2020-03-09_The_New_Yorker

THENEWYORKER, MARCH 9, 2020 49

border war between Texas separatists
and the government of Mexico. Project
Alamo soon grew to more than a hun-
dred people, including campaign staffers,
employees of the Republican National
Committee, and venders from various
tech companies. “He ran the 2016 dig-
ital campaign the way you’d run any
other e-commerce operation,” a rival
digital strategist told me. “He was sell-
ing Trump, but he could have been sell-
ing sneakers. He looked at the analyt-

ics on Facebook, saw what was popping

on a given day, and went, Let’s pump

money into that and let the algorithm

feed it to our audience.”

In a post-election interview on Fox

News, Parscale said, “For the first time

in history, the data operation ran every-

thing, from TV buying”—placing local

television ads—“to where we were on

the ground.” Campaign strategists used

real-time analytics when deciding where

to send canvassers, where to hold rallies,

even what Trump should say at which

rally. (“It might be, ‘Sir, our Facebook

data from this area suggests that people

want to hear you talk about tax cuts,’ ” a

person familiar with the campaign op-

eration told me. “Whether he actually

took that advice was another question.”)

The campaign used software to gener-

ate an endless stream of ads, each dis-

tinguished by one or more tiny varia-

tions: a new typeface, a new color, a new

aspect ratio, a photo of Trump taken

from a slightly different angle. “Certain

people like a green button better than a

blue button,” Parscale said on “60 Min-

utes.” “Some people like the word ‘do-

nate’ over ‘contribute.’”

If each variation is counted as a dis-

tinct ad, then the Trump campaign, all

told, ran 5.9 million Facebook ads. The

Clinton campaign ran sixty-six thou-

sand. “The Hillary campaign thought

they had it in the bag, so they tried to

play it safe, which meant not doing much

that was new or unorthodox, especially

online,” a progressive digital strategist

told me. “Trump’s people knew they

didn’t have it in the bag, and they never

gave a shit about being safe anyway.”

Bernie Sanders, who ran as an outsider

with a base of avid support, also cam-

paigned aggressively online, using social

media to locate an unprecedented num-

ber of small donors. His 2020 campaign

has found even more small donors, again

largely through fund-raising appeals,

which have become so widespread that

a video clip of Sanders wearing a for-

midable pair of mittens and intoning “I

am once again asking for your financial

support” recently became a meme.

Eric Wilson, Marco Rubio’s digital

director during his Presidential run, in

2016, told me, “The best online market-

ers are agnostic, as opposed to prescrip-

tive. Anyone with a lot of money can buy

a lot of ads, but what really matters is

measurement, because without that you

have no idea which ads are having any

effect.” This sort of measurement is the

province of “ad-tech” firms. Clients de-

cide which metrics they want maxi-

mized—often some quantitative measure

of success on Google and Facebook, which

together control about half of the online

ad market—and the ad-tech firms opti-

mize for that outcome. In the summer of

2016, Parscale hired two leading ad-tech

firms—Sprinklr, based in New York, and

I can do

for myself.

Late at night

I enjoy

the brown

pages of a cowboy

show

teevee

on my lap

till practically

dawn

interesting

written

by a gambler

oh I have

so many

shows

one in Florence

one day

you were

taking a shower

I think

I thought

I love

this television

because

it’s become

the way

to love

the road

of becoming

is a screen

belonging

on it in

my dream.

The excellent

moments

the man

barges in

and says

do you ever

think

about

film. The poetry

of accident

haunts

like a circus

tent over

my days

and that

fades

and a new

one. I

begin to

write

about dying.

THIS

story ends.

It begins

to be part

of the plot

and do I

love you

for your

distance

from it

or could

I love you

because

you are

close

or your

exciting

difference

so smart.

I love

myself.

The squeaky

little voice

that says

in here

owning the void

and grooving

on it. Voice

over

you’re not

so bad

and then

I begin

to work.

My dead

mother

is around

my lover

not far

keeping u

here by

not calling

anyone

is that the tub

in which

I die.

Weir-doo

woo woo

woo

what’s that

bird.

because

I don’t

have kids

and this

is such

a blessing.

—Eileen Myles