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POLITICS The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Friday, February 21,2020 9A Infighting and online hoaxes mar Democrats’ campaigns MATT YORK I Associated Press From left, Democratic presidential candidates, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Bernie Sanders, l-Vt., former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., stand on stage before a Democratic presidential primary debate Wednesday, Feb. 19, in Las Vegas, hosted by NBC News and MSNBC. BY DAVID KLEPPER AND AMANDA SEITZ Associated Press RINDGE, N.H. — A group of Los Angeles artists were awaiting the results of the Democratic Party’s Iowa caucuses, hoping Bernie Sanders would win, when they fired off a hashtag on Twitter poking fun at Pete Buttigieg. By the next morning, the hashtag — #MayorCheat — was trending worldwide. “That’s so funny that we’re the first people to make this joke,” said Nick Thorburn, a 38-year-old musician. Not everyone was laughing. Some on social media capitalized on the trending hashtag to spread misin formation or conspiracy theories about Buttigieg, including claims that he had colluded with the Democratic Party to rig the caucuses. Other accounts accused Russian trolls of promoting the hashtag to divide Democrats. Yet it wasn’t the work of Russian trolls, or even Republican pranksters. The inaccurate insults were traded online among fellow Democrats. And it’s the type of left-wing misinforma tion that, combined with a prolonged primary contest, has some worried about the party’s ability to unite ahead of November. “I hope people, if their candidate doesn’t get the nomination, can still support whoever does,” said Gary Klar, a retired school teacher from Hancock, N.H. who supports Joe Biden but said he will vote for whoever wins the party’s nomination. “We don’t want sour grapes.” As the tight race moves on to Nevada and South Carolina, the online misin formation has not died down. Unsup ported claims making the rounds in recent days include assertions that one Democratic candidate has a history of heart attacks and that another killed dogs as a child. Propagating an online smear against a rival requires only coining a snappy hashtag, creating a satirical meme or simply stating the threads of a con spiracy theory. Those tactics are the new normal in political campaign ing, explained Susan Etlinger, an industry analyst for Altimeter, which researches and advises on disruptive technologies. “Anybody with an agenda, a little bit of a budget and some time can fig ure out a way to troll, to create a bot or to use cheap fakes,” said Etlinger, referring to automated accounts and manipulated images. “We’re entering this phase now that we have to take for a given that for any election... there’s a potential for a lot of misinformation.” The Democratic infighting echoes 2016, when supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders accused the Demo cratic Party of favoring the eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton. Many Sand ers supporters were suspicious of party insiders and news outlets that they believed unfairly boosted Clinton, said Pat Cote, a Sanders supporter. Cote said he now tweets several times a day about Sanders, his rivals or the election. Earlier this week, he tweeted to his 33,300 followers that the upcoming Nevada caucus is “going to be a disas ter and nothing is being done to stop it. The only explanation is that this is done by design.” Cote said social media has emerged as a key way for Sanders supporters to organize and push back against what they see as an unfriendly establishment. “If you don’t win Twitter you’re not going to win the election,” he said. Blaming Sanders’ supporters for online misinformation or abuse is unfair, Cote said. “Every campaign has toxic supporters.” In the days that followed the Iowa caucuses, as the results remained in limbo, some progressive Twitter users claimed Buttigieg’s campaign had developed the failed app that was used to count the votes in Iowa. (It didn’t.) Others began posting images of rats that mentioned Buttigieg. Republicans also got in on the action, promoting the idea that the Iowa results were tainted for the Democrats. Shortly after the Iowa Democratic Party announced it was reviewing results for “quality control,” Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted: “Quality control = rigged?” Since then, the online tenor of the race has become a campaign talking point. During Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Nevada, Sen. Elizabeth War ren was asked whether such attacks from Sanders’ supporters might make it difficult to unite the party. War ren last month found herself on the receiving end of online attacks when accounts claiming to support Sanders flooded Twitter with the snake emo- jis and the terms #NeverWarren and #WarrenIsASnake, after she claimed that Sanders had told her privately in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency. “Look, I have said many times before, we are all responsible for our supporters,” Warren said in response. “And we need to step up. That’s what leadership is all about.” RICK BOWMER I Associated Press Democratic presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaks during a campaign event, Thursday, Feb. 20, in Salt Lake City. Bloomberg will keep fighting BY STEVE PEOPLES AND LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY — His aura suddenly shattered, a defiant Michael Bloomberg sent a pointed message Thurs day to a political world grappling with his underwhelming presidential debate debut: He’s not going away. The New York ultra-billionaire lashed out at leading Democratic rival Bernie Sanders and President Donald Trump, addressing voters face to face in the Super Tuesday state of Utah. That was just hours after struggling to answer dangerous yet predictable questions about his record on race, gender and wealth during a nationally televised beat- down that rattled would-be supporters and thrilled critics in both parties. Bloomberg didn’t go easy in his own review of the Las Vegas debate: “How was your night last night? Look, the real winner in the debate last night was Donald Trump,” Bloomberg told a crowd of several hundred in Utah’s largest city. But then he added: “He thinks I’m going to go away. Wrong, Donald.” Though never onstage with his rivals before Wednesday night, the former New York mayor has built support in national polls though huge expenditures on polished tele vision ads. He released a campaign finance report Thurs day that reminded rivals in both parties of his indisputable advantage in the 2020 contest: Money. Specifically, the man worth an estimated $60 billion reported spending $409 million through the first nine weeks of his presidential campaign, including $220 million last month alone. Still, there were signs that his debate performance shook the confidence of would-be supporters who, just 24 hours earlier, believed Bloomberg might be the ideal candidate for the Democratic Party’s anxious establishment to rally behind. Instead, a new reality began to settle in, at least among some prominent donors and political operatives, who acknowledged a stark divide between the strength of Bloomberg-the-brand and Bloomberg-the-candidate. “I’ve never seen a billionaire get disemboweled before, but good God, that was bad,” said Boyd Brown, a South Carolina-based Democratic strategist who was considering backing Bloomberg earlier in the week. “I don’t see how he bounces back from that.” VOTE NOW THROUGH THE 24TH VOTING FOR OUR TEACHER OF THE MONTH CONTEST IS NOW OPEN. Be sure to give a shout-out to your favorite teacher. You can vote once per day. The selected teacher will receive a plaque and $200 in school supplies. Winner will be recognized in The Times. VOTE TODAY AT WWW.CAINESVILLETIMES.COM/TEACHER HUNTING-FISHING CAMPING-HIKING-BIKING Saturday, March 14th 10am - 5pm Gainesville Civic Center 830 Green St NE, Gainesville, GA 30501 For more information, please contact Leah Nelson at lnelson@gainesvilletimes.com 770-535-6330 PRESENTED BY dhc dimes gainesvilletimes.com n j
