DeSantis’ horrible online strategy cost him his largest donor…
October 23, 2023 (13 hours ago)
Let’s face it: Ron DeSantis never stood a chance for 2024. When he looks back, he’ll probably agree that jumping into the race was one of the most bewildering political moves ever made. DeSantis let NeverTrump establishment figures whisper in his ear and inflate his ego, convincing him that he could take down the most popular political movement America has ever witnessed. They probably assured him that Trump would be entangled in legal troubles and that the MAGA crowd would need a “savior.” But that just shows a lack of understanding of the Trump movement.
MAGA supporters don’t abandon their leader in tough times; they double and triple down. Anyone who truly “gets” the MAGA universe could’ve told them that.
Unfortunately, DeSantis threw away his political future, catering to the desperate whims of the anti-Trump GOP, and now he’s sitting at an embarrassing 8% in the polls, likely pondering where it all went wrong.
And where did it go wrong? Well, aside from his inherent disadvantage, DeSantis’s major failing was his online strategy. He aimed to be the “social media candidate,” enhancing Trump’s “Twitter formula” with high-profile online influencers and a meme army that would leave MAGA forces in awe.
However, none of that panned out.
Instead, DeSantis turned into the punchline of the internet’s most viral jokes.
The New York Times:
The trouble began immediately. When Mr. DeSantis rolled out his campaign in a live chat on Twitter, the servers crashed, booting hundreds of thousands of people off the feed and drawing widespread ridicule.
When his campaign manager at the time, Generra Peck, discussed the fiasco at a meeting the next morning, she claimed the launch was so popular it broke the internet, according to three attendees, former aides who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisal for discussing internal operations.
Each recalled being flabbergasted at the apparent disconnect: Senior staff members seemed convinced that an embarrassing disaster had somehow been a victory.
And then “Pudding Fingers” hit and broke the internet: […] 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.
The governor’s campaign dismissed it as “liberal” gossip, even as supporters of Mr. Trump began chanting “pudding fingers” at campaign stops and a pro-Trump super PAC ran a television ad that used images of a hand scooping up chocolate pudding. Seven months later, #puddingfingers still circulates on social media.
The best — and perhaps only — way to counter that kind of thing is to lean into it with humor, Ms. Donovan said.“This is called meme magicThe irony is the more you try to stomp it out, the more it becomes a problem,” she said.
And that was just the beginning of a relentless meme onslaught from Trump supporters:
Some of these memes took on a life of their own.
Things took a further nosedive when Team DeSantis decided to create its own “viral videos.”
Attempts to go on the offensive proved even further off the mark. In June, the war room began creating highly stylized videos stuffed with internet jokes and offensive images that seemed crafted for a very young, very far-right audience.
“I was 55/45 for Trump/DeSantis,” Tim Pool, whose podcast has three million subscribers across multiple YouTube channels, wrote in response to the video. “Now I’m 0% for DeSantis.”
Another video cast Mr. Trump as too supportive of L.G.B.T.Q. rights and mashed up images of transgender people, pictures of Mr. DeSantis with pink lightning bolts shooting out of his eyes and clips from the film “American Psycho.”
Aside from the meme and video problem, Team DeSantis was quickly learning that its so-called “influencer army” was out of its league, The New York Times piece continues:
Benny Johnson, a former journalist with nearly two million followers on X, Twitter’s new name, resisted overtures from the DeSantis team, remaining a vocal Trump supporter. Chaya Raichik, whose Libs of TikTok account has 2.6 million followers, was at the Tallahassee dinner, according to two attendees, but has remained neutral..
“It feels like the campaign has been reduced to little more than bickering with the Trump camp,” said Mike Davis, a conservative lawyer with a large social media following. He said the campaign had reached out to him about being a surrogate, but he declined and has since been turned off by its aggressive tactics online.…
(Read the whole article: lesson,Pride cometh before the Fall
https://revolver.news/2023/10/desantis-horrible-online-strategy-cost-him-his-largest-donor/