Deplatforming and DeFuture
Doomscroll 9.24.23
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One Question
Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about whether the RNC should change its debate qualification rules! You guys had Strong Opinions! 50% of you said that yes, the RNC should change the rules. 42% said no, and 8% said you weren’t sure. By Doomscroll standards, I’m considering this a tie vote, and I shall schedule a run-off to be held in due time. Anyway, some of you also left me some interesting comments.
One of you said the debate rules are “short sighted” and a “ridiculous bow to the orange God King” (Who could that be????). Some of you said something along the lines of “campaigns need to stop complaining and either get better or get out of the way” (ok I’m paraphrasing - slightly). Here’s another one:
Yes - establishing rules without specific definitions of what polls David Bossie would allow at the last minute means that David Bossie is simply completely in charge. Candidates were emailed by Ronna that they were on the stage until he wanted to limit the field and started disallowing polls the day before. There are no rules except David Bossie decides who gets on stage.
Is it bad that I had to google David Bossie? Either way, any time you, anonymous commenter, want to use Doomscroll to grind your ax, HMU in an email and let’s do it! xoxo
And then someone left me this. Printing in full because #respect to anyone who takes this much time to leave a comment. I appreciate youuuuuu!!
They need to make the qualifications harsher to limit the candidates on stage. This race is a bit distinct in that it's effectively a nomination with an incumbent rather than an open contest. As a result, when 100 candidates get on the stage and are treated as "serious", it just dilutes the nomination contest and turns it into the incumbent vs "everyone else" where the incumbent just needs at most 35-40% to win. In this case, with so many candidates diluting the votes and simultaneously making debate requirements, it's effectively allowed Trump to start skipping the debates (which strategically is the right call on his end). To avoid the current scenario, the RNC should have put in requirements that would have penalized candidates who skipped the debates for political reasons (i.e. non-medical, family, etc.) by removing any such candidates from a portion of the nomination contests and associated delegate eligibility for each debate skipped - i.e. for every debate a candidate willingly skipped, their name would have been removed from the ballot of some portion of the early nominating contests with it escalating with each debate skipped. When candidates skip debates at this level, it cheapens the process and shows their contempt for the nomination process, the party, their fellow candidates, the voters, and everyone who's working on the campaigns. It also shows a lack of confidence in their ability to perform and indicates they feel like they would not survive one. While the voters get the render a judgement to one degree or another, the party needs to as well to demonstrate they're in control and that it's ultimately them being represented by the nominee, not the other way around. Finally, paying for contributions to make debate requirements should be an auto-ban from all debates. It just demonstrates a candidate has no actual support, but instead deep personal pockets (or their financial backers do). No one "donating" (read: paying $1 to get $20) has any real interest in donating or supporting the candidate. They just wanted the “free” money.
This weeks’ One Question is about a term I actually loathe: de-platforming. We all saw the news about Russell Brand. Sounds like he’s probably a bad dude. We also all saw the news about YouTube demonetizing his channel. In defending the decision, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said that “if creators have off-platform behavior, or there’s off-platform news that could be damaging to the broader creator ecosystem, you can be suspended from our monetization program.” Ah so, we’re all in this together, huh? YouTube creators are only as strong as the weakest link? What say you, readers of Doomscroll? Should YouTube be demonetizing Brand and is there any significant difference between suspending his ability to make money and deplatforming him altogether? And in a broader political context…how does this make you feel about tech platforms and censorship/de-platforming/demonetizing in general? Yes, I’m basically asking if you agree with Matt Walsh here. It’s a lotta questions, I know, but I have faith in you!
Who’s Doing What
--On Offense, For Once
Ya’ll -it’s happening. Virginia Republicans are going on offense and running an ad about abortion. They’re doing it. They’re doing what we all thought Republicans WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO. Ignore the abortion issue, and it’ll ignore you, right? WRONG. This ad is lit. You know how I know that? Because it’s hard to watch. See it for yourself here. It also links to a really fantastic-looking website. I’m obviously biased, but this is how Republicans should be messaging on abortion when we’re hit with attack ads about taking away women’s reproductive rights. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but can I get an Amen
—Another one to watch in the Keystone State
Well, well, well we have ourselves a race, my friends! From the state that gave us Oz-Fetterman (we are eternally grateful) comes another contest that’s sure to draw All. The. Attention. Dave McCormick has thrown his hat in the ring to challenge Democrat Sen. Bob Casey in 2024. I know we’ve all seen this coming for a while, but now that it’s here? The rollout did not disappoint, IMO. The announcement video (you know how I love announcement videos) is good. I’d give it a solid A-. It does a really great job outlining what’s wrong with the country under Biden and the Democrats. I could use a little more bio and a tad more optimism, but otherwise it’s good. The downside: I’m not in love with the website. It’s fine, but could be better. The muted grey/blue and green in front of a bright American flag at the top is a little jarring on the eyes. And though I love the idea of having social media content streams, I don’t love the layout of them. Still, I like the logo and I appreciate that he’s got a WinRed store with some solid, basic merch. All in all, great job Team McCormick!
--Sneaky, sneaky
A loyal Doomscroll reader sent me a WinRed page the other day and called out the recurring donate box at the bottom. Take a gander:
Very sneaky. Very genius? I don’t know…I’m pretty much always on Team Do-What-You-Gotta-Do. However, this does straddle the line between inventive and sneaky/dishonest/insert-word-here. To be fair, the “No donate once” button IS the one highlighted in yellow, so there is that. Also interesting is that it’s a joint fundraising page between the NRSC and Trump Save America. I should probably pay closer attention to this, but has the NRSC done any joint fundraising with any of the other 2024 presidential candidates? I hope so!
--Axe the Tax
Indiana gubernatorial candidate Suzanne Crouch dropped her first campaign ad this week about how she’d handle the economy and end the state’s income tax. It’s a good ad, and her team rolled it out with AxetheTax.com, which directs to a WinRed petition page. Nice. I like Suzanne Crouch, if for no other reason than I would love four years of a governor with blunt bangs and red glasses. Style AND substance. What more could you want??
2024 Roundup
Donald Trump released a new radio ad about the UAW strike. Listen to it here.
Never Back Down PAC has a new ad hitting Donald Trump, titled “Trump is Confused. DeSantis is Clear.” Watch it here.
Will Hurd released a plan for dealing with AI. Read about it here.
Doug Burgum released a new national ad titled “Booming.” Watch it here. He also qualified for the second debate.
Stand for America PAC is running some ads on Facebook about Nikki Haley’s call for competency tests for older politicians. See them here.
Vivek Ramaswamy is still learning how to navigate TikTok. Read more about that here.
Who’s Spending Where
From September 14 - 20, AFP Action was the top conservative spender on Facebook ads, with $120,423. They continue to spend big on ads arguing that Democrats want Republicans to nominate Donald Trump in 2024. Americans for Prosperity came in second place with a little over $113,000 in spend on a bunch of new lead-gen ads. Proud Patriots spent $89,000 on ads to sling a bunch of Trump merch. A page called Freedom Speaks Up (lol) spent roughly $48,000 on ads to sell Trump merch, while Landry for Louisiana came in fifth place by spending about $47,000 on ads.
AFP Action was also the top spender on Google during that same time period, with $126,000 in spend. Prager University Foundation spent $52,000 on ads promoting a bunch of random Prager content, including videos about how Calvin Coolidge was the coolest president ever. Kentucky Values came in third place with $41,000 behind ads attacking Gov. Andy Beshear for supporting gender reassignment surgery for minors. Trust in the Mission PAC and SFA Inc round out the top 5 with $33.6K and $33.3K, respectively.
P2P
Industry Watch
Axios reported this week that Elon Musk was planning to make everyone pay to use Twitter, X, whatever. Here’s more:
Elon Musk said Monday he's moving to require all users to pay a monthly fee to use his social media site X, previously called Twitter…The comments, which he made during a livestreamed event on X with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, come as the company struggles to regain trust with advertisers…During the live conversation, Netanyahu brought up the challenge of preventing large armies of bots that amplify hate speech. Musk replied: "The single-most important reason we're moving to having a small monthly payment for use of the X system is it's the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots."
Apparently, however, it’s all just a hoax which is good, because I, like every good American, demand things like social media platforms be made available to me for free. Duh. Second, it would be irritating that X would go behind a paywall in order to fight disinformation and bots. Frankly, let the bots live if it means I can post my hot take free of charge, amirite?!?
The Grapevine
First, congrats to Calli Cooper for joining the team at FlexPoint Media!
Second, Hugh Hewitt threw some shade at the Tim Scott campaign this week. So did the fellas on Ruthless, fwiw.
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Fav fall recipe? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
You might have seen, or heard about already, the “bat signal” sent up by the Movement Voter Project earlier this month. I just came across it this week, and it really is worth a read. The group is part of the progressive activist ecosystem and the memo outlines what they are calling a “five-alarm fire going into 2024.” Hint: it has to do with online fundraising (for the most part).
Also: I told myself I wasn’t going to write about the Senate dress code thing, but I will say this: If lefty online giving is really down and Dems are freaking out THAT much, is it too cynical to think Sen. Schumer’s decision here was all about the benjamins? We know Fetterman is a fundraising juggernaut. This was a perfectly-orchestrated fundraising moment for the senator, was it not? Just asking questions.
From the other side of the tracks:
Fyre Fest is back, and this interview with founder Billy McFarland is one of the best things I read all week. His pitch: Come to Fyre Fest II just to find out if it’s going to be another train wreck! What a world.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!