Amazon Hijacked The Bernie Sanders' Inauguration Meme For An Advert. It Did Not Go Well
Amazon helped itself Friday to the trending photo of a bundled-up senator Bernie Sanders at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration to sell Amazon Pay – and people were horrified.
The backlash was so immediate that the company deleted the tweet by the end of the day.
The Amazon Pay Twitter account tried to profit from the buzz around the meme of the mittened Sanders sitting by himself in the chilly outdoors at the inauguration Wednesday. In the odd Amazon advert, “How to register for Amazon Pay” is written over the image of Sanders with the tweet: “It’s that easy. Thanks #BernieSandersMittens.”
Not only was the ad confusing, weird and presumptuous, but the choice to use Sanders was particularly fraught because the senator hates Amazon’s labour policies.
In fact, he bashed Amazon in a tweet – on Inauguration Day – for trying to stonewall workers’ efforts to unionise. So he hardly seems like a natural pitchman to boost Amazon’s profits even higher.
Sanders has also criticised Amazon’s Jeff Bezos for hazardous working conditions, whistleblower firings and all-around “corporate greed.”
Amazon, incidentally, paid no federal taxes in the US 2018 or 2019.
Amazon doesn’t want its workers to form a union because unionized workers have:
- higher wages
- better benefits
- more control over their lives
If Amazon workers in Alabama vote to form a union, that will benefit every worker in America. https://t.co/g2Zfa6DEgc— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 21, 2021
Jeff Bezos, the wealthiest man alive, became $83 billion richer over the past 9 months while Amazon made record profits. Meanwhile, Amazon workers are risking their lives to fill holiday orders and are denied paid sick leave and hazard pay. This ugly corporate greed must end.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) December 22, 2020
In late December Amazon itself lashed out at Sanders’ criticism of its labour policies and working conditions, so it’s not completely clueless about where the...