How to get off the Marjorie Taylor Greene viral marketing team
What would you do if you knew you were enabling a monster?
Unfortunately, our tweets matter.
They may not matter as much as some other tweets or the world’s worst propaganda machine or millions of dollars billionaires can throw into local election. But our tweets and even our clicks are drops in the digital ocean and they can easily create a swell.
I mention this because Jared Holt, one of the best analysts of the nexus of domestic extremism and the internet I’ve come across and the purveyor of Sh!tpost, used a little thought I had to write a great piece ‘Her job is to say something terrible every day so we do all her viral marketing for her’.
Jared broadened my argument against spreading MTG’s latest brain burp and addressed a far more important point:
Did the US media actually learn enough about itself from the Trump era?
This part hit me hard:
I steadily advocate for covering the fringes of society, as you might expect a political extremism researcher to. Oftentimes we learn a lot about the underbelly of organizing. Extremism reporting can serve as an effective alarm system against danger coming down the pike, too.
Early coverage of Greene had that latter tone: the woman is insane and it is awful if she wins this election. Today, a decent amount of it has shifted into the same tone that defined Trump-era coverage: “You’ll never believe this shit!” She is an elected official and by definition what she does is newsworthy. But what, if anything, is not newsworthy for a Congresswoman to say? Given her lack of committee assignments, I’d argue the answer is probably “a lot.”
What use, for instance, is there in retweeting this?
I’m not calling out Aaron, who plays a crucial role in monitoring the media and the right, but rather the urge to make this a thing.
The goal, I think, is to show how much better and smarter we are than MTG.
But here’s the thing: She’s playing us.
Maybe this isn’t intentional. Maybe she’s brilliant enough to know exactly how to titillate our liberal brains and make us join her viral marketing team, again.
Doesn’t matter.
The result is the same. Her job is to prove that we, the libs, hate her. And in a district that’s 45% more Republican than the average congressional district, that counts as constituent service.
It matters far more what the media chooses to cover but our clicks matter, too. And there’s a dark side to this game in which Democratic candidates — like MTG’s opponent who has raised $10 million and couldn’t win if he raised $100 million — then play us to imagine we’re enacting some revenge on her by boosting his fundraising tweets and donating to him.
Meanwhile, we’re not boosting organizations that matter like Run for Something or candidates in key races like the seven Michigan State Senate candidates who can give us control of the Senate for the first time since 1984 and stop Trump from stealing the state in 2024. Even just promoting abortion funds in red states is a much more noble use of time.
This is preachy as hell. Sorry. But it’s also what Blue Walls is all about.
The premise is what you do, what you elevate and even who you mock matter.
No one knows how to do this perfectly but seriously, MTG is a perfect example of someone who demands to be ignored in almost every instance. Get off her viral marketing team and let’s work on saving democracy.
How to get off the Marjorie Taylor Greene viral marketing team
Agree, though it calls for the kind of collective self-discipline that has not, to our great disadvantage, been our strong suit.
Agree, though it calls for the kind of collective self-discipline that has not, to our great disadvantage, been our strong suit.