Warren attacked by ‘snakes’ after clash with Bernie

Elizabeth Warren’s social media is being inundated with snake emojis after a row with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

Elizabeth Warren appeared to refuse to shake Bernie Sanders’ hand after the heated Iowa debate. Picture: AP

US presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's social media accounts are being inundated with the snake emoji and the #WarrenIsASnake hashtag is trending, as rival Bernie Sanders' supporters lay into the Massachusetts senator after Wednesday's heated Democratic debate in Iowa.

The emoji was first popularised with a feud between Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and Taylor Swift, when anti-Swift Twitter users labelled Swift a 'snake' for allegedly lying about a phone call with West.

Wait it's legit National Snake Day?!?!?They have holidays for everybody, I mean everything these days! 🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍🐍

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) July 17, 2016

The snake has now made the jump from celebrity to politics, with Bernie Sanders acolytes brigading Elizabeth Warrens' social media accounts with the snake emoji and animated GIFs of snakes, after a fiery on-air confrontation between the two.

all the twitter replies to Elizabeth Warren's posts now are just increasing numbers of snake emojis pic.twitter.com/uk544FqBoa

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) January 15, 2020

The snake avalanche is all down to a disagreement over a characterisation of a purported 2018 meeting between the two politicians, with Warren claiming Sanders told her a woman could not win the 2020 presidential election.

“I didn’t say it,” Senator Sanders said in Des Moines, Iowa, as reported by The Australian.

“Anybody knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States.”

Sanders' fans have subsequently labelled Warren a "backstabber" and a snake for airing the claims during Wednesday's debate.

pic.twitter.com/INPqxjYlEq

— Tipsy Dixit (@Tipsy_Dixit) January 15, 2020

US-based progressive writer Emily Crockett labelled Sanders' supporters’ tweets as “appallingly sexist,” and demanded Sanders “tell his supporters in no uncertain terms to knock it off.”

“I mean, SNAKES?? The literal ORIGINAL symbol of why women can’t be trusted??!” she said.

Meanwhile, former Clinton senior adviser Neera Tanden likened the pile-on to a similar incident a couple of years ago, claiming “Snake emojis are just the 2020 version of 2016’s Bern the Witch.”

Social media is shaping up to again be a key battleground for the 2020 US election.

Facebook announced last week it would not change its rules for political advertising ahead of the 2020 US election, unlike Twitter which has banned political ads altogether.

A Facebook executive, Andrew Bosworth, also last week said US president Donald Trump was not elected because of "misinformation", but "because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I've ever seen from any advertiser. Period".