The NRSC’s Dumb Twitter Stunt: Fake Retweets From Democratic Politicians

Politics tends to be very juvenile at times and this is no where more true than on Twitter, where the 140 character limit tends to reduce political debate to an electronic form of an elementary school playground fight — I know you are but what am I?.

Today, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the committee responsible for election Republicans to the Senate, sent out a series of tweets that purported to be Retweets from Democratic politicians such as Claire McCaskill, Tim Kaine, Harry Reid, Jon Tester, and Barack Obama. Each of the tweets referenced the Senate Democrats, the fact they haven’t produced a budget, and included a link to a website that is basically a blank page. If you look at the Twitter feeds of each of these Democrats, though, it’s immediately clear that they never actually sent the message in question, and that’s at least a violation of the general rules of etiquette on Twitter. Obviously intending to make the point that there is no Democratic budget plan, someone thought it would be humerous to pretend that several Democrats, including the President of the United States, were admitting they had no plan:

It’s kind of dumb, it’s totally lame, and some have suggested that it may violate Twitter’s Terms of Service. Even if that last point isn’t true, though, couldn’t they have made their point without acting stupidly?

 

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tano says:

    couldn’t they have made their point without acting stupidly?

    no

  2. Hey Norm says:

    Forgetting the fact that the most prodigious filibusters in history wouldn’t have let them pass a budget. Dumb argument. Dumb tactic.

  3. Franklin says:

    Ahh, lying to make your opponent look bad. Not original, but still immoral. Good job, NRSC!

  4. Ernieyeball says:

    So is this “ratfucking” per Donald Segretti?