Begley म्हणाले...

Tim

For years the CCP has executed political prisoners and then harvested their organs for transplantation.

David Begley म्हणाले...

John Henry and Tim:

But look who is leading us now.

BUMBLE BEE म्हणाले...

Oh Waaaaahh! No lakefront home this time bunky!

Browndog म्हणाले...

Feel like what? I'm not feeling much like anything other than wait and see.

20,000 pipeline workers didn't have to wait long to see.

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

I think he’s listening to that talentless twit Amanda Gorman read her “poem” and realizing what a sad and boring shit-show his ideas have made of our country’s youth and future.

Thus the mental mittens. Cue to balalaikas and headscarfs for the girls.

Did anyone else notice how all the women wore exactly the same outfits in slightly different colors? It’s as if they were dressed by the producers of Handmaid’s Tale. Which wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

iowan2 म्हणाले...

1. Biden has already fired three of Trump’s worst appointees
2. Biden will be signing 10 more EOs and invoking the Defense Production Act to combat Covid 19.



1. Happens every single change of leadership
2. EOs, meh. Making a complicated vaccine using one-of equipment is not the same as retooling a production plant to stamp out sheet metal in a different shape.
2a. CDC was going to hit 1 million doses a day within a week. We would be there now if California and New York had a plan in place to stick needles in arms, rather than use the woke filter to determine where the doses go. Biden has promised to accomplish what is already happening.
2c. Two more vaccines ready to submit application of emergency use to the FDA within 10 days. That makes exactly four more vaccines than Biden said was even possible until late 2021.
2d. Biden and Harris both, told the nation not to trust any vaccine that was developed while President Trump was in office

Will Cate म्हणाले...

I concur with Kate above: "The Bernie photo is poetry" ... it is an interconnected spontaneous work of art, much of which is brilliant. My 3 favs so far:

Cold Bernie on bench w/ Forest Gump
Cold Bernie with the Grateful Dead
Cold Bernie being carried out of the Capitol on Jan. 6

Michael K म्हणाले...

I am not as optimistic about the future as some here. Biden has promised trillions of dollars for "Stimulus." Which means Democrats' pockets. Remember Obama's "Shovel Ready Jobs ?"

I tend to believe people like David Goldman, who writes a column as "Spengler."

US government debt now stands at $20 trillion, or roughly 100% of GDP. This should be a concern, but Democratic economists are not worried. A much-discussed November 30 paper by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Jason Furman suggests that Democratic thinking has veered into the paranormal, with an emphasis on levitation. Governments will be able to borrow and spend as much as they want for whatever purpose they want, the authors argue in so many words, and interest rates will remain low forever.

As Washington Post editorialist Charles Lane commented Dec. 7, “Far from burdening future generations, governments have a golden opportunity to fund long-standing needs by borrowing for investments in future prosperity—the list includes child care, early education, job training and clean water.”

The argument so easily refuted by casual reference to the facts that it takes a doctorate from Harvard (which both Summers and Furman hold) to suspend disbelief in the obvious. The authors aver:

We note that with massive increases in budget deficits and government debt, expansions in social insurance, and sharp reductions in capital tax rates, one would have expected to see increasing real rates if private sector behavior had remained constant. We suggest that changes in the supply of saving associated with lengthening life expectancy, rising uncertainty and increased inequality along with reductions in the demand for capital associated with demographic changes, demassification of the economy, and perhaps changes in corporate behavior have driven real interest rates down.

This characterization is rather like Hamlet without the Ghost, for the ghost in the interest machine during the past decade has been the Federal Reserve Board’s multi-trillion-dollar purchases of Treasury and agency securities. Summers and Furman do not mention this in their 50-page excursus.


Things like money printing continue until they can't. Hemingway said you go bankrupt slowly, then suddenly.

Goldman Sachs thinks all will be well but they are one of the rent collectors.

Somebody above mentioned Japan. The Japanese had a classic real estate bubble and borrowed against inflated values to buy those US assets in the 80s. Then, as bubbles eventually do, the real estate bubble collapsed. One thing the Japanese had that China does not, is high quality. They still have high quality in manufacturing.

Howard म्हणाले...

Happy happy Joy Joy

John henry म्हणाले...


 Michael K said...I am not One thing the Japanese had that China does not, is high quality. They still have high quality in manufacturing.
====

Thank Henry Ford for that.

Though I suppose saying that makes me a "racist" or "white supremacist".

John Henry

LYNNDH म्हणाले...

David B - the I feel too. Nicely put.

mccullough म्हणाले...

It’s The Grumpy Old Man.

He wears mittens but no hat.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed म्हणाले...

The memes are big because there are literally millions of his psychophants out there in the hustings. These memes aren't by people who feel like he looks, they're by his fans slathering him on the white bread of social media.

FWBuff म्हणाले...

Cold Bernie personifies one of Althouse's favorite phrases: "I'm skeptical."

rehajm म्हणाले...

A much-discussed November 30 paper by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Jason Furman suggests that Democratic thinking has veered into the paranormal, with an emphasis on levitation. Governments will be able to borrow and spend as much as they want for whatever purpose they want, the authors argue in so many words, and interest rates will remain low forever.

This is a major tenet of Modern Monetary Theory, which we're told to accept as valid by every left leaning Harvard professor with public policy making ambitions but was actually invented in the 1990s by some crackpot lady at a SUNY school when Democrats got sick of their policies being rejected because of certain economic realities. On point for Democrats, they just created their own realities...

rehajm म्हणाले...

In the link above John Cochrane did the reading so you don't have to...

rehajm म्हणाले...

Somebody above mentioned Japan. The Japanese had a classic real estate bubble and borrowed against inflated values to buy those US assets in the 80s. Then, as bubbles eventually do, the real estate bubble collapsed. One thing the Japanese had that China does not, is high quality. They still have high quality in manufacturing.

Curiously, Japan manages to exist despite debt in excess of 250% of GDP. 100% of GDP is where things usually become dicey in terms of sustainability.

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

That's pretty much what I look like in winter.

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

He doesn't look alone or left out to me. He looks like someone sitting outdoors in the cold.

JaimeRoberto म्हणाले...

I'm feeling a sense of ennui.

Michelle Dulak Thomson म्हणाले...

Kate, you don't need Twitter for cat videos, though unfortunately you probably do need Google, or rather YouTube, owned by Google. Maru and Hana are now sharing space with a kitten named Miri. Endless hilarity ensues! (Tongue not in cheek.)

Iowan2, everything you say is true. Especially about vaccine distribution. The Dems are freaking out b/c Trump left distribution to the states. Well, guess what? Some of the states have done it exceedingly well. West Virginia springs to mind. There are precious few cities of any size, everything is uphill or downhill from everything else, many people are terribly isolated, the poverty rate is nasty -- and yet they have the highest vaccination rate in the country. The Dakotas aren't far behind. Whereas NY and CA are so busy trying to punish physicians who vaccinate not strictly according to official priority order, then backtracking when people point out that fining doctors $1M and taking away their licenses for vaccinating the wrong person rather than throwing the spent vaccine in the trash is . . . um, silly, that nothing is getting done despite what would seem to be vastly superior existing resources for distribution.

Mind you, speeding up the production of vaccine vials might make sense.

I'm Not Sure म्हणाले...

"Governments will be able to borrow and spend as much as they want for whatever purpose they want, the authors argue in so many words, and interest rates will remain low forever."

If that's so, why does the government collect taxes?

Rosalyn C. म्हणाले...

Hunker down. I'm still here don't forget about me.

Rosalyn C. म्हणाले...

I was curious how Bernie supporters are responding to the Biden win and there really was nothing on DuckDuckGo. But there was the tweet Bernie sent to congratulate Biden on his win:

"Bernie Sanders
@BernieSanders
·
Nov 7, 2020
I want to congratulate all those who worked so hard to make this historic day possible. Now, through our continued grassroots organizing, let us create a government that works for ALL and not the few. Let us create a nation built on justice, not greed and bigotry"

Notice no congratulations to Biden. I guess Bernie has not conceded either.

I'm Not Sure म्हणाले...

"Now, through our continued grassroots organizing, let us create a government that works for ALL and not the few."

How many houses has Bernie, working for the government, managed to acquire? How many, not working for the government, have you?

Gahrie म्हणाले...

My strongest feeling right now? Disappointment.

n.n म्हणाले...

Em-pathetic appeal.