The Bernie meme lives on — in snowman form
The now-famous picture of Bernie Sanders at the 2021 inauguration. Image by Getty
By Irene Katz Connelly February 4, 2021
If you thought Bernie looked cold on Inauguration Day, wait until you see the snowmen.
After a nor’easter swept through large parts of the U.S. on Monday, many people built snowmen shaped like the Vermont senator, whose Burton parka and recycled mittens, aside from their other merits, were the inaugural outfit most easily rendered in the medium of frozen water.
In Brooklyn, which saw over a foot of snowfall this week, one man built an admirably accurate Sanders sculpture, complete with folding chair, manila envelope and mask.
Snow way! Brooklyn man builds Bernie meme snowman https://t.co/RXuKGn2U71 pic.twitter.com/qnm7w5VJtb
— PIX11 News (@PIX11News) February 2, 2021
In Washington, D.C., a somewhat more scraggly Bernie popped up on a public bench, apparently taking a nap.
It’s DC – of course someone made a Bernie snowman. (H/t my son) pic.twitter.com/4Y3jAbOr1h
— Patricia Zengerle (@ReutersZengerle) January 31, 2021
In fact, the Northeast is late to the Sanders snowman party. In snowier parts of the country, the senator’s image popped up in parks and yards just days after the inauguration.
Two kids in Utah created a colorful, masked Bernie snowman in their front yard. A teenager in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin created a cross-legged version in just an hour and a half. In Stevens Point, Wisconsin, local sculptor Jef Schobert, who displays custom snow sculptures outside his home every year, perched the senator on an ice throne. The senator even appeared outside several homes in the UK.
Sanders hasn’t commented publicly on the spate of snowmen — probably because he and his legendary parka are too busy grocery shopping.
Look who I saw at the grocery store pic.twitter.com/JRt0zWpqR5
— Alex Neoliberalism Will Kill Us Lawson (@TheeAlexLawson) January 29, 2021
Irene Katz Connelly is a staff writer at the Forward. You can contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @katz_conn.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
