NYT: How Team DeSantis Lost The Twitter Meme War

October 21, 2023 Infighting Is Funny, Republicans

The New York Times reports:

In early May, as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida prepared to run for president, about a dozen right-wing social media influencers gathered at his pollster’s home for cocktails and a poolside buffet. The guests all had large followings or successful podcasts and were already fans of the governor. But Mr. DeSantis’s team wanted to turn them into a battalion of on-message surrogates who could tangle with Donald J. Trump and his supporters online.

Even after a recent concerted effort to reboot, the campaign has had trouble shaking off a reputation for being thin-skinned and meanspirited online, repeatedly insulting Trump supporters and alienating potential allies. Some of its most visible efforts — including videos employing a Nazi symbol and homoerotic images — have turned off donors and drawn much-needed attention away from the candidate. And it has been unable to halt the cascade of internet memes that belittle and ridicule Mr. DeSantis.

Florida Politics reports:



Top staffers with the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign are responding to a critical article from Saturday’s New York Times. “The corporate media loves that Trump prioritizes winning meme wars over defeating the Left. Because they know that next time BLM decides to burn down our cities, Trump will just tweet LAW & ORDER a dozen times like he did before, thinking the internet is real life,” wrote Christina Pushaw, the former official spokesperson for the DeSantis administration who has since moved over to the campaign side.

The Times article notes, correctly, that DeSantis’ adjuncts “conspicuously avoided so much as mentioning Mr. Trump, and appeared completely caught off guard when, in March, pro-Trump influencers peppered the internet with posts that amplified a rumor that Mr. DeSantis had once eaten chocolate pudding with his fingers.”

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