Democratic Socialist

Bernie Sanders and the $140,000 Audi R8....do as I say, not as I do.

Posted on July 28, 2018 by Dr. Eowyn | 21 Comments

Definition of hypocrisy:

The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist.

During the 2016 campaign on March 30, someone on the 4chan message board posted a picture of what appears to be Bernie Sanders driving an Audi R8, and the message:

“WTF / Bernie / Is this where my campaign donations are going”

Here’s the pic:

According to Car and Driver, the price of the Audi R8 sports car starts at$139,950.

If Bernie Sanders the socialist indeed drives an Audi R8, whether or not he had purchased it with campaign donations, it certainly is the height of hypocrisy.

TruthorFiction.com, which regularly and often repeats Snopes.com, airily dismisses the claim that Sanders is the driver:

An unidentified man with a passing resemblance to Bernie Sanders has been incorrectly identified as Bernie Sanders driving an Audi R8 by anonymous users of 4chan, an online forum known for disinformation campaigns…without providing any proof) that Sanders bought the $170,000 sport car using campaign funds….

Others, however, began posting follow-up images that they claimed proved that the man behind the wheel of the Audi R8 was, in fact, Bernie Sanders. One such user posted a photo of an Audi R8 behind what the user described as a Sanders’ campaign vehicles that featured prominent images of the Vermont senator’s face….

Those images actually show vehicles driven by the group “Black Men for Bernie,” a group that endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016 campaign with the stated purposed of encouraging black men to “come together, join the fight with others, and take responsibility for their families and communities.” Members of the group drove vehicles and hosted pro-Sanders events, but Black Men for Bernie was not connected to Sanders’ official campaign — and there’s no indication that Sanders followed the group’s motorcade in an Audi R8….

In reality, the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) has stringent rules about how leftover campaign funds can be used when a candidate like Bernie Sanders ends a White House bid. Needless to say, buying a $172,000 Audi R8 is not among them. Candidates can apply the balance to a future campaign, or donate it to a charity or political party.

Bernie Sanders had about $6 million in the bank by the time his presidential campaign ended in July 2016. It’s not clear exactly how Sanders spent that money….

In the end, the Bernie Sanders Audi R8 claim was based on one photo of a man with a passing resemblance to Sanders driving an Audi R8. Beyond unrelated photos and unsourced claims, there’s nothing to indicate Sanders bought an Audi R8 using $172,000 in leftover campaign funds. That’s why we’re calling this one “fiction.”

In other words, TruthorFiction dismissed on faith the 4chan claim — that because the FEC has strict rules on how campaign funds are to be used, then Bernie Sanders couldn’t possibly have used those funds to purchase an Audi R8.

But TruthorFiction doesn’t really know that:

1. Bernie Sanders had not used campaign funds to buy an Audi R8.
2. Bernie Sanders did buy an Audi R8 with other funds.
3. The man in the pic is not Bernie Sanders.

So much for TruthorFiction‘s (lack of) evidence and flawed reasoning.

I found a pic of Sanders in profile to compare it with the man in the Audi R8:

Sure looks to me that it was Bernie Sanders driving that Audi R8 — same hair; same side-burn; same eyebrow; same type of glasses, with a solid-color ear-piece; same ear; same-shaped nose; same grim mouth with a thin upper lip.

Why is it so inconceivable that Bernie Sanders would drive a $140,000 sports car? After all, Bernie the Socialist is a millionaire and owns three homes:

• A one-bedroom, 1½ bathrooms single-family home in Washington, DC, estimated by Zillow at $644,463.
• A 4-beds, 2-baths home in Burlington, VT, estimated by Zillow at $415,489.
• A $600,000 lakefront summer home in North Hero, Vermont, which Bernie purchased five days after the 2016 Democratic National Convention in which he sold out his supporters by enthusiastically endorsing Hillary Clinton.

A millionaire socialist who owns 3 homes and drives a $140,000 sports car. Only in America!

~Eowyn