december 23, 2019–january 5, 2020 | new york 53Always Love You,” “Old Town Road.” The meme works.
Johnson argued that he has cornered the niche market, where
liberals are no longer winning the culture war. “ ‘Why the left can’t
meme’: That’s sort of the thesis of my show,” he told me later on.
“It’s very simple. They’re not funny. Do you ever watch late-night
television? Orange man bad. NPC. We’re allowed to laugh still.
We’re allowed to think things are funny.” (“NPC” is gaming argot
for “non-player character” and maga shorthand for a stilted,
humorless lib. It has become a meme.)
But it’s the White House’s explicit embrace of figures like John-
son that has turned TPUSA into an unofficial administration con-
tent machine. It’s difficult to imagine that happening in quite the
same way on the left. “I walk into the White House,” Johnson said,
referring to the social-media summit that took place over the sum-
mer. “What’s printed out on giant poster boards? Memes. It’s
incredible. Funny memes.”A
little over two years ago, some unusual political
activity was taking place during a mayoral election in
Lewiston, Maine. The Democratic candidate and fa-
vorite to win was Ben Chin, organizer for a progressive
advocacy group. The Republican was Shane Boucha-
rd, a city councilman. In early December, just over a
week before the election, a blind item appeared in a
largely dormant conservative website called the Maine
Examiner, reporting that Chin had sent an email to his staff claiming
that “voters in Lewiston’s Ward 6 are racists.” What Chin actually
said was that he had encountered a “bunch of racists” (plus non-
racists) while knocking on doors. But the damage was done. The
Maine Republican Party promoted the story heavily, and the email
“scandal” dominated the last week of the campaign.
It turns out one of Chin’s volunteers, Heather Everly Berube, had
been having an affair with Bouchard during the campaign. At
some point, she had forwarded Chin’s email to Bouchard, and from
there, it ended up on the Examiner—which, as it happens, was
owned and operated by a man named Jason Savage, the director
of the Maine Republican Party. Chin lost the election by 145 votes.
A while back, I heard the progressive digital strategist Tara
McGowan use a term for certain sites. Owned media, she called
them, as in, you own all the content, so you can publish whatever
you want. Or, more simply: propaganda. This is exactly what Savage
did via the Examiner, where he had exploited the gaps in local-news
coverage. A more prominent case study occurred in early 2019,
when a conservative website called Big League Politics, owned by a
political operative, broke the Ralph Northam blackface scandal.
The number of newsy-looking, hyperpartisan websites like this
is growing, almost entirely on the right. In 2017, a Breitbart con-
tributor named Michael Patrick Leahy started a site called the Ten-
nessee Star, which has since expanded to include the Ohio Star, the
Minnesota Sun, and the Michigan Star. None of them run much
local news. Several times over the summer, Trump’s Facebook page
linked to the Minnesota Sun, which published an op-ed by the
chief operating officer of Trump’s reelection campaign. In 2018,
California representative Devin Nunes promoted right-wing sto-
ries on a bogus site called the California Republican.This is the space McGowan initially sought to infiltrate. If Dem-
ocrats couldn’t compete with puerile internet humor, local news
seemed like a more winnable space. In 2016, she was the digital
director for the Priorities USA super-pac. Frustrated by its hide-
bound, TV-ad-centric playbook, after the election she started her
own shop, Acronym, armed with high-profile donors and partners
like former Obama consigliere David Plouffe.
Last summer, Acronym began funding the Dogwood, a Vir-
ginia-centric media outlet designed to take market share away
from the likes of Big League Politics. An Arizona equivalent fol-
lowed in the fall, and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina,
and Michigan sites have been staffing up. McGowan’s is framing
partisan content as straight news, yes, but she’s also hiring real
journalists and not making stuff up.
Perhaps as a result, the sites seem to lack viral potential, special-
izing in light outrage bait like “How much does college cost in Vir-
ginia? A lot.” The Dogwood was promoted heavily on Facebook in
the run-up to the 2019 Virginia election, in which Democrats swept
both chambers of the state legislature. But its Facebook page has just
a little over 5,000 fans and, on many posts, fairly low engagement.
More so than a fiery left-wing Breitbart, it resembles a local spin on
ThinkProgress, the liberal blog that recently ceased publishing.
This past fall, Acronym announced a $75 million digital-ad
campaign aimed at voters in swing states. Maybe that’s the more
realistic path for now. “I just can’t see us making our own Fox
News,” Betsy Hoover of Higher Ground Labs tells me. Or populate
“the darker corners of the internet down the line.”
But maybe there are compromises the Democratic Party is
learning to make. A couple days before Thanksgiving, BuzzFeed
News reported that a pro-Cory Booker super-pac, United We Win,
had placed an ad on a leading influencer marketplace, AspireIQ,
looking for fund-raisers: “Tell your supporters to keep Cory in the
fight with a small donation.” A debate broke out in the influencer
community about whether or not the posting was appropriate, and
AspireIQ pulled its ad.
Quietly, though, United We Win kept the influencer outreach
alive. It had also solicited ads on Tidal Labs and Tribe, two similar
marketplaces, and eventually commissioned 37 influencers to flack
for Booker, about half of whom were paid between $100 and $500
per post. (The other half volunteered.) The campaign ran for two
weeks, ending on December 13, and yielded 140 pieces of original
content. Which is why a ripped, often shirtless influencer called
Derrick Downey Jr. posted an Instagram post of himself using a
weight machine on December 9.
Being fit physical consist of determination, hard work, care
and zero excuses. The same principles apply when I look for some-
one to provide leadership for our country. That’s why I believe
#CoryBooker is fit for the job. #UnitedWeWin #ad PAID FOR
UNITED WE WIN SUPER PAC
I asked Curtis Hougland, the influencer broker of Main Street
One, if he was behind them. He declined to comment. I checked the
Federal Election Commission website. The pro-Booker super-pac
had reported one independent expenditure of $99,796. Its recipient:
Main Street One. #Sponcon has arrived in this presidential race. It’s
a little gross. That might be okay? ■If liberals can’t quite bring themselves to be Breitbart,maybe there are other ways to win Facebook.TRANSMITTEDY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EIC ________ COPY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EIC2619FEA_OppositionResearch_lay [Print]_36426188.indd 53 12/18/19 4:41 PMdecember 23, 2019–january 5, 2020 | new york 53Always Love You,” “Old Town Road.” The meme works.
Johnson argued that he has cornered the niche market, where
liberals are no longer the culture war. “ ‘Why the left can’t
meme’: That’s sort of s of my show,” he told me later on.
“It’s very simple. The nny. Do you ever watch late-night
television? Orange NPC. We’re allowed to laugh still.
We’re allowed to thin are funny.” (“NPC” is gaming argot
for “non-player char d maga shorthand for a stilted,
humorless lib. It has meme.)
But it’s the White plicit embrace of figures like John-
son that has turned T o an unofficial administration con-
tent machine. It’s diff agine that happening in quite the
samewayontheleft.“I walkintotheWhiteHouse,”Johnsonsaid,
referringtothesocial-mediasummitthat tookplaceoverthesum-
mer. “What’s printed out on giant poster boards? Memes. It’s
incredible. Funny memes.”A
little over two years ago, some unusual political
activity was taking place during a mayoral election in
Lewiston, Maine. The Democratic candidate and fa-
vorite to win was Ben Chin, organizer for a progressive
advocacy group. The Republican was Shane Boucha-
rd, a city councilman. In early December, just over a
week before the election, a blind item appeared in a
largely dormant conservative website called the Maine
Examiner, reporting that Chin had sent an email to his staff claiming
that “voters in Lewiston’s Ward 6 are racists.” What Chin actually
said was that he had encountered a “bunch of racists” (plus non-
racists) while knocking on doors. But the damage was done. The
Maine Republican Party promoted the story heavily, and the email
“scandal” dominated the last week of the campaign.
It turns out one of Chin’s volunteers, Heather Everly Berube, had
been having an affair with Bouchard during the campaign. At
some point, she had forwarded Chin’s email to Bouchard, and from
there, it ended up on the Examiner—which, as it happens, was
owned and operated by a man named Jason Savage, the director
of the Maine Republican Party. Chin lost the election by 145 votes.
A while back, I heard the progressive digital strategist Tara
McGowan use a term for certain sites. Owned media, she called
them, as in, you own all the content, so you can publish whatever
you want. Or, more simply: propaganda. This is exactly what Savage
did via the Examiner, where he had exploited the gaps in local-news
coverage. A more prominent case study occurred in early 2019,
when a conservative website called Big League Politics, owned by a
political operative, broke the Ralph Northam blackface scandal.
The number of newsy-looking, hyperpartisan websites like this
is growing, almost entirely on the right. In 2017, a Breitbart con-
tributor named Michael Patrick Leahy started a site called the Ten-
nessee Star, which has since expanded to include the Ohio Star, the
Minnesota Sun, and the Michigan Star. None of them run much
local news. Several times over the summer, Trump’s Facebook page
linked to the Minnesota Sun, which published an op-ed by the
chief operating officer of Trump’s reelection campaign. In 2018,
California representative Devin Nunes promoted right-wing sto-
ries on a bogus site called the California Republican.This is the space McGowan initially sought to infiltrate. If Dem-
ocrats couldn’t compete with puerile internet humor, local news
seemed like a more winnable space. In 2016, she was the digital
director for the Priorities USA super-pac. Frustrated by its hide-
bound, TV-ad-centric playbook, after the election she started her
own shop, Acronym, armed with high-profile donors and partners
like former Obama consigliere David Plouffe.
Last summer, Acronym began funding the Dogwood, a Vir-
ginia-centric media outlet designed to take market share away
from the likes of Big League Politics. An Arizona equivalent fol-
lowed in the fall, and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina,
and Michigan sites have been staffing up. McGowan’s is framing
partisancontentasstraightnews,yes,butshe’s alsohiring real
journalistsandnotmakingstuffup.
Perhaps as a result, the sites seem to lack viral potential,special-
izing in light outrage bait like “How much does college cost in Vir-
ginia? A lot.” The Dogwood was promoted heavily on Facebook in
the run-up to the 2019 Virginia election, in which Democrats swept
both chambers of the state legislature. But its Facebook pagehas just
a little over 5,000 fans and, on many posts, fairly low engagement.
More so than a fiery left-wing Breitbart, it resembles a localspin on
ThinkProgress, the liberal blog that recently ceased publishing.
This past fall, Acronym announced a $75 million digital-ad
campaign aimed at voters in swing states. Maybe that’s the more
realistic path for now. “I just can’t see us making our own Fox
News,” Betsy Hoover of Higher Ground Labs tells me. Or populate
“the darker corners of the internet down the line.”
But maybe there are compromises the DemocraticParty is
learning to make. A couple days before Thanksgiving, BuzzFeed
News reported that a pro-Cory Booker super-pac, United We Win,
had placed an ad on a leading influencer marketplace, AspireIQ,
looking for fund-raisers: “Tell your supporters to keep Cory in the
fight with a small donation.” A debate broke out in the influencer
community about whether or not the posting was appropriate, and
AspireIQ pulled its ad.
Quietly, though, United We Win kept the influencer outreach
alive. It had also solicited ads on Tidal Labs and Tribe, twosimilar
marketplaces, and eventually commissioned 37 influencersto flack
for Booker, about half of whom were paid between $100 and $500
per post. (The other half volunteered.) The campaign ranfor two
weeks, ending on December 13, and yielded 140 pieces oforiginal
content. Which is why a ripped, often shirtless influencer called
Derrick Downey Jr. posted an Instagram post of himselfusing a
weight machine on December 9.
Being fit physical consist of determination, hard work, care
and zero excuses. The same principles apply when I look for some-
one to provide leadership for our country. That’s why Ibelieve
#CoryBooker is fit for the job. #UnitedWeWin #ad PAID FOR
UNITED WE WIN SUPER PAC
I asked Curtis Hougland, the influencer broker of Main Street
One, if he was behind them. He declined to comment. I checked the
Federal Election Commission website. The pro-Booker super-pac
had reported one independent expenditure of $99,796. Its recipient:
Main Street One. #Sponcon has arrived in this presidentialrace. It’s
a little gross. That might be okay? ■If liberals can’t quite bring themselves to be Breitbart,maybe there are other ways to win Facebook.