If you've always wanted to witness a conversation in which progressive independent Senator Bernie Sanders lays into billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk, now's your chance!
Well, sort of.
YouTuber Justin T. Brown has created a fake conversation between the two so eerily realistic you'll swear it actually happened—right down to Senator Sanders telling Elon Musk to pay his taxes.
But the whole thing is a cleverly and hilariously edited fake.
To make the video, Brown edited together clips of Sanders and Musk and placed them in podcaster Joe Rogan's studio backdrop.
The end result looks like the two are chatting while smoking weed and recording a podcast called The Bernie Sanders Experience—a riff on Rogan's The Joe Rogan Experience.
See the video magic below.
As they smoke their blunts, fake-Sanders and fake-Musk talk about some of the biggest issues of our time, like “income inequality, greed, innovation, political revolution, tweets, taxes, and California VS. Vermont cannabis," as Brown's YouTube description reads.
In one clip that had the internet screaming, the men dig deep into America's ever-widening wealth gap.
This is the best thing you\u2019ll see on the Internet before 2021 ends.pic.twitter.com/n6WUj8JHt5— Bhavik Lathia (@Bhavik Lathia) 1640713079
In the conversation, the video version of Sanders tells the video version of Musk:
“Over the last thirty years, the top 1% have seen a 21 trillion dollar increase in their wealth. The bottom half of America has seen a 900 billion dollar decline in their wealth.”
To which fake-Musk simply shrugs and replies, "Hmm, that's strange"—a response that's easy to imagine the notoriously tax-averse real-life Musk giving.
Fake-Musk then goes on a bizarre diatribe about making "the future better" by digging a tunnel under Los Angeles to make an underground spaceship full of flamethrowers, to which fake-Sanders replies:
"Pay your taxes. That’s what I want you to do."
Fake-Musk then responds pretty much exactly as you'd expect real-Musk would:
"No, definitely not."
On Twitter, people could not get enough of this hilariously too-real bit of satire.
The editor deserves a BIG AWARD ~ truly a masterpiece in all ways. I wonder if @janeosanders has seen this? It's priceless.— Kitty Farmer #ForeverSanders (@Kitty Farmer #ForeverSanders) 1640721838
Bloody brilliant https://twitter.com/bhaviklathia/status/1475883741092405249\u00a0\u2026— Michelle Forbes (@Michelle Forbes) 1640819904
massive props to whoever made this, funny as hell— Aaron (@Aaron) 1640719238
I\u2019m crying laughing at how good this is.https://twitter.com/bhaviklathia/status/1475883741092405249\u00a0\u2026— Andrea Mansoorian (@Andrea Mansoorian) 1640733197
everything is so crazy right now it took me about 1 minute before i realized this wasn't real.— (From the Vault) (@(From the Vault)) 1640738459
Who did this? You win 2021https://twitter.com/bhaviklathia/status/1475883741092405249\u00a0\u2026— Colleen (@Colleen) 1640801203
Brilliant! Kudos to whoever put it together. Wish it were real \u2026 and I\u2019m not sure how different it would be if it were. And boy do I skeeve Elon Musk \u2026 even when parodied!https://twitter.com/bhaviklathia/status/1475883741092405249\u00a0\u2026— Lou DiBella (@Lou DiBella) 1640821174
Bernie Sanders is the Joe Rogan America needs.https://twitter.com/bhaviklathia/status/1475883741092405249\u00a0\u2026— Daily Grail (@Daily Grail) 1640755346
IM LOSING MY MINDhttps://twitter.com/bhaviklathia/status/1475883741092405249\u00a0\u2026— Morgie (@Morgie) 1640727551
Until the real Bernie Sanders can get through to the real Elon Musk, at least we have this terrifyingly realistic and hilarious fake to keep the dream alive.
@badgalriri/Instagram