What Campaign? by Nancy OhanianThis morning, Washington Post reporters Meg Kelly and Elyse Samuels, did a blockbuster report about how, Trump is creating an alternative reality online about coronavirus. In this alternative world-- shared by millions of Americans through Fox News, hate-talk radio and the rest of the right-wing media, Trump has successfully met the challenge of the pandemic. At a news conference on May 11th, Trump said "We have met the moment and we have prevailed. Americans do whatever it takes to find solutions, pioneer breakthroughs, and harness the energies we need to achieve a total victory."In the real-- and well-documented-- world, Trump and his regime have lied their way through the pandemic-- from the first day until today. His Twitter and Facebook feeds tell a bizarro-world story, dishonest narratives that have attempted to illustrate and amplify a successful (but bogus) picture of the response. "The Trump administration’s mishandling of key moments in the novel coronavirus outbreak has been well documented," wrote Kelly and Samuels. Early travel restrictions from China and Europe were meant to buy time, but inaction or poor planning squandered much of the benefit. Delays in testing allowed the virus to spread across the country largely undetected. A shortage of personal protective equipment while cases surged overwhelmed hospitals and health-care workers. The president promoted unproven, and sometimes dangerous, medical approaches to fighting the disease, in some cases with potentially deadly consequences. He misrepresented how quickly a vaccine will be available.Trump and his people are working hard to blanket the zone with his parallel universe version of what happened. "The campaign has spent $32.6 million on Facebook ads since January 2019, more than double the Facebook ad spending of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. And campaign officials spent the past four years rigorously building a digital infrastructure to connect with voters not only through on social media, but with online polls, email lists and rally registration forms. In other words, when the 2020 election went online only, the Trump team was ready. Trump and the White House often say they turn to social media because a hostile, left-leaning news media does not depict Trump’s achievements accurately. The Fact Checker video team analyzed thousands of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts and ads from Trump, his campaign and a long list of surrogates. The data revealed the backbone of a five-point strategy to tell their version of the coronavirus story: rewriting mistakes, highlighting achievements, deflecting blame, declaring victory and creating distraction."
The Facts Nothing to see hereIn the first phase of the outbreak, Trump and his allies consistently played down the threat of the virus. Trump held eight campaign rallies between Jan. 21 (when covid-19 was confirmed in the United States) and March 2. His speeches focused on just about everything else-- at one point referring to concerns about the coronavirus as the Democrats’ “new hoax,” akin to the Russia investigation and the Ukraine-related impeachment probe.The Fact Checker collected data of social media posts from Brandwatch, a digital consumer intelligence company, Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool owned by Facebook, and Nick Monaco at the Digital Intelligence Lab. The data shows that Trump’s conversation about the coronavirus online was minimal in late January and February, even though Trump in late January announced that he would impose some travel restrictions on non-U. S. citizens traveling from China. His campaign and surrogates echoed the same trend.Instead, analysis from Brandwatch revealed that Trump’s most talked about topics online included his impeachment trial, Nancy Pelosi, the Second Amendment, and 2020 Democratic primary candidates at the time such as former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Biden.“When he was getting the intelligence on this back in … January, (if he) took the same level of seriousness about it that other nations were starting to do, had utilized the Defense Production Act fully, which still has not to this day been fully implemented relative to the things that we need and that the businesses in particular could do and have offered to do,” said Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee. “If all of those early pieces had been put in place, you’d have a very different narrative today.”We’re doing a great jobIn early March, as covid-19 cases and deaths started to increase in the United States, Trump’s tone on the virus changed. He started holding regular news briefings with his coronavirus task force and took more tangible steps to fight the spread of the disease.The refocus on coronavirus was reflected in the Trump campaign’s online rhetoric, too. However, the ways in which he and his campaign talked about covid-19 online were often not based in facts or misrepresented the reality of the situation. For instance his most talked about topics at this time included the terms “Chinese virus” and “Fake News.”The campaign apparatus promoted videos online that tried to rewrite the narrative. For example, this video, which bashed the media’s response, skipped over February, trying to erase a period of slow intervention by the administration. (Trump in February also kept saying that the virus would soon go away and praised China for its handling of the crisis.) The campaign also shared cherry-picked video clips on social media, highlighting Trump’s comments at news conferences that were inaccurate. Other videos clipped politicians and governor’s statements or used the wrong context for their quotes. The ads inaccurately made it sound as if these people were praising Trump’s response. Lastly, video ads deflected blame to China and used this talking point to attack political rivals such as Biden, Trump’s likely opponent in this year’s presidential contest.“One of my biggest concerns about the way that the pandemic is already shifting and will continue to shift online political campaigning is that it will drive the discourse to be even more uncivil, to be even more provocative, to be ultimately potentially hateful,” said Rebekah Tromble, professor of media, politics, digital research and ethics at George Washington University.Give Him A Break by Chip ProserWe’ve wonIn mid-April and early May, Trump and his team appeared to all but claim victory over the virus. Fearing economic downfall, they have called for the country to reopen, even while health experts warn of consequences from loosening shutdown restrictions too soon.“If some areas, cities, states or what have you, jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks,” said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “I have been very clear in my message-- to try, to the best extent possible, to go by the guidelines, which have been very well thought out and very well delineated.”Despite these concerns, Trump’s incentives to reinvigorate the economy only continue to grow. His presidency and candidacy have centered on economic growth, which will become an even greater focal point in the upcoming election.“He’s the businessman. He’s the person there to lead the economy,” Tromble said. “We’re now in a situation where we’re looking at Great Depression levels of unemployment, and we can’t deny that the economy is in a free fall. And so that particular message is lost unless the Trump administration reshifts to trying to reopen the economy. And that’s very clearly what they’re doing now.”In addition to the economy, Trump and his team have moved on to discussing new topics online. Their posts and ads have often focused on controversial and inflammatory topics, such as charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn and attacks directed at the news media or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The campaign has also launched ads targeting Biden that include age-related attacks and conspiracy theories about his ties to China.The White House and Trump campaign declined to comment.The Bottom LineIt remains to be seen whether this messaging is effective with voters and will affect the way in which Americans remember the pandemic. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll from April 27 to May 4 showed 43 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the outbreak. While Trump pushes to reopen, some Republican governors are facing pushback for moving into that phase too quickly.“We expect our presidents to be optimistic about the future,” Steele said. “But there’s also a level of realism in that optimism. Because we know real, we see that and we still see people getting sick and dying around us. And so I think perspective is really what people are looking for."All presidential campaigns try to portray their candidate in the best possible light, but what is notable about the Trump campaign is that its social media reach allows the campaign to rewrite even the most recent history.
The Post's Jim Hohmann followed up a couple of hours later-- for anyone who didn't grasp what Kelly and Samuels were trying to say in their long, statistic-heavy piece. He wrote that Trump "paints a picture of the alternative reality that the president’s reelection effort is trying to create for low-information voters who don’t follow traditional news organizations."Congress is crawling with Trump rubber stamps. Georgia congressman Buddy Carter is a perfect example. His progressive opponent, Lisa Ring-- endorsed by People for the American Way this morning-- told us that Carter is "a Trump puppet and has been from the beginning. Not only has he promoted the failed policies and defended the corruption of this administration (indeed, he was one of the legislators who stormed the SCIF, cell phone in hand), he has actively pushed a false narrative about every issue as a self-service for profit and power. His latest push is to praise Trump for both the economy and his handling of COVID-19 and to demonize China and any Democrats pushing financial assistance for ordinary folks. Carter is always looking for a way to profit from any situation. If you follow the money trail, you'll see why Carter, backed by big pharma and the healthcare industry, is blaming China for the pandemic and how the U.S. responded."Audrey Denney, the progressive candidate in the rural northeast corner of California, sees her opponent, Doug LaMalfa in much the same way Lisa sees Buddy Carter. She told us that while she "would certainly advocate that living in extremely rural counties require us to carefully examine health department data and make sure we are applying effective restrictions in a manner that makes practical sense for our part of the world, communicating a narrative that this virus is in the past is reckless and dangerous. I was dismayed to see Congressman LaMalfa spending the weekend attending anti-mask protests and then going to Memorial Day events where, without any distancing or precautions, was standing side by side some of the most vulnerable among us, our dear veterans."Doug LaMalfa-- spreading COVID-19 in his district?J.D. Scholten is a second-time's-the charm candidate-- just like Julie, Audrey, Lisa and Kathy. And he's taking on Steve King, who he nearly beat in 2018. This afternoon, he told us that "During a global pandemic that has cost over 100,000 American lives, Steve King continues to focus on himself. He lavishes Trump's handling of this pandemic, blames his own party's leadership for losing his committee assignments, and posts incessant memes to 'trigger' the left. This isn't leadership. Folks in Iowa's 4th district need a voice of reason, calm, and information-- not more divisiveness and self-promotion."It's very much the same with Roger Williams, a fully-committed Trump bootlicker in central Texas (TX-25). Julie Oliver told us that Williams has "been lying about voting by mail-- as a byproduct of this pandemic and reasonable fears of getting exposed to the virus from voting in person. Ever since Jim Crow-- and indeed, ever since Reconstruction-- the right to vote has been under attack, explicitly targeting Black and Brown communities. Roger Williams' lying and saying that vote-by-mail is unsafe or somehow more susceptible to fraud is straight out of the same playbook-- to confuse people about voting by making it harder or by delegitimizing the democratic process entirely. We need to expand voting rights in America, end gerrymandering, get big money and unaccountable dark money out of Congress and out of our politics and get our democracy back."If Missouri Congressman Jason Smith started advertising that he's a Trump puppet, sit wouldn't surprise anyone that he was embracing what everyone already knows. His opponent, Kathy Ellis told us that "Since the start of this pandemic, Jason Smith has done nothing but lie about the state of our country. Just this past week, he tweeted-- one of his few forms of communication with his consitutients-- that 'Trump acted with swift, decisive action' and he's 'thankful for the strong leadership he's shown.' Give me a break. Since the start of this pandemic, we've seen over 100,000 Americans die, and it didn't have to be this way. With better and stronger leadership at the head of our country, we could have prevented many of these deaths. Jason Smith's attempt to negate this is an attempt to trick the voters in his District into thinking that his plan of inaction is working. Well, it isn't working, and we're seeing voters start to question that in in MO-08."
