The official Senate Democrats Twitter page, whose bio reads "News from leadership staff of Senate Democrats," is drawing mockery for a meme tying President Donald Trump's tax plan to the hit Netflix show "Stranger Things."
"Trump Republican Tax Plan: Is in the Upside Down," the meme says, adding, "Coming this November."
Tomorrow, the GOP is expected to finally unveil #TrumpTax plan, but w/ planned middle class tax hikes, we're sure it's in the upside down. pic.twitter.com/aCMmaD3EFj
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) October 31, 2017
The "upside down" is an alternate dimension with fog, evil creatures, and a lack of human life.
Journalists, Democrats, Republicans, and Twitter users across the board were unimpressed with the pop culture reference.
NBC Sports writer Craig Calceterra asked the group to "talk to people like intelligent adults."
Please stop doing dumb things like this and talk to people like intelligent adults. Thanks. https://t.co/Z4pN6vXK16
— Craig Calcaterra (@craigcalcaterra) October 31, 2017
Marxist Roqayah Chamseddine started to give the Senate Democrats a pass before declaring, "no, this is actually terrible."
https://twitter.com/roqchams/status/925384981857255424
A diverse group of Twitter uses expressed a wide-range of reasons for disliking the meme.
Did you ever notice Bernie Sanders became popular with young people without ever pandering to them by making pop culture references?
— MagnetCarta (@MagnetCarta) October 31, 2017
Me trying to figure out why the Dems have decided that they never want to win another election ever again pic.twitter.com/ihKT3uXxR9
— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) October 31, 2017
Policy is important. You don't have to force references to make it #relevant. Both parties do this all the time- almost always cringe-worthy https://t.co/qAgHRKU33x
— David Byler (@databyler) October 31, 2017
This tweet reads like it was written in English, translated into a foreign language and then back into English. https://t.co/WWegaPBdCT
— Anthony Zurcher (@awzurcher) October 31, 2017
https://twitter.com/_Charette_/status/925378444510167040
The group, realizing their comparison was not very popular, tried to recover by asking if their meme was worse than the Republican's tax plan, which they said would bring "tax hikes for the middle class that pay for tax giveaways for the 1%."
Alright, this meme is pretty bad.
Is it worse than tax hikes for the middle class that pay for tax giveaways for the 1%? No chance. https://t.co/r7OAAXh4Xl
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) October 31, 2017