The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. – Juliancolton |  ^Talk 00:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Bernie would have won

Bernie would have won (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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Article de-prod'd. Fails WP:GNG. Some sources, mostly op-ed quality, say "Bernie Sanders could have won" but this was not a meme. The idea that Bernie could've beaten Trump is WP:NOTNEWS. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 02:02, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 02:02, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 02:02, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• Strong delete: violation of WP:OR based on the results of me combing through the article. Fails WP:GNG and seems to be a WP:NPOV violation in the fact it seems to be an opinion piece. Kirbanzo ( talk) 02:25, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Strong keep: obviously Kirbanzo, you have not read the article since I added 15 sources today. The meme itself is discussed by Newsweek, The New Yorker and Vice News. I also added supporting quotes and further discussion from a myriad of sources, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Daily Kos, New York Times, The Hill and I only got off the first page of google. Damn, I thought I also added CNN. Point being there are tons of sources discussing this subject. As I said when I removed the PROD, on WP:GNG grounds alone this is clearly a notable subject. Several commentators have made it a primary theme of their programming. I think the real reason this article is under attack today is it was just added to the Bernie Sanders page, where I noticed it in my watchlist for the first time. But the article has been around for almost a year. Now that it gets some exposure, we will get more people and !votes from the WP:IDONTLIKEIT crowd. But that is not a legitimate excuse to delete an article. Trackinfo ( talk) 02:41, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
  • It's not a meme, it's a thought or an idea, and not one that is going to be notable for a Wikipedia article. Lots of those articles you sourced are op-eds, or to sources that aren't reliable like Daily Kos and Daily Caller. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 02:46, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• Also, since when did memes pass WP:GNG despite the fact they didn't significantly trend or get significant media coverage (and this meme didn't really pass either, as articles "on the meme" are actually on the idea, and a Google search didn't reveal it ever trended enough)? Kirbanzo ( talk) 02:57, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply

"After Trump’s election, “Bernie would have won” became a wistful meme, a sign of things that should have been.

— Newsweek

In the post-election climate of shock and chagrin, the phrase “Bernie would have won” caught on among young democratic socialists and other diehard Sanders supporters, and became a meme on social media. It’s a taunting counterfactual, typically tossed off with a sense of melancholy and bit of righteousness—and, often, with the aim of needling centrist Democrats who didn’t get Sanders’s appeal."

— The New Yorker

• Ted Cruz–Zodiac Killer meme
• Pepe the Frog
• Polandball
• Rule 34 (Internet meme)
• Doge (meme)

Trackinfo ( talk) 04:51, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• • See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 13:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete This is not encyclopedic content. It seems to me this is an example of WP:NOT. Discussion on this topic, presented in an encyclopedic manner, should be located within existing articles relating to the election. AusLondonder ( talk) 03:01, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Strong keep This article can be improved, but it should not be deleted. As has been demonstrated above, the subject of the article attained significant coverage in many RS. Davey2116 ( talk) 08:06, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
  • YouTube videos, The Daily Caller, and Daily Kos are not RS. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 13:48, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
    • And Newsweek, The New Yorker, Vice News, Washington Post, New York Times and The Hill are. Do you want me to add more major media sources? I can easily go into the second page of google. Or do you want this to be reasonably sourced like every other article? The youtube links simply support the comments that each of those named commentators are using this subject as their content as evidenced by the videos showing them DOING it. You are using a superficial complaint to disparage the entire article while ignoring the facts. Trackinfo ( talk) 17:27, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
      • Those sources are stating the title as a person's quoted or written opinion, not covering the existence of a meme. Bearcat ( talk) 20:04, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
        • Please note the additional paragraph I have added, explaining the deeper ramifications of this sentiment. Whether they agree with the sentiment or not, notice every source, all major news organizations WP:RS, have to bring the sentiment behind the meme into the discussion. This meme expresses an ongoing, clearly notable (overwhelming WP:GNG, political argument. Trackinfo ( talk) 08:30, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete Wikipedia isn't the failed nom repository for Know Your Meme. Nate • ( chatter) 13:43, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Trackinfo.-- MainlyTwelve ( talk) 13:47, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete. The sources are not actually demonstrating that this is the name of a specific meme, they're simply demonstrating that this is a statement of opinion that some people believe. Almost all of the sources here are not covering a meme per se, but are simply op-eds or interviews in which people state their opinion on this question in words. And yes, one source demonstrates that some people communicated their belief by making Bernie Sanders memes — but even then, "Bernie would have won" is the underlying idea those memes are trying to communicate and not the name of any specific notable meme in its own right. So this is a matter of somebody trying to reify an unfalsifiable and untestable opinion — it's impossible to go back in time and rerun the 2016 election to verify whether these people are correct or not — into a named thing by citing every piece of opinion journalism they can find that happens to agree with them, and then calling that a meme even though the sources overwhelmingly don't support that label. The place for any content about the belief that Bernie Sanders would be in the White House right now if he'd been the Democratic candidate in 2016 is in Bernie Sanders' WP:BLP, not in an article titled with a statement of opinion. Bearcat ( talk) 15:12, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete As others have said, Wikipedia is not a collection of memes, and we do not deal in hypotheticals. Bernie lost, end of story. Maybe we can briefly mention it on the campaign article, but that's about it. ~ EDDY ^{( talk/ contribs)}~ 16:20, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Merge some of the content into United States presidential election, 2016#Post-election events and controversies. Obviously the meme exists, and reaction to the election outcome was strong. But we don't need a whole article dedicated to it--the topic in and of itself is not notable, and this article kind of smells like the beginnings of an essay, which is not what the 'pedia is for. cymru.lass ( talk • contribs) 23:55, 11 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Keep While it may have begun as a "meme," the idea that Sanders could have beaten Trump is notable, as it would have changed the course of US history to elect such a far-left president. Furthermore, it hold future relevance in any discussion of Sanders running in 2020. I believe it should be kept, and improved to remedy the objections raised above. -- DannyS712 ( talk) 02:59, 12 September 2018 (UTC) reply
  • It didn't begin as a meme. It's analysis of the 2016 election, and belongs on those pages, not it's own. And referencing 2020 is a WP:CRYSTAL violation. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 03:30, 12 September 2018 (UTC) reply
    • It did begin as a meme, mostly on podcasts like Chapo Trap House, and it's still referenced on that show and others. I haven't added those as citations as I don't remember which episodes it's used in and their back catalog is massive, but suffice to say it has a history of use outside of "analysis".-- MainlyTwelve ( talk) 13:28, 12 September 2018 (UTC) reply
      • Podcast content isn't memes. Podcasts prove that "Bernie would have won" is a thing that some people believe — but they don't constitute proof that an opinion has turned into a meme. Bearcat ( talk) 19:10, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete and possibly mention in Bernie Sanders or a similar article, but not notable enough for its own article. ^Semi _Hypercube ✎ 15:52, 12 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Redirect with Selective Merge to Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, 2016 something like : Post-election reaction and analysis might work for a subsection heading for this sort of coverage of misbehavior by protestors and Monday morning quarterbacking that includes some significant commentary and analysis. (And by the way, we would have won the Princeton game if the ref hadn't.... E.M.Gregory ( talk) 23:36, 12 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Redirect though I'm not sure where (perhaps Social media in the United States presidential election, 2016); the general topic of memes related to the 2016 election is surely notable, and this is a prominent enough one to be a redirect. I don't think any of the current content should be kept/merged anywhere, though, it's a combination of NPOV violations, original research, and a coatrack for refspam. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 02:07, 13 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Redirect to United States presidential election, 2016#Notable expressions, phrases, and statements. Nothing more than an ephemeral catch-phrase. — JFG ^talk 02:34, 13 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Note that We face two questions here: 1.) Whether to keep the content. and 2.) if the discussion continues to trend towards MERGE (retaining much of the content) or REDIRECT (retaining little or none of the content) we need to choose a target. I STRONGLY URGE editors to address BOTH of these issues. And even, if you lean MERGE or DELETE, to offer a 2nd choice (for example "DELETE as failing notability because..., but if not deleted, it should be MERGED (or REDIRECTED) to [give page name]). E.M.Gregory ( talk) 14:02, 13 September 2018 (UTC) reply
  • I like your merge suggestion best, making it "aftermath" of Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, 2016. –  Muboshgu ( talk) 16:59, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete, redirect, or merge. In parsing the references provided for this article, you have to be cautious as to whether they are discussing the meme or whether they are merely expressing support for the idea that Bernie would have won. My sense is that "Bernie would have won" is a commonly held (and possibly true) notion, but the meme itself is not worthy of an article. Bueller 007 ( talk) 17:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete - Original essay. Carrite ( talk) 06:42, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• Delete seems to not be sufficiently notable. - Obsidi ( talk) 19:53, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.