Sleepy Joe is a nickname describing Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States, coined and used by those who oppose his presidency, which became an internet meme. The nickname was originally coined in 2019 by Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump.
On April 25, 2019, United States president Donald Trump tweeted the following: "Welcome to the race, Sleepy Joe". Biden responded by calling Trump a "clown". [1] During the 2020 presidential election, including the final campaign debates, Trump generally mocked his opponent Biden repeatedly, calling him "Sleepy Joe". [2]
In June 2020, reports surfaced that Trump had recently asked advisors whether he should stick with his current nickname for Biden, "Sleepy Joe", or try to come up with another nickname, such as "Swampy Joe" or "Creepy Joe". It has been noted that Trump is not convinced that "Sleepy Joe" is particularly "dangerous", and some of his advisers agree and urge him to stop using the nickname. In one tweet, Trump stated another nickname of Biden: "Corrupt Joe". [3]
Trump has criticized Biden, saying he "has been in politics for 40 years and done nothing", describing him as "politically weak" and claiming Trump has done more in 3.5 years for black people than Biden did in 43 years. Reinforcing his war against "radical-left democrats", Trump seized on popular calls to "protect the police" and falsely attributed them to "Sleepy Joe". He also claimed that Biden "doesn't know where he is or what he's doing", "he's asleep", [4] and that Biden held a rally that "hardly anyone showed up for". [5]
Charles Joseph Scarborough is an American television host and former politician who is the co-host of Morning Joe on MSNBC with his wife Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist. He previously hosted Scarborough Country on the same network. A former member of the Republican Party, Scarborough was in the United States House of Representatives for Florida's 1st district from 1995 to 2001. He was appointed to the President's Council on the 21st Century Workforce in 2002 and was a visiting fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He was named in the 2011 Time 100 as one of the most influential people in the world.
Ian Arthur Bremmer is an American political scientist, author, and entrepreneur focused on global political risk. He is the founder and president of Eurasia Group, a political risk research and consulting firm. He is also founder of GZERO Media, a digital media firm.
Donald John Trump Jr., often nicknamed Don Jr., is an American businessman. He is the eldest child of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump and his first wife Ivana Trump.
"Make America Great Again" is an American political slogan and political movement most recently popularized by Donald Trump during his successful 2016 presidential campaign and widely used during his 2024 presidential campaign. "MAGA" is also used to refer to Trump's political base, or to an individual or group of individuals from within that base. The slogan became a pop culture phenomenon, seeing widespread use and spawning numerous variants in the arts, entertainment and politics, being used by both supporters and opponents of Trump's presidency. Originally used by Ronald Reagan as a campaign slogan in his 1980 presidential campaign, it has since been described as a loaded phrase. Multiple scholars, journalists, and commentators have called the slogan racist, regarding it as dog-whistle politics and coded language.
Trumpism is a political movement in the United States that comprises the political ideologies associated with Donald Trump and his political base. It incorporates ideologies such as right-wing populism, national conservatism and neo-nationalism, and features significant illiberal, authoritarian, and neo-fascist elements. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics.
Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 and current president-elect of the United States, has a history of speech and actions that have been viewed by scholars and the public as racist or sympathetic to White supremacy. Journalists, friends, family, and former employees have accused him of fueling racism in the United States. Trump has repeatedly denied accusations of racism. Conservative commentators point to the time he stated "whether you are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots" as an example of him not being a racist.
Donald Trump, a member of the Republican Party, sought re-election in the 2020 United States presidential election. He was inaugurated as president of the United States on January 20, 2017, and filed for re-election with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on the same day.
Donald Trump's use of social media attracted attention worldwide since he joined Twitter in May 2009. Over nearly twelve years, Trump tweeted around 57,000 times, including about 8,000 times during the 2016 election campaign and over 25,000 times during his presidency. The White House said the tweets should be considered official statements. When Twitter banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 during the final days of his term, his handle @realDonaldTrump had over 88.9 million followers. On November 19, 2022, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, reinstated his account, although Trump had stated he would not use it in favor of his own social media platform, Truth Social. The first tweet since 2021 was made in August 2023 about his mugshot from Fulton County Jail, but the account remained inactive until he tweeted again in August 2024.
Jack Michael Posobiec III is an American alt-right political activist, television correspondent and presenter, conspiracy theorist, and former United States Navy intelligence officer.
On April 25, 2019, former vice president Joe Biden released a video announcing his candidacy in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. On November 3, 2020, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, defeated incumbent Republican president Donald Trump and vice president Mike Pence in the general election.
Colin Hackett Kahl is an American political scientist who served as under secretary of defense for policy in the Biden administration from April 28, 2021, to July 17, 2023. Previously, he served as national security advisor to the vice president under then-Vice President Joe Biden (2014–2017). After the Obama administration, Kahl served as a Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at Stanford University.
During and after his term as President of the United States, Donald Trump made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims. The Washington Post's fact-checkers documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidential term, an average of about 21 per day. The Toronto Star tallied 5,276 false claims from January 2017 to June 2019, an average of 6 per day. Commentators and fact-checkers have described the scale of Trump's mendacity as "unprecedented" in American politics, and the consistency of falsehoods a distinctive part of his business and political identities. Scholarly analysis of Trump's tweets found "significant evidence" of an intent to deceive.
Joe Biden was a recurring fictionalized characterization of the now-United States President of the same name in satirical online newspaper The Onion. Between 2009 and 2019, The Onion staff consistently portrayed Biden as an outrageous character who shared almost nothing with his namesake besides the title of vice president of the United States. Instead, the publication portrayed Biden as a blue-collar "average Joe", an affable "goofy uncle", a muscle car driver, an avid fan of 1980s hair metal, a raucous party animal, a shameless womanizer, a recidivist petty criminal, and a drug-dealing outlaw. The Biden character became one of The Onion's most popular features during the Obama presidency, garnering critical acclaim and a large readership.
Social media was used extensively in the 2020 United States presidential election. Both incumbent president Donald Trump and Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden's campaigns employed digital-first advertising strategies, prioritizing digital advertising over print advertising in the wake of the pandemic. Trump had previously utilized his Twitter account to reach his voters and make announcements, both during and after the 2016 election. The Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden also made use of social media networks to express his views and opinions on important events such as the Trump administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the protests following the murder of George Floyd, and the controversial appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden, while he was vice president of the United States, improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which led to Trump's first impeachment, these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign, and later in an effort to impeach him.
Members of the United States Republican Party have reacted differently to Republican president Donald Trump's claims about the 2020 United States presidential election, with many publicly supporting them, many remaining silent, and a few publicly denouncing them. Trump claimed to have won the election, and made many claims of election fraud. By December 11, 2020, 126 out of 196 Republican members of the House backed a lawsuit filed in the United States Supreme Court supported by nineteen Republican state attorneys general seeking to subvert the election and overturn the election results. The Trump campaign hired the Berkeley Research Group to investigate whether there had been voter fraud. The researchers found nothing, and the consultancy reported this to Trump and his chief of staff Mark Meadows on a conference call in the final days of the year, before the attack on the Capitol.
"Let's Go Brandon" is a political slogan and Internet meme used as a euphemism for the phrase "Fuck Joe Biden" in reference to Joe Biden, the 46th and current president of the United States.
My Son Hunter is a 2022 American biographical comedy film directed by Robert Davi and starring Laurence Fox, Gina Carano and John James. The film centers on Hunter Biden, a son of US president Joe Biden. Since 2019, Donald Trump and his allies have accused both Bidens of corruption. It is, according to The Guardian's Catherine Shoard, the "debut fiction attempt" of documentarians Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. The film is being distributed by American far-right news website Breitbart News, and was released on September 7, 2022.
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