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Bernie Sanders Danced "Hotline Bling"

by Jenny Hollander

Step aside, Drake. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of all people upstaged you in a "Hotline Bling" parody — aka his newest, heavily edited "campaign ad," which aired Tuesday on The Ellen Show. "All right, Hillary. It's your move," host Ellen DeGeneres concluded. And she's right. While both Sanders and Clinton have more than demonstrated their moves in recent months as the fight to be president heats up — don't ask me how those two things are correlated — Sanders featuring in the video of the moment might just win out over Clinton's Saturday Night Live appearance.

The catch? Although Bernie did certainly dance on DeGeneres' show back in October, as she mentions in the segment, the video uses footage from his previous appearance on Ellen and mashes it up with the Drake video. So unfortunately, it's not as though Drake finished up on set and Sanders jumped right in. In fact, Sanders didn't actually appear in the video at all, to my (and I hope Drake's) eternal sadness.

"Let's talk about something really scary: politics," DeGeneres said by way of introduction. "The presidential race is heating up, and the candidates are doing whatever they can to appeal to younger voters. We had Bernie Sanders on the show, and he came out, he danced. We didn't make him; he insisted on dancing. There he goes, dancing. And so I think this whole dancing thing went to his head ..."

Let's slow this down a little, because it's a lot to take in. First off, DeGeneres shows Sanders dancing on previous shows ...

And then ... well, then this happens.

It only gets better from there.

As inspired as the video may be, it becomes more disappointing as it continues to play. As it develops, it's increasingly obvious the Sanders' head has been digitally inserted into the video — almost looking like a Bernie Sanders mask by the end. At the beginning, when mini-Sanders dances in his little yellow square, you could truly believe that the real Sanders did in fact volunteer to star in a Drake parody. (Drake University will host the next Democratic debate. That's pretty close, right?)