Tariffs, Texts, and Targets

Doomscroll 4.6.2025

Apr 06, 2025

Good evening! Welcome to another edition of Doomscroll, your favorite newsletter covering all things digital on the right! Let’s get to some scrolling.

Share Doomscroll

One Question

Thanks to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about whether Elon Musk’s tactic of paying voters in Wisconsin to sign a petition was legit or not. I got a LOT of responses to this question, and 72% of you said no - it’s not legit. 16% of you said it depends. Here are some of your comments:

Beforehand - a big bbq next to an early voting center; a pizza and play party for moms and kids. That's fine - BEFORE. It's the same as all the parade giveaways. Afterward, like Starbucks found a few years ago, is ILLEGAL.
The courts aren’t equipped to do anything about it and likely won’t. While the legality is questionable at best, until adjudicated it doesn’t matter. Also, how different is this than the dems importing voters via open borders for 30 years?
At the end of the day, people can vote for who they want when casting ballots. It just feels gross doing it but whatever…
Hate it. There’s a lot of nuance here at the state level and in HOW a campaign or group goes about it. There’s a candidate in hot water because they used a pay voters tactic to try and game the donation match in the state. Supposedly unknowingly. With that in mind, not my favorite tactic and potentially a gray or very oops area if careful considerations aren’t given to state specific rules and regulations.
You may have already won!
It gives the appearance of vote buying. It also will lead to likely some very stupid, very poorly designed government regulation that will likely impact our industry too.
Better that the money goes straight to the voter than to all the marketing tactics.

Lots of interesting thoughts there, and as always I appreciate the feedback! Definitely with whoever said tactics like this will likely lead to some stupid government regulation that we could obviously live without. Le sigh. Ok. This week’s One Question is not too far off from last week’s, AND I can’t even really take credit for it. Shout-out to Vice President JD Vance for making my job a tiny bit easier by coming up with our One Question for me:

So let’s hear it: How do we get base GOP voters to the polls in off-cycle elections? Don’t answer for me; answer for JD!

Do the VP a solid

One Quote

One Thought

A new report from Real Clear Investigations confirms what we basically already knew to be true: last summer’s VIBES around Kamala Harris were bullshit. That one quote is a real stunner though, if you ask me. It’s from a post-election memo released by Way to Win, a group that spent bazillions of dollars to pay influencers to talk about Harris. They bought themselves a nice L on Election Day, but only because those lazy voters didn’t spend enough time on social media! LMAO.

How about: Had more Americans thought Kamala Harris was even a little bit competent she MIGHT be the president of the United States right now.

Just a thought!

Who’s Doing What

—Tariff-ying Stances

Whatever you think of the former Vice President these days, you gotta give Mike Pence credit for going where few Republicans dare go these days: The opposite direction of whatever Trump is doing. Pence and his group, Advancing American Freedom, weren’t shy this week about opposing two big Trump-y agenda items: tariffs and the TikTok ban extension. It’s certainly not going to curry him any favor with the MAGA crowd, but maybe that’s A-Ok.

—NSFW?

Look Ahead America, a group run by former Trump campaign staffer Matthew Braynard, reportedly sent around 250,000 P2P messages to voters in Wisconsin. The texts featured photos of a scantily-clad Emily Ratajkowski and some shirtless dude holding a puppy. Braynard defending the creative decision to the NYT by saying that “studies that have proven that using eye-catching images not typically associated with politics increase voter awareness of elections and voter participation.” Cool. So that means you’re going to use a picture of a model in a bikini. Got it.

Folks, this is stupid. And dumb. And idiotic. And sure that’s just like, my opinion, but FWIW we can do better than this.

—Targeting Ossoff
Per Axios, One Nation - the issue advocacy arm of the Senate Leadership Fund - is running ads targeting Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff during the Final Four men’s and women’s basketball games, the Masters tournament, and Atlanta Braves games. Good stuff.

FWIW, the group is also running ads on Facebook hitting Ossoff for voting for Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and “harming Georgia’s seniors.”

—LOL

Another day, another Kennedy classic.

Who’s Spending Where

Facebook

Google

P2P

This week’s P2P shout-out goes to Rep. Eli Crane. First: I like that he identifies himself in the message (low bar, I know). The WinRed page copy is nice and punchy, but umm…does anyone else notice the donation buttons in there? Call me old fashioned, but if the first line of your text is “NOT ASKING FOR $",” then maybe don’t ask for money?

Industry Watch

I don’t typically write about the progressive tech industry in this section, but I’m making an exception today. About a week ago, I got an email from Higher Ground Labs (of course I signed up for their list!). It talked about how they had launched the Higher Ground Institute to reflect on learnings from 2024 and create a “space for experimentation, early adoption, and fresh thinking in political technology.” Basically: Closing the gap between tech and strategy to get the win. The email also promoted an upcoming training webinar. It included a link to check out the left’s already-existing tech stack, and included some highlights from its “2024 Portfolio Impact.” Oh and also worth mentioning: The 2024 Progressive AI Lab Report they published at the end of February. Their AI Lab “awarded 14 incubation grants through an RFP that received 140+ submissions.” It “coached 67 AI founders through this program and supported them to develop promising and underexplored applications of generative AI…”

Ok…so why am I talking about all of this? Because the Dems continue to take tech very seriously, and I continue to wonder whether we still have some catching up to do. Does it keep me up at night? Sometimes, yes. I know it ain’t easy. If it were, I’d probably have a couple products or companies under my belt by now (one can dream). But let’s at least pause to consider the fact that the left has a fund that’s solely dedicated to investing in AI tech companies to advance progressive causes and campaigns. Not only that, but an RFP that went out in *2023* brought in more than 140 submissions. One hundred and forty submissions. Do we even have 140 tech companies on the right - let alone companies that are JUST focused on AI? I’m gonna guess…no.

I know some of you are out there doing some cool things on our side of the aisle (you know who you are!). You get it. But it still seems like our tech ecosystem isn’t what it should be. If I’m wrong and you think I’m being too doom-y, let me know! But here’s what I’ll end with: I like to win. I believe tech helps us win. Like money, it doesn’t solve everything, but it moves the need and we ARE talking about the difference between lurching towards AOC-style socialism or making America great…again. There’s a lot on the line, ya’ll.

2025-2026 Watch

The AP ruminates over who President Trump with endorse in the New Jersey gubernatorial GOP primary contest.
Maybe a clue: Lara Trump will be headlining a fundraiser for GOP candidate Bill Spadea.
Apparently Mike Lindell might run for governor of Minnesota…
Speaking of gubernatorial contests, will we see Doug Mastriano 2.0 in 2026?
Georgia State Sen. Brian Strickland is running for Attorney General in 2026. Current Attorney General Chris Carr is running for governor.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went on Dana Loesch’s show and talked about how conservative his wife Casey is… wink, wink.

The Grapevine

RSVP to this discussion on that relational organizing case study from the Center For Campaign Innovation on April 10!
House Judiciary GOP posted a nice X thread about fraud on ActBlue. Check it out.
Also some really good insights here about the “marital divide” from Patrick Ruffini’s Substack, The Intersection.
Axiom has reportedly laid off 30 or so digital employees. I have no dog in the Jeff Roe-Trump World fight, but lay-offs do suck. T’s and P’s to everyone affected.

Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com

Last But Not Least

From the other side of the aisle:

Welp, a Col. Pam Stevenson has announced her bid to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell in the United States Senate. And folks…something tells me she’s one to watch. This is the exact kind of candidate Democrats should be running in a state like Kentucky (or anywhere, really). Her announcement video is excellent. She’s a veteran. She doesn’t seem crazy or woke. Her “attack” on the GOPers running for his seat slaps: “They were his interns, but now they’re his clones.” Oooooh boy. Maybe her candidacy will flop. Maybe she’ll be another Amy McGrath (all style no substance). I doubt it, though. Buckle up, buttercups!

From the other side of the tracks:

Marketing Brew recently covered how Tasty, the recipe publisher, has been using WhatsApp:

Since May 2024, the BuzzFeed-owned recipe publisher has been on the Meta-owned messaging app, and in less than a year has amassed more than 1 million followers, according to the company. By converting its primarily video-based content into text- and photo-based posts, the brand is now reaching a new audience—an essential tactic at a time when TikTok’s fate is still up in the air, David Bertozzi, Tasty’s deputy director of social and creators, told us.

Maybe I’m too much of a marketing nerd, but I find this fascinating and I would LOVE to figure out a way for campaigns to also take advantage of WhatsApp. I know it’s YET ANOTHER PLATFORM, but ya’ll…every single time I read about a corporate brand getting on WhatsApp it gets my wheels turning in a very distinct way. Granted, Bertozzi does admit that like 97ish% of their audience on the messaging app is international. WhatsApp seems to skew that way. But I don’t think that should discourage American political operatives from experimenting here. Bertozzi also makes a good point about the fact that WhatsApp drives traffic more than Instagram or TikTok because users there have a hard time leaving the app to follow a link. On WhatsApp, it’s much easier… Just something to think about!