It’s All About the Money

After more than a year on Twitter as a strong Bernie Sanders and later, Green Party supporter, I’ve observed a few Twitter trends that seem almost beyond belief. Recently, Twitter has been shadowbanning and blocking socialists, democratic socialists, progressives, and critics of traditional media. They are allowing and even promoting activity like this to continue unchecked:

The “Correct the Record” trolls seen during the 2016 election morphed into “ShareBlue” trolls. As if this wasn’t bad enough, it seems as though some must be paid to imitate diehard Trump supporters; there’s no way real Trump supporters would be that bad. All of these social media “marketing” accounts use language that’s suspiciously similar to their CTR/David Brock brothers and sisters.

You can count on a few things in common with these accounts:

They won’t have a real picture of a human being: it will be some type of archetypal image.

In this case: a garden gnome and a holiday “snowflake” ornament.

Durga Kate is an Indian (as in “India” the country) name. If somebody else knows more, message me …

The account always has very few followers, with a few rare exceptions of “King” trolls. When accounts date back longer than a year and have very few tweets, it’s easy to suspect they are inactive Twitter accounts hijacked from their original owners. In this case, an older picture of Patty Quinn shows a pleasant-looking young woman.

Now, Patty has become a birthday card dog with human teeth.

These accounts don’t just tweet out anti-Trump material or feign extreme anti-female, anti-POC, anti-Bernie Sanders pro-Trump nonsense, they are assigned to various celebrity or political accounts to “protect” them against any questioning.

This is not a real Trump supporter: it’s someone assigned to pretend to be the worst possible example.

Where do they come from? Some inactive accounts are hacked and sold for as little as $5.00 and repurposed in this manner.

For a really good “Aged” account dating to 2008 — $8!

The trolls are joined by fake followers. I and many others have already written about the large number of fake Twitter followers that a number of politicians, including Hillary Clinton, have.

On another Twitter follower service, Clinton went from mostly fake to over 95% “real” with millions of new followers (kind of like “Guidestar Gives Clinton Foundation 5*Platinum Rating Best of All!”)

Actual marketing consultants say that buying Twitter followers is pointless; any real brand consultant would be appalled if they saw that the brand ambassadors for Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and many other corporate Democrats are foul-mouthed, abusive trolls with obviously fake accounts.

So, this is absolutely true. How is it that accounts most people would take to be actual obnoxious Trump supporter accounts are likely false-flag ones made to keep Trump supporters and progressives from talking to each other?

In addition to profile pictures depicting Brazilian soccer fans, they use the old HRC primary slimes against Bernie over and over again.

So, why are these people being paid to do these things? It runs counter to any marketing or community-building advice imaginable.

The answer is clear. They don’t want people to communicate. They want people to be isolated, fearful, or simply disgusted with social media and politics, in the exact same manner as an abusive partner wants to isolate, demoralize and control the person they falsely say they love.

The language and approach is so familiar to anyone who has ever been in an abusive relationship. This is the modern Democratic Party and its associates, from David Brock and Peter Daou to more silent funders including billionaires most people have never heard of, like Slimfast owner S. Daniel Abraham. Most of the money for these efforts comes from behind-the-scenes billionaires, including many foreign magnates and companies (China, Saudi Arabia, EU, Israel). Yet as the heading image for this article shows, $3 donors acting out of fear are also welcomed with open arms: until they open their mouths or ask for something simple, like single-payer healthcare or jobs.

Just like the home-based abuser, the group makes beautiful promises to draw people in: promises that are never kept. Their abuse escalates if they suspect the person under their control is going to leave, or is gaining some type of outside support.