“As Long As They Spell My Name Right”

A meme posted by the Texas GOP on Friday provoked anger from the left, giddiness from the right, and became a top trending Twitter post that day.

Experts on internet propaganda and misinformation say that's exactly what it was intended to do. https://t.co/M8HrWQgYU5

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) January 10, 2022

Except politics isn’t marketing. And Twitter ain’t the world.

Arguably, this, too, was “rage farming” (the newest way of explaining negative campaigning), in 2018:

I got this flyer in the mail.  It was meant to arouse opposition to Democratic candidates for district courts (highest level of trial court) in Harris County, arguably more effectively than Twitter, because it came to my mail box.  I didn't have to go looking for it.  The entire slate of Democractic Black women candidates won that year, sweeping every judgeship on the ballot.  I'm sure this, too, was meant to engrage and engage, to divide and conquer.  Didn't work, though.  If anything, I think it ensured a Democratic victory.

Of course, Harris County is not the country.  But political success is not about the news spelling you rname right.  It's not about all publicity is good publicity.   Nor is is just about "owning the libs."

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson urged large businesses in the state not to comply with the Biden administration's Covid-19 vaccine mandate, saying employers should not follow the "oppressive" rule hours before the order is set to partially go into effect.

"They should wait until they get the Supreme Court decision, and of course that's an individual business decision," Hutchinson, a Republican, told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday when asked if large businesses should comply with the rule, which his state and others are challenging before the nation's highest court.

"This mandate of (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), the federal government, needs to be struck down and that's why we're fighting against it," he added. "I expect the Supreme Court hopefully to rule against the Biden administration on that oppressive vaccine mandate."

Because public health must bow to "freedumb" and to state's rights principles. 

Hutchinson said Sunday that some businesses in the state will "make the decision that they ought to have a vaccine requirement in the workplace, and I support their ability to make that decision.

Because public health is important?  No, because the business of American business is business:

"There shouldn't be a ban against that, but others make the decision that it's not necessary. Maybe they work in a more open environment, or they have a risk of losing too many employees. And so they have that freedom," the governor said.

Which means business also has the freedom to infect the general public, because freedumb.  And it's money that matters.  Besides, if too many employees who've drunk the GOP kool-aid that vaccines will make them sterile, or implant microchips, or they should get covid in order to be immune from...covid, should business suffer because of that? 

Nah, let the public suffer.  How much money do they contribute, after all?

Starting to think all of these guys are having a secret competition to see who can get the rubes to do the craziest things. https://t.co/aNUytfNoF6

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 10, 2022

Freedom, right Gov. Hutchison? Besides, when you speak of freedom and covid, there's always the "Fuck 'em, I'm not dead!" crowd:

Hot takes are a renewable resource pic.twitter.com/hskBNs71gC

— CeaseAndDeceaseHat (@Popehat) January 10, 2022

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick started that conversation. Maybe the Texas GOP wants to "anger farm" that one next.