Bernie Sanders' secret weapon? Reddit.


The Bernie Sanders campaign still faces an uphill battle challenging the Clinton juggernaut for the Democratic nomination, but there's one place where he's already won: Reddit.
If you're not familiar with the site, Reddit is a massive online forum that allows users to "upvote" and "downvote" user-submitted content, and it's divided into subreddits, which are single-topic forums users can subscribed to or ignore according to personal interests.
Sanders currently has more than 80 subreddits devoted to his cause, including one for every single state plus Washington, DC. The primary subreddit of the bunch, r/SandersforPresident, has nearly 100,00 subscribers, meaning there are lots of upvotes constantly pushing pro-Sanders content into the view of Reddit's 203 million monthly visitors. State-based subreddits have played a key role in organizing for real life events, too, helping Sanders pack stadiums with thousands of supporters.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This is not the first time Reddit has cottoned to a presidential candidate: In 2008 and 2012, Ron Paul was Reddit's choice for aggressively upvoted underdog, to the point that frustrated non-Paul supporters created an r/EnoughPaulSpam subreddit in protest.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Syria's Druze sect: caught in the middle of Israeli tensions
The Explainer Israel has used attacks on religious minority by forces loyal to Syria's new government to justify strikes across the border
-
Athens city and beach: The Dolli at Acropolis and Cape Sounio
The Week Recommends Luxury living in two Grecotels designed to showcase ancient Greek ruins and modern Greek style
-
Tivoli Kopke Porto Gaia Hotel: a foodie haven in Portugal's Douro Valley
The Week Recommends Luxury city hotel with food from a Michelin-starred chef – and plenty of port
-
Trump taps Fox News' Pirro for DC attorney post
speed read The president has named Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, replacing acting US Attorney Ed Martin
-
Trump, UK's Starmer outline first post-tariff deal
speed read President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Kier Starmer struck a 'historic' agreement to eliminate some of the former's imposed tariffs
-
Fed leaves rates unchanged as Powell warns on tariffs
speed read The Federal Reserve says the risks of higher inflation and unemployment are increasing under Trump's tariffs
-
Denmark to grill US envoy on Greenland spying report
speed read The Trump administration ramped up spying on Greenland, says reporting by The Wall Street Journal
-
Supreme Court allows transgender troop ban
speed read The US Supreme Court will let the Trump administration begin executing its ban on transgender military service members
-
Hollywood confounded by Trump's film tariff idea
speed read President Trump proposed a '100% tariff' on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
-
Trump offers migrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'
speed read The Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants can leave the US in a more 'dignified way'
-
Trump is not sure he must follow the Constitution
speed read When asked about due process for migrants in a TV interview, President Trump said he didn't know whether he had to uphold the Fifth Amendment