People are using this rice video to compare the wealth of Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg
By Mark PygasFeb. 25 2020, Updated 5:31 p.m. ET
Bernie Sanders won the Nevada Democratic Primary over the weekend and is looking like a favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination to many. And while Bloomberg won't be entering the primaries until Super Tuesday, many consider the billionaire to be Sander's main competition.
And while being one the world's richest people couldn't buy him success at the latest Democratic debate, it can buy him a lot of ads. According to NPR, Bloomberg has already spent $450 million of his own money on ads, more than twice that spent by Trump and all other Democratic candidates combined.
It seems strange then that Sanders seems to have caught so much flack for his net worth. The democratic socialist has a net worth of around $2 million, most of which came from a book deal. Bloomberg, on the other hand, is worth a whopping $61.9 billion according to Forbes.
One of the most viral examples of this criticism came earlier this month, when Twitter user Hank Thomas shared a photograph of Sanders in first class.
"A nervous democratic socialist in first class. #FeelTheBern," Thomas captioned his photograph.
Thomas later went on to clarify: "For the record: I have no ill will against @SenSanders or his political beliefs. The intention was for humorous discourse. The photo is 100 percent authentic. Our country is far too polarized."
But the photo has since spread online and is often used to criticize Sanders.
But one Twitter user recently decided to put things into perspective by sharing a TikTok of YouTuber Humphrey Talks comparing wealth levels with grains of rice. In the video, Humphrey assigns each grain of rice a value of $100,000 and then uses piles of rice to compare the wealth of a millionaire and a billionaire.
Twitter user Lelia_007 thought that this served as a pretty apt way to compare the wealth of Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg.
The user wrote: "This TikTok has a really good visual representation of a million versus a billion dollars, which is especially relevant now that people are trying to compare Bernie’s $2.5 million to Bloomberg’s $64 billion."
People seemed to agree. When one user asked if people were actually comparing the wealth of Sanders and Bloomberg, another user added: "Some people seem to think pointing out Bernie has 3 homes and 2.5 million net worth is somehow an argument against him, and yet somehow also not an argument against Trump. The sheer level of cognitive dissonance is remarkable. Honestly, someone may want to call Guinness."
While other users shared their own comparisons.
And another concluded: "Bernie has 25 grains of rice. Bloomberg has 640,000 grains of rice. No comparison."