Nick Corasaniti, of the New York Times, writes that:
… somehow, Bernie Sanders, the 73-year-old senator from Vermont, has emerged as a king of social media early in the 2016 presidential campaign, amid a field of tech-savvy contenders. His Facebook posts attract tens of thousands of likes and shares, and threads about him often break through to the home page of Reddit, where the cluster of topics rarely focuses on presidential election politics.
This, in spite of the fact that Sanders:
… does not do many things the way social media experts say they should be done.
Perhaps Sanders knows something that they don’t. Maybe things aren’t all buzz and quick hits as Sanders:
… has not shied away from posts of 300 words or more, with a “continue reading here” link to his personal website.
Seems:
Sanders, an independent who describes himself as a socialist, has stuck to an idiosyncratic method: posting images that share a quotation, which he has either written himself or dug up from a historical figure and then superimposed onto a photograph. (President Theodore Roosevelt and President Dwight D. Eisenhower are among those he has recently cited.)
Sanders, who describes himself as, “a grumpy old guy,” adds that:
“I play a very, very active role in writing, literally writing, what goes up there on Facebook.”
But:
“People don’t need to know what I buy in the grocery store or what the name of my dog is — I don’t own a dog, by the way — but they do need to know why billionaires are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.”
And, as reported on National Journal, further validation of the Sanders for president movement takes the form of … a teddy bear.
… a special Bernie Sanders teddy bear, complete with his signature tufts of white hair, a suit, and a Bernie 2016 lapel pin … for the low, low price of $79.99, you can own this 15-inch tall anthropomorphic bear!
Could we be witnessing the first signs of a groundswell?
