Thursday, May 6, 2021

Brad Parscale working with Caitlyn Jenner updates the Trump Campaign's 'Death Star' for the Revenge of the Sixth on Throwback Thursday


Beware the Revenge of the Sixth, the dark side of Star Wars Day! For today's celebration, I'm revisiting Brad Parscale calling the Trump digital campaign the "Death Star" in a tweet, the most active link from this blog on Twitter during Crazy Eddie's Motie News during its tenth year. Think of it as a serious Star Wars political self-parody.

I'll cover the blog's year on Twitter over the jump. First, I'm sharing Inside Edition's Caitlyn Jenner Will Run for Governor of California.

Caitlyn Jenner has announced that she’s running for governor of California. The reality star and former Olympian kick started her first bid for public office on social media, tweeting, “I’m in,” with a link to her campaign website. She’s assembling a high-powered campaign team including Brad Parscale, who was Donald Trump’s campaign manager until he was arrested last year. Jenner is running against current governor Gavin Newsome, who is facing a recall because of his handling of the pandemic.
It looks like I'll be blogging about Newsome's recall election, a consequence of how he handled the pandemic, from today until November 2nd. It also looks like Inside Edition, not the hardest news source, compressed two events in Parscale's timeline, Parscale's demotion from campaign manager and his arrest, and likely reversed cause and effect. CNN reported on both, beginning with Brad Parscale out as President Trump's campaign manage on July 15, 2020.

President Donald Trump shook up his campaign leadership announcing he was promoting Bill Stepien to be his campaign manager and demoting Brad Parscale, who had been serving in that role.
There is no mention of any arrest, which came more than two months later on September 28, 2020. Watch CNN's Video showing Trump's former campaign manager arrested by police.

Fort Lauderdale Police released segments of bodycam video showing officers handcuffing former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. It is not clear what occurred in the moments not shown in the edited three-minute compilation provided by FLPD.
CNN did not speculate on what prompted Parscale's meltdown, but People summarized a Fox News interview of him and a statement he and his wife made to Politico in which he explained what happened.
Brad told MacCallum in his interview Tuesday that he and his wife "went through a very stressful time" in recent years, amid the back-to-back presidential campaigns.

He said he and Candice "lost two children during the election," suggesting she miscarried, and he said he had deteriorated over time.

“We were completely attacked by the left, the right, the media. And I got to a bad place. My wife was worried about me, and she helped," Brad said. "And she was there every day, by my side, and I love her for it.”
...
He resigned shortly after the incident, having been demoted from his role as captain of the campaign earlier in the summer.

“I am stepping away from my company and any role in the campaign for the immediate future,” Brad said in his Sept. 30 statement to Politico, adding that he intended “to focus on my family and get help dealing with the overwhelming stress.”
The stress of the campaign got to him causing him to leave the campaign. I think that's true as far as it goes, but blaming the media and opposition doesn't tell the whole story. For that, read Amanda Marcotte's article Death Star blows itself up: Trump ran his campaign finances like his businesses — into the ground in Salon.
Life rarely plays out like a children's sci-fi movie, but I am happy to say that the people who made Death Star jokes turned out to be right. The Trump campaign's Death Star had its own version of the ray-shielded particle exhaust vent that allowed the Rebel Alliance to fly directly into its reactor core to blow up the entire apparatus: The greed and incompetence that defines Trump and everyone around him.

On Monday night, the New York Times published an article so satisfying that it felt almost pornographic, about how the Trump campaign has burned through most of that Death Star cash, with little to show for it — except, of course, when it comes to the bank accounts of the Trump family and their ancillary leeches.

It appears much of the problem was the way that Trump himself, along with Parscale, the Trump's family and other associates, treated the campaign as a personal piggybank. Trump paid his family's enormous legal bills with campaign cash. Money was routinely spent to fluff Trump's ego, as with the reported $11 million spent on Super Bowl ads. Nearly a third of the cash was routed through "a single limited liability company linked to Trump campaign officials." The partners of Trump's two sons are literally on the payroll. Trump's own incompetence is also a factor, leading to massive losses as he impulsively switched the Republican convention from Charlotte to Jacksonville to and then, effectively, to Washington. And the campaign spent far more money on fundraising than is typical, suggesting that Parscale was more interested in bragging about his Death Star than making it run efficiently.

Say what you will about Darth Vader, but at least he didn't destroy the Empire by greedily sucking all its resources dry so nothing was left to fight the rebels.
LOL, Darth Trump and Moff Brad did it to themselves. Jenner better hope she doesn't allow that to happen to her campaign although I wouldn't mind if it did, just as long as Parscale doesn't harm himself or pose a physical threat to others. Once was enough.

Follow over the jump for a retrospective about the highlights of Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Twitter.

First, I present the top tweets of links from the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.


I begin by being a good environmentalist and recycling from The Capitol Police Inspector General's report on the preparation for January 6 riot updates Election 2020 and its aftermath for Throwback Thursday.
Brad Parscale calls the Trump digital campaign the 'Death Star' in a tweet from May 7, 2020 and tweeted December 3, 2020 was the second most active link from this blog on Twitter and the most active of an entry posted this year, earning 3,095 impressions and 29 total engagements, including 11 link clicks, 9 profile clicks, 5 likes, and 4 detail expands.
While the tweet ranked second overall in most stats, it was first overall in profile clicks. It got my account a lot of attention.

The second most active tweet of one of last year's posts and the sixth most active overall was 'California wildfires illustrate the consequences of climate change' - PBS NewsHour from September 8, 2020 and tweeted September 10, 2020. It earned 1,306 impressions and 10 total engagements, including 4 link clicks, 4 detail expands, 2 profile clicks, 2 retweets, and 1 like. I might reuse this for a bonus retrospective next week about climate change.

I'm recycling from The Capitol Police Inspector General's report on the preparation for January 6 riot updates Election 2020 and its aftermath for Throwback Thursday for the third and fourth most viewed tweets of one of last year's links.

Leslie Stahl interviews Nancy Pelosi on '60 Minutes' after the siege of the Capitol from January 11, 2021 and retweeted the same day earned 1,258 impressions and 2 total engagements, including 1 like and 1 profile click ranked as the tenth most active tweet of a link from the blog during its tenth year and the third most active from the posting year just ended.
This was actually the ninth (not tenth) overall. Oops. Also, for as many impressions as it got, it didn't get a lot of engagements.
The giant impeach lands on Trump again as Colbert, Meyers, Kimmel, Fallon, and Bee take closer looks from January 14, 2021 and retweeted January 24, 2021...earned 1,158 impressions to rank 11th and 11 total engagements, including 4 likes, 4 profile clicks, 1 reply in 1 thread, 1 retweet, and 1 hashtag click, to rank 10th.
In addition to being the fourth most viewed tweet of one of last year's posts, it was actually the eleventh most viewed overall.

I'm recycling from Seth Meyers and Vox take closer looks at D.C. statehood for Flashback Friday for the fifth most viewed tweet of one of the previous blogging year's posts and the twelfth most viewed overall.

Since Seth and his writers made MTG a major subject of his monologue, I'm mentioning Meyers, Noah, Colbert, and Kimmel take closer looks at Marjorie Taylor Greene being removed from committee assignments from February 5, 2021, tweeted the same day and retweeted February 6, 2021. The link I tweeted earned 1,015 impressions and 3 total engagements on Twitter, including 2 hashtag clicks and 1 like. My friend Kevin G's tweet of the link that I retweeted had 20 engagements, including 1 like, one retweet, and 2 replies in 1 thread to be the top mention during February 2021 and top mention with a link to one of my posts. Combined, it was the twelfth most read tweet with a link to this blog overall and the fifth most read of any post from the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.
Now for some specialized firsts among my tweets.

Company Man describes the decline of GNC, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse and pandemic from July 13, 2020 had 7 engagements, including 5 hashtag clicks, the most for July 2020 and the tenth year of the blog both of an entry from that year and overall, along with 1 like and 1 link click on 97 impressions.

SNL at Home on last week's coronavirus news had 199 impressions and 8 engagements, including 3 detail expands, 2 likes, 2 link clicks, and 9 replies in 1 thread, the most replies during April 2020 and the tenth year of the blog. It also tied the most replies in one thread overall.

Colbert, Kimmel, and Corden react to Trump's speech last night with derision and outrage plus a bonus Closer Look from November 6, 2020 had the highest engagement rate of any of my tweets during November 2020 featuring a link from the tenth year of this blog at 41.2% with 7 engagements on 17 impressions, including 3 detail expands, 3 replies in 2 threads, the most threads of any tweet with a link from the tenth year of the blog, and 2 likes.

I conclude with the top tweets of links from the back catalog.

Projection is the Right's favorite defense mechanism from August 5, 2012 and tweeted December 3, 2020 was the most active link on Twitter last year overall. It earned 8,118 impressions and 95 total engagements, including 43 likes, 35 link clicks, 7 detail expands, 5 retweets, 3 hashtag clicks, and 2 profile clicks. It had the most impressions, engagements, likes, link clicks, and retweets and tied for most detail expands overall.


Now for a tweet I covered in Broken Peach celebrating Halloween updates holidays for the tenth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News for Flashback Friday about Broken Peach: Singing Spanish goths and witches for Halloween from October 28, 2017 and tweeted September 24, 2020.
It's no surprise that search related to Halloween drives traffic to this post. The above graph shows this with page views beginning to increase during August, peaking in October, and declining to background through November, December, and January. I assisted this by tweeting out the link during September and October on Throwback Thursdays and Flashback Fridays. One tweet in particular had a lot of traction during this time. During September 2020, it ranked third in impressions with 567 and tied for second in engagements with 12, including six link clicks, the most link clicks for the month, two detail expands, one reply in one thread, one retweet by Broken Peach itself — thanks from one of your fans! — one like, and one hashtag click. This tweet continued to attract impressions and engagements during October 2020, as it had the most Twitter impressions of any tweet of mine that month with 1801 for a total of 2189 impressions over two months and most engagements with 13 for a total of 25 engagements. The 13 engagements during October included five detail expands for a total of seven, the most detail expands during October, seven link clicks for a total of thirteen, the most during October and one profile visit.
The tweet continued to gain readers, as it had 2,264 impressions by March 20, 2021, enough for it to be the third most viewed overall during the tenth year of this blog.

I'm recycling from The Capitol Police Inspector General's report on the preparation for January 6 riot updates Election 2020 and its aftermath for Throwback Thursday for the fourth most viewed tweet overall.

Kamala Harris heading home came as a complete surprise from December 4, 2019 and tweeted April 12, 2020 had 1,735 impressions and 48 total engagements, including 28 media engagements, 15 link clicks, 3 detail expands, 1 like, and 1 profile click, to rank as the fourth most active link from the blog tweeted out this year.
It was number one in media engagements and second in total engagements overall last year.

Pizza Man Cain wants a third party for conservatives, never mind three already exist from November 11, 2012 and tweeted December 17, 2020 earned 1,495 impressions to rank fifth in viewers and had 7 total engagements, including 2 detail expands, 1 reply in 1 thread, 1 retweet, 1 link click, 1 hashtag click and 1 profile click.

'Hillary's America' outstinks 'Batman v Superman' for Worst Picture of 2016 from February 27, 2017 and tweeted August 8, 2020 earned 1,293 impressions to rank seventh and had 8 total engagements, including 6 link clicks, 1 like, and 1 detail expand.

The eighth most read entry overall last year was Nebris and I have a conversation from December 15, 2011 and tweeted November 6, 2020. It earned 1,282 impressions and 16 total engagements, including 6 detail expands, 5 link clicks, 3 likes, 2 replies in 1 thread, and 1 retweet.

The real tenth most viewed tweet overall was Bye, Bye, Bernie! from July 13, 2016 and tweeted April 8, 2020. It had 1,209 impressions and 9 total engagements, including 4 profile clicks, 2 link clicks, 2 hashtag clicks, and 1 detail expand.

Happy Bastille Day! from July 15, 2011 and had the fourth most impressions on a single tweet during July 2020 with 376 and 5 total engagements, including 3 detail expands, 1 reply thread with 9 responses, tied for most replies overall last year, and 1 like.

The Archdruid on Fascism, part 2 from June 16, 201 had 5 engagements, 6 replies in 2 threads, the most during August 2020 and earned the tiebreaker for most threads overall, 2 link clicks, and 1 like, on 27 impressions for an 18.5% engagement rate.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day! from November 5, 2014 had 8 engagements, including 7 detail expands, the most during November 2020 and tied for most overall, and 7 replies in 1 thread, the most during November 2020, on 83 impressions.

Leaving California from August 22, 2014 had 3 engagements, including 1 like, 1 link click, and 1 reply in 1 thread, on 6 impressions for a 50.0% engagement rate, the highest during January 2021 and overall last year.

That's it for the tenth year of this blog on Twitter. If I can manage it, I'll post another Saturn Awards entry and a Flashback Friday about the year on Pinterest tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Previous posts in this series Previous retrospectives about Twitter Previous retrospectives about the back catalog.
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