{"id":90825,"date":"2016-03-22T16:05:53","date_gmt":"2016-03-23T00:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=90825"},"modified":"2023-09-04T17:33:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T01:33:58","slug":"donald-trumps-social-media-followers-include-many-white-advocates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=90825","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump&#8217;s Social Media Followers Include Many White Advocates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Somebody who cares about white people is no more a white supremacist than a Tibetan who cares about Tibetans is a Tibetan supremacist.<\/p>\n<p>Hurling slurs is easy, but it reveals you don&#8217;t have an argument. There are only two honorable forms of argument &#8212; disputing facts and disputing theory. That&#8217;s it.<\/p>\n<p><A HREF=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/donald-trump-white-supremacist-genocide\/\">From Fortune magazine<\/a>: In late January, Donald Trump did something that would have sunk almost any other presidential campaign: He retweeted an anonymous Nazi sympathizer and white supremacist who goes by the not-so-subtle handle <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/whitegenocidetm\">@WhiteGenocideTM<\/a>. Trump neither explained nor apologized for the retweet and then, three weeks later, he did it again. This subsequent retweet was quickly deleted, but just two days later Trump retweeted a different user named <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/EustaceFash\">@EustaceFash<\/a>, whose Twitter header image at the time also included the term \u201cwhite genocide.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>None of this went unnoticed among ardent racists, many of whom believe there is a coordinated effort to eventually eliminate the \u201cwhite race.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump is \u201cgiving us the old wink-wink,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailystormer.com\/happening-trump-retweets-two-more-white-genocide-accounts-back-to-back\/\">wrote<\/a> Andrew Anglin, editor of a white supremacist website called <em>The Daily Stormer<\/em>, after Trump retweeted two other &#8220;white genocide&#8221; theorists within a single minute. \u201cWhereas the odd White genocide tweet could be a random occurrence, it isn\u2019t statistically possible that two of them back to back could be a random occurrence. It could only be deliberate\u2026Today in America the air is cold and it tastes like victory.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is possible that Trump \u2015 who, according to the campaign, does almost all of his own tweeting \u2015 is unfamiliar with the term &#8220;white genocide&#8221; and doesn&#8217;t do even basic vetting of those whose tweets he amplifies to his seven million followers. But the reality is that there are dozens of tweets mentioning @realDonaldTrump each minute, and he has an uncanny ability to surface ones that come from accounts that proudly proclaim their white supremacist leanings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The retweets are based solely on the content, not the personal views of those individuals as they are not vetted, known or of interest to the candidate or the campaign,&#8221; says Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who declined to explain how Trump searches through his Twitter feed. Hicks also declined (repeatedly) to answer <em>Fortune<\/em>&#8216;s question as to whether or not Trump believes that white genocide is a legitimate concern.<\/p>\n<p>Countless numbers of people mention #WhiteGenocide <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?f=tweets&amp;vertical=default&amp;q=%23WhiteGenocide&amp;src=typd\">each day<\/a> on Twitter, but <em>Fortune<\/em> used social media analytics software from Little Bird to find those who are considered to be the most prominent. In the world of social media marketing, such people are called &#8220;influencers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our technology builds a big network of hundreds or thousands of specialists in a particular field or people who used a particular hashtag, and then analyzes the connections between the people in that network,&#8221; explains <a href=\"http:\/\/getlittlebird.com\/\">Little Bird<\/a> co-founder and chairman Marshall Kirkpatrick. &#8220;We then find the person or people in that group that are most followed by others in the same group. It&#8217;s kind of like a &#8216;9-out-of-10 dentists recommend&#8217; model rather than measuring people by the absolute popularity. We view it as earned influence within a specific context.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Little Bird software analyzed Twitter content to generate a ranked list of just under 2,000 #WhiteGenocide &#8220;influencers&#8221; as of February 8. The more impactful, the higher up on the list (which, understandably, ebbs and flows a bit over time).<\/p>\n<p>Since the start of his campaign, Donald Trump has retweeted at least 75 users who follow at least three of the top 50 #WhiteGenocide influencers. Moreover, a majority of these retweeted accounts are themselves followed by more than 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers.<\/p>\n<p>But the relationship isn\u2019t limited to retweets. For example, Trump national campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson (who is black), follows the most influential #WhiteGenocide account, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/genophilia\">@Genophilia<\/a>, which is best known for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vox.com\/2015\/10\/19\/9571309\/star-wars-boycott\">helping to launch<\/a> a Star Wars boycott after it became known that the new film&#8217;s lead character was black. (Below are some recent #WhiteGenocide tweets from @Genophilia.)<\/p>\n<p>Pierson also follows #WhiteGenocide influencer @Trumphat, who has <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TrumpHat\/status\/692446694701711360\">tweeted<\/a> that he looks forward to seeing people &#8220;swing from lampposts&#8221; on the #DOTR, which stands for Day of the Rope \u2015 a seminal event in the racist <em>Turner Diaries<\/em> novels that inspired Timothy McVeigh.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Pierson has company within Trump&#8217;s campaign:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The official Twitter account for Trump\u2019s campaign in Nevada follows #WhiteGenocide influencers #3 and #40.<\/li>\n<li>The official Twitter account for Trump\u2019s campaign in North Carolina previously followed #20, #74 and #77.<\/li>\n<li>Tana Goertz, a senior Trump advisor and co-chair of his Iowa campaign, follows #74 and #117.<\/li>\n<li>Nancy Mace, Trump\u2019s South Carolina coalitions director, follows #20 and #35.<\/li>\n<li>Elizabeth Mae Davidson, a former campaign staffer who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/01\/us\/politics\/trump-field-organizer-accuses-campaign-of-sex-discrimination.html\">later sued Trump\u2019s campaign<\/a> for alleged sexual discrimination, follows #40.<\/li>\n<li>Dena Espenscheid, Trump\u2019s Virginia field director, follows #5, #22 and #35.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That last example is notable, because <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bidenshairplugs\">one of those followed accounts<\/a> refers to itself as AdolfJoeBiden and has a profile image of Joe Biden with Hitler&#8217;s mustache and haircut &#8212; something that would have been visible to Espenscheid were she to have followed the account while using almost any device.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\n<blockquote class='twitter-tweet tw-align-center' lang='en'>\n<p>Bill O&#039;Reilly is one step away from mentioning <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23WhiteGenocide\" title=\"#WhiteGenocide\">#WhiteGenocide<\/a>. He finally gets the purpose of immigration.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; <br \/>AdolfJoeBiden&#8482; (@Bidenshairplugs) <a href='http:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/Bidenshairplugs\/status\/671903499123314688' data-datetime='2015-12-02T04:07:32+00:00'>December 02, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\">Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks declined to discuss the Twitter follows of campaign staff or accounts, saying she doesn&#8217;t speak for them. Pierson did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Several grassroots organizations campaigning for Trump also follow #WhiteGenocide influencers. The most notable example may be Students for Trump, a national organization whose top two student leaders have <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TrumpStudents\/status\/696463541960839170\">met personally<\/a> with Trump. Its main Twitter account (<a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/TrumpStudents\">@TrumpStudents<\/a>) follows nine of the top 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers, plus users like <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/WhiteAmericaKKK\">@WhiteAmericaKKK.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Even the Twitter account for <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/usafreedomkids\">@USAFreedomKids<\/a>, the young girls whose performance for Trump in Florida became a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KT2oAYGkB3c\">viral sensation<\/a>, follows 13 of the top 100 #WhiteGenocide influencers, plus another account that promotes a pro-Hitler documentary called <em>The Greatest Story Never Told<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fortune<\/em> also used Little Bird software to analyze the top 50 influencers of the Trump campaign slogan #MakeAmericaGreatAgain,<b> <\/b>and found that 43 of them each follow at least 100 members of the #WhiteGenocide network.<\/p>\n<p>Trump himself follows just 42 total Twitter accounts, none of which are #WhiteGenocide influencers. But a whopping 67.5% of the #WhiteGenocide influencers do follow <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/realdonaldtrump\">@realDonaldTrump<\/a> (as of March 15), while another 24.1% follow Trump campaign social media director <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/danscavino\">@DanScavino<\/a>. This compares to just 17.7% that follow <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/tedcruz\">@tedcruz<\/a>, 5.7% that follow <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/hillaryclinton\">@HillaryClinton<\/a>, 4% that follow <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/berniesanders\">@BernieSander<\/a>s and 2% that follow <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/johnkasich\">@JohnKasich<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe id=\"fortune-iframe-embed-5d355f483d77afff316d4dc167be58cbdb0ada49\" class=\"responsive-iframe\" src=\"\/\/datawrapper.dwcdn.net\/qaWBk\/2\/?iframe_id=fortune-iframe-embed-5d355f483d77afff316d4dc167be58cbdb0ada49\" width=\"100%\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somebody who cares about white people is no more a white supremacist than a Tibetan who cares about Tibetans is a Tibetan supremacist. Hurling slurs is easy, but it reveals you don&#8217;t have an argument. There are only two honorable &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=90825\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29752],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90825"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151028,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90825\/revisions\/151028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}