“The brand was ‘Defeat Crooked Hillary’. You’ll remember this of course?”
he told the undercover reporter. “The zeros, the OO of crooked were
a pair of handcuffs … We made hundreds of different kinds of creative,
and we put it online.”
[Mark] Turnbull said the company sometimes used “proxy organisations”,
including charities and activist groups, to help disseminate the messages –
and keep the company’s involvement in the background.
Of course, no one is surprised that “Crooked Hillary” – and probably most every other insult thrown by candidate Donald Trump – was the work of paid manipulators. Trump, Steve Bannon and others deeper in the shadows spent fortunes manufacturing sound bites to weaponize voters into ridicule, and, pure outrage.
That continues…from facebook, Monday:
Susan Walsh
If she can get the pant suit over it…I think this would be a wise investment for Hilary.
Yes, Spiro Agnew did work-up a crowd calling liberals and Democrats “nattering nabobs of negatism” [ http://politicaldictionary.com/words/nattering-nabobs-of-negativism/ ], yet, I can’t recall Agnew asking his supporters to attack protesters – as Trump does whenever he can…”Trump later defended the crowd’s treatment of the protester, saying that ‘maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.’” [ http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/02/a_list_of_violent_incidents_at_donald_trump_rallies_and_events.html ]
Now, professionals without souls can turn people into a mob to shout-down, oppose and even attack those they’ve been told are bad. The question before us: what happens when the mob realizes they’ve been used?
Inside the Beltway folks (as well as other television and radio talkers) see President Trumps’ ‘women problems’ as legal issues, matters for the courts of law and public opinion.
Here at ground level, well, I keep running into voices who see womanizing as a deep moral failure. Many of the whispers come from conservative, “traditional value” voters who gave Trump his victory. When they talk over coffee they don’t agree with Rev. Jerry Falwell, Jr. [ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/opinion/trump-christian-right-values.html ] and Rev. Franklin Graham [ https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/politics/graham-evangelicals-support-trump-don-lemon-cnntv/index.html ] who excuse ‘past excesses.’ No, they see a man who ignored his most sacred vow, his word, time and again. That will have consequences.
Remember too that Eric Greitens ran as the “family values” candidate for governor. No matter what happens in court in St. Louis city, he has publicly admitted that his wedding vow came with an asterisk.
Again, what I’ve heard from people of deep religious conviction and read in Letters To The Editor about Missouri teaches me that Governor SEAL probably won’t be – can’t be – forgiven by many who vo
ted for him.
So, yes, professionals from Cambridge Analytica and those of their ilk can weaponize outrage: that weapon can be used against its promoters too.
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member