Yesterday, Bernie celebrated having crossed the one million donation mark. "This," he tweeted, "is how we're going to defeat Donald Trump and transform this country." Just over a week ago NPR compared Trump's fundraising with that of the Dems competing for a chance to go up against him next year. Trump's campaign is turning to everything from MAGA hat sales to six-figure-per-person fundraisers "as it faces an energized Democratic field that is focused on small-dollar fundraising. He began running for re-election as soon as he took office and has already raised and spent more than $70 million. In the first quarter of this year Trump's campaign raised $16,329,897 and the outside PACs that support him reported another $15,906,826. Of the 18 Democrats running, 8 have reported how much, approximately, they raised in the first quarter:
• Bernie- $18.2 million• Kamala Harris- $12 million• Beto- $9.4 million• Mayor Pete- $7 million• Elizabeth Warren- $6 million• Amy Klobuchar- $5.2 million• Cory Booker- $5 million• Andrew Yang- $1.7 million
Top Obama communications staffer Dan Pfeiffer, writing for Crooked, also last week, is concerned that Trump is already running ads, basically unopposed. Trump has spent $6 million on digital ads since the Midterms. "While more than a dozen Democrats are criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire talking to Democratic primary voters, Trump is already running a general election campaign. Trump can be beat in 2020, but not if he is allowed to strengthen his position in 2019. And right now, too many Democrats and progressives are distracted by the primary or Trump’s latest tweet for our own good. If we don’t focus, and soon, Trump may get the berth he needs to bolster his standing and beat us again." Trump is pretty well-defined by himself and the mass media, including digital media, but let's hear Pfeiffer out.
For very good reasons, the commentariat has tended to dismiss all of Trump’s employees as C-list grifters and Fox News green room rejects. But while Brad Parscale, Trump’s re-election campaign manager, may look like a steampunk Peaky Blinder, he shouldn’t be underestimated. To date at least, the Trump campaign has pursued a real strategy, aggressively. Time will tell if doubling down on base mobilization while portraying all Democrats as radical socialists is the right strategy, but their pursuit of that strategy displays a single-minded discipline that is wholly absent in Trump’s governing style....Trump is currently very vulnerable despite a relatively strong economy. He is stuck at 42 percent in the FiveThirtyEight polling average and has yet to show any improvement since the end of the Mueller investigation. He continues to struggle in states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and if he loses all three, he’s toast.This is not a call to shorten the primary or reduce the number of candidates. A long primary that traverses all the battleground states can strengthen both the party and the eventual nominee. Barack Obama was able to win Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana in 2008 because he had been forced to build grassroots organizations in those states to compete with Hillary Clinton. An establishment-led effort to cull the herd or anoint a specific candidate would be political suicide.But it is a call for the Democratic establishment to get in the game, starting by investing millions of dollars in digital ads to make the case against Trump while the Dems fight it out amongst themselves.Every day Trump gives Democrats more ammunition. Imagine the ads that could have been run last week when the Trump administration tried to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics to help pay for tax breaks for corporations and billionaires. There are only so many opportunities that we can allow to slip by before it is too late.The Democratic Party and allied groups need to be in general election mode every day, filling the void as our candidates campaign for themselves. We need to define him, before his campaign, his army of free spending billionaires, and his propaganda apparatus can reset the table. We cannot rely on the media to litigate the case against Trump. Our collective attention span is too short and the media environment is too fragmented for a lot of what we read online or see on television to truly sink in with voters.Remember the story about Trump staffing his golf clubs with undocumented workers or Trump’s budget that cut nearly a trillion dollars from Medicare to pay for his tax cut for the rich? If any voters saw these stories, they will soon forget them-- unless they are drilled into their consciousness with a targeted but consistent digital advertising effort.Some important efforts led by the Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA and other organizations are underway, but we need everyone on the field right now. Too many organizations and donors are husbanding their resources for next year, when I fear it will be too late. The Trump campaign knows that the battle to defeat him is already underway. It’s time more Democrats figured that out.
In his Popular Information newsletter, Judd Legum took on Trump's manipulative new Facebook strategy this week. It was very enlightening, especially for someone like myself who can't imagine anyone stupid enough to be influenced by something on Facebook being savvy enough to figure out how or where to vote. But now that Facebook has taken a few small steps in the direction of ad transparency, creating a database of advertisers and requiring discloser of who's paying for ads, Legum has been able to see how micro-targeting can be used to influence low IQ individuals, the kind of people who keep 3-card monte hustlers or characters like this is business:Keep in mind that Brad Parscale, the man responsible for Trump's 2016 Facebook strategy, is now his campaign manager. "The Trump campaign," wrote Legum, "has been deploying highly deceptive and manipulative ads on Facebook to target key demographics for the 2020 campaign... A major set of recent Facebook ads by the Trump campaign features testimonials from several Trump supporters. Notably, none of these testimonials are from white men, where Trump gets the overwhelming majority of his support. They come exclusively from women and minorities. One ad features 'Howard from New Mexico.' As soft music plays, Howard says, 'Sir, you have really inspired me and brought back my faith in this great nation. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all the work you are doing.' A video depicts an older African-American man smiling broadly. Except that the man pictured is not Howard. How do I know? For a split second at the beginning of the video, in tiny print, the ad includes the following disclaimer: 'Actual Testimonial. Actor Portrayal.' ... In many other versions of the ad, Howard is portrayed as a young African-American man engrossed in his cell phone. Howard is still from New Mexico and still has the exact same quote about Trump.I guess all Howards look the same to some people
So what's going on?The power of Facebook is its ability to micro-target audiences. Facebook vacuums up as much data as possible and then sells the ability to target its users on every imaginable attribute. The Trump campaign is taking full advantage of this. That is why there are so many versions of every ad.The Facebook ad library only provides the most basic targeting information, but it is enough to expose the campaign's strategy with Howard. This is the targeting by age and gender for a version of the ad featuring the "young Howard."You can see that the ad is focused on reaching young men. 58% of the people reached were men under 45, and 31% were 18-24.Now, look at the targeting by age and gender for the ad featuring "old Howard."Here, 55% of the audience is women 55 and older. The ad didn't reach any young males at all.It's unclear whether Howard is an African-American male or if he even exists. But we know that Howard is not simultaneously a senior citizen and a young man. The Trump campaign is dishonestly giving Howard multiple personas to exploit Facebook's microtargeting ability....Most of the testimonials feature women, a group that is trending strongly away from Trump. The campaign is also using multiple personas of these women to take advantage of Facebook's ability to micro-target.One testimonial is from "Nancy from Nevada." In a video, a visibly gray Nancy says, "You're doing a wonderful job! Our border is a very serious matter. Stay strong & build the barrier. Thanks!"This ad is targeted to older women, including a significant number over 65.Another version of the ad shows a much younger "Nancy from Nevada" delivering the same endorsement.That ad is targeted at a younger demographic.Trump is also running other kinds of more traditionally misleading political ads. For example, one recent ad includes the following message from Trump: "Please take the Official Secure The Border Survey in the NEXT 3 HOURS to make sure I am able to review your answers IMMEDIATELY."But the ad has been running continuously for a week.If you actually fill out the survey, it then says your answers will be sent to Trump if you donate to his campaign within five minutes.Spoiler: No matter what, Trump is not going to review your message. But Facebook allows the Trump campaign to target people who think he will.Facebook's ad policy prohibits ads that "contain deceptive, false, or misleading content, including deceptive claims, offers, or methods" but it is unclear how or if this rule is enforced.It's concerning that the Trump campaign is actively using Facebook to mislead and manipulate voters. Prior to the 2016 election, things were even uglier, according to a contemporaneous report in Bloomberg.“We have three major voter suppression operations under way,” says a senior [Trump campaign] official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans. Trump’s invocation at the debate of Clinton’s WikiLeaks e-mails and support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership was designed to turn off Sanders supporters. The parade of women who say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Clinton and harassed or threatened by Hillary is meant to undermine her appeal to young women. And her 1996 suggestion that some African American males are “super predators” is the basis of a below-the-radar effort to discourage infrequent black voters from showing up at the polls-- particularly in Florida.The Trump campaign used Facebook and other low-profile communications channels, like ethnic radio, to pursue these objectives.This time, any Facebook ads designed to suppress votes would appear in the ad library. But would it make any difference? Any such ads could be easily obscured by thousands of traditional ads the Trump campaign will produce daily. If someone does happen to notice, will anyone care?It's clear that the steps Facebook have taken since 2016 fall well short of stopping the use of manipulative political messages on its platform. And perhaps that's not an accident. Trump is a good customer. According to the Facebook ad library, the Trump campaign has spent $11,118,788 on Facebook ads in the last 11 months-- spending that is sure to increase dramatically over the next two years.
