Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

President Trump’s Home Run Derby

Wednesday, February 5th, 2020

The reviews are in for President Donald Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address. Observers seem to think he put on a home run clinic:

Erickson was formerly #NeverTrump.

There were many touching moments. Like the runiting of a military family following the husband’s fourth overseas deployment:

One especially powerful moment: President Trump bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Rush Limbaugh, who recently announced that he has advanced lung cancer:

Of course, Democrats have long hated Limbaugh for break their MSM monopoly on news.

Meanwhile, Democrats seemed unwilling to celebrate anything. Young black girl winning a scholarship? They’re not standing for that.

President Trump’s recognition of a Tuskegee Airman? Not standing.

I mean, why would you want to celebrate a 100-year old black airman just promoted to Brigadier General who flew a P-51 Mustang in World War II and who shot down actual Nazis, not the pretend kind that live only in the mind’s of leftists?

Jesus Freaking Christ.

The Qassem Suleimani killing? They didn’t stand for that, either.

Heh:

The topper? Nancy Pelosi ripped up a copy of President Trump’s speech at the end:

Democrats have lived so long in the poisonous #resistance reality bubble that they have no idea how badly their petty stunts play in the rest of the country.

I suspect they’re going to find out in November, good and hard.

The Twitter Primary for January 2020

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020

As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

Five months ago I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update.

The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

  1. Bernie Sanders: 10,387,974 (up 250,595)
  2. Joe Biden: 4,136,560 (up 91,552)
  3. Elizabeth Warren: 3,656,031 (up 82,196)
  4. Michael Bloomberg: 2,400,724 (up 36,373)
  5. Pete Buttigieg: 1,600,953 (up 28,982)
  6. Andrew Yang: 1,207,702 (up 83,546)
  7. Amy Klobuchar: 876,409 (up 37,138)
  8. Tulsi Gabbard: 774,170 (up 10,490)
  9. Tom Steyer: 278,793 (up 25,326)
  10. Deval Patrick: 53,931 (up 1,412)
  11. Michael Bennet: 44,611 (up 1,799)
  12. John Delaney: 38,213 (up 198)

Removed from the last update: Cory Booker, Marianne Williamson, Julian Castro

For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 71,730,827 followers, up an astounding 3,691,379 since the last roundup, so not only has Trump gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined, the impeachment farce seems to have tripled the number of followers he usually gains. To put it another way, Trump gained more followers in a month than Warren has total followers. The official presidential @POTUS account has 27,975,624 followers, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

A few notes:

  • Bernie is having a great month. In addition to now topping polls, he gained as many Twitter followers as his next three Democratic rival gainers (Biden, Yang and Warren) combined.
  • Biden’s follower gain rate picked up only slightly, but he moved into second because Cory Booker dropped out.
  • I expected Warren’s follower gains to tail off with the rest of her campaign, but it actually picked up a tick.
  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • Bloomberg and Steyer’s upticks are also picking up slightly.
  • Given her previous rate of follower addition, for Klobuchar, endorsements from both the New York Times and the Des Moines Register have gained her…maybe 12,000 followers.
  • Patrick, Bennet and Delaney are all dead in the water, and Gabbard is barely moving.
  • Weird statistical anomaly: Last month Bennet was up 799 followers. This month, he’s up 1,799 followers.
  • Bluecheck David Leavitt Vs. TargetTori

    Saturday, January 18th, 2020

    Before yesterday I had no idea who David Leavitt is. Indeed, when I first came across the following tweets, I naturally assumed it was some sort of parody account:

    Surely that’s got to be a parody, right? No being with an IQ above a toaster could possibly think they’re the noble one for trying to badger a retail sales worker into giving them a toothbrush based on obvious error, could they?

    Wrong.

    Also, he appears to be a damn liar:

    For the second time this week (the first was #CNNisgarbage), right Twitter and left Twitter have come together to defend #TargetTori and condemn bluecheck David Leavitt for being a horrible human being:

    And now the entire kerfuffle in video form:

    And it goes without saying that he’s a member of #TheResistance, doesn’t it?

    All in all, it’s the biggest Internet self-own since a guy named Adam Smith harassed a random Chick-fil-a worker at a drive-thru. That didn’t go well for him, either…

    Update: Happy ending:

    The Twitter Primary for December 2019

    Tuesday, December 31st, 2019

    As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

    Four months ago I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

    I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update.

    This month, we’ve had our first ever verified decline in Twitter followers for any candidate.

    The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 10,137,379 (up 109,634)
    2. Cory Booker: 4,412,455 (up 10,464)
    3. Joe Biden: 4,045,008 (up 79,827)
    4. Elizabeth Warren: 3,573,835 (up 69,077)
    5. Marianne Williamson: 2,763,144 (down 1,550)
    6. Michael Bloomberg: 2,364,351 (up 20,552)
    7. Pete Buttigieg: 1,571,971 (up 15,095)
    8. Andrew Yang: 1,124,156 (up 78,687)
    9. Amy Klobuchar: 839,271 (up 22,461)
    10. Tulsi Gabbard: 763,680 (up 29,034)
    11. Julian Castro: 454,139 (up 19,337)
    12. Tom Steyer: 253,467 (up 4,146)
    13. Deval Patrick: 52,519 (up 6,510)
    14. Michael Bennet: 42,832 (up 799)
    15. John Delaney: 38,015 (up 564)

    Removed from the last update: Kamala Harris, Steve Bullock, Joe Sestak

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 68,039,448 followers, up 1,008,666 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 27,370,155 followers, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

    A few notes:

  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • The rate for most of the candidates adding followers slowed, which I attribute to the Christmas season.
  • Except Joe Biden, who gained some 30,000 more followers in December than November, bucking the trend.
  • However, Bernie Sanders still gained more overall, even if he gained half as many as he did in November.
  • Also gaining more: Andrew Yang, who gained more followers than Elizabeth Warren.
  • Marianne Williamson records the first verifiable decline in Twitter followers since I started tracking the race.
  • Steyer and Bloomberg are dropping huge amounts into ads, yet their Twitter counts are growing more slowly than Andrew Yang’s.
  • The Twitter Primary for November 2019

    Tuesday, November 26th, 2019

    As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

    Three months ago I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

    I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update.

    The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 10,027,745 (up 229,970)
    2. Cory Booker: 4,401,991 (up 15,451)
    3. Joe Biden: 3,965,181 (up 49,834)
    4. Elizabeth Warren: 3,504,758 (up 79,433)
    5. Kamala Harris: 3,252,966 (up 34,028)
    6. Marianne Williamson: 2,764,694 (up 929)
    7. Michael Bloomberg: 2,343,799 (new)
    8. Pete Buttigieg: 1,556,876 (up 50,422)
    9. Andrew Yang: 1,045,469 (up 62,655)
    10. Amy Klobuchar: 816,810 (up 16,338)
    11. Tulsi Gabbard: 734,646 (up 16,998)
    12. Julian Castro: 434,802 (up 18,464)
    13. Tom Steyer: 249,321 (up 1,606)
    14. Steve Bullock: 188,787 (up 1,280)
    15. Deval Patrick: 51,868 (new)
    16. Michael Bennet: 42,033 (up 1,462)
    17. John Delaney: 37,451 (up 406)
    18. Joe Sestak: 13,543 (up 343)

    Removed from the last update: Beto O’Rourke

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 67,030,782 followers, up 704,954 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 27,163,640 followers, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

    A few notes:

  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • Sanders crushed it this month, adding nearly 230,000 followers; no one else even came close six digit follower gains.
  • Elizabeth Warren gained 237,827 followers last month, but only 79,433 this month. Even though that’s the second biggest gain, it suggests that her campaign may have peaked and that she failed to become the far-left alternative to Sanders.
  • Andrew Yang’s momentum seemed to slow as well, but it was still enough to carry him up over the 1 million mark.
  • Along with Joe Biden, Warren and Yang, Tulsi Gabbard was the only candidate to gain over 100,000 followers last month. That momentum seems to have slowed dramatically, with just under 17,000 new followers for November, which is right in line with what Amy Klobuchar and Julian Castro did. All are below The Andrew Yang Line, and none seem a threat to break into a higher tier anymore.
  • Michael Bloomberg joins the list in seventh place, with 2,343,799 followers, a majority of which I would guess are New York City/business related. Can he gain the 400,000+ followers to overcome the moribund Williamson campaign for sixth place between now and Iowa? I’d bet not.
  • Deval Patrick joins the race with 51,868 Twitter followers, or the sort of numbers garnered by people who drop out of the race, not get in it.
  • No one below Joe Biden is on a trajectory to pass Joe Biden in followers before Iowa.
  • Marianne Williamson’s second straight sub-1,000 gain month shows that the magic is gone and probably isn’t coming back.
  • Steyer still seems to be getting a pretty pathetic return on his Twitter ad buys.
  • There Is No Clown Car, Only Zuul

    Monday, November 18th, 2019

    I’ve successfully managed to post the clown car update every Monday since January, but today is going to break the string thanks to a task that took up several hours on Sunday. But tomorrow should still see a one-day late Clown Car Update, so the weekly streak will continue.

    Instead, enjoy a handful of tweets on more-or-less the same subject:

    The Twitter Primary for October 2019

    Tuesday, October 29th, 2019

    As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

    Two months ago I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

    I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update. Today’s falls on the 29th, while last month’s fell on the 24th, so feel free to adjust accordingly for the five day difference.

    The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 9,798,075 (up 94,034)
    2. Cory Booker: 4,386,540 (up 29,379)
    3. Joe Biden: 3,915,347 (up 167,504)
    4. Elizabeth Warren: 3,425,325 (up 237,827)
    5. Kamala Harris: 3,218,938 (up 89,581)
    6. Marianne Williamson: 2,763,765 (up 416)
    7. Beto O’Rourke: 1,658,964 (up 47,366)
    8. Pete Buttigieg: 1,506,454 (up 63,473)
    9. Andrew Yang: 982,814 (up 104,738)
    10. Amy Klobuchar: 800,472 (up 33,453)
    11. Tulsi Gabbard: 717,648 (up 143,711)
    12. Julian Castro: 416,338 (up 26,976)
    13. Tom Steyer: 247,715 (up 2,640)
    14. Steve Bullock: 187,507 (up 1,745)
    15. Michael Bennet: 40,571 (up 1,094)
    16. John Delaney: 37,045 (up 775)
    17. Joe Sestak: 13,200 (up 262)

    Removed from the last update: Tim Ryan, Wayne Messam

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 66,325,828 followers, up 1,626,646 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 27,008,334 followers, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

    A few notes:

  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • Warren gained the most followers of all the Democratic contenders, 237,827, but she’s not quite on a pace to overtake Biden before Iowa.
  • Biden gained the second most, 167,504, which doesn’t sound that impressive until you realize that he’d only been making mid-five-figure gains in previous Twitter Primary roundups. A six-figure gain is the most momentum we’ve seen from him.
  • Gabbard’s 143,711 gain is the third biggest gain this month. We’re still waiting for that momentum to show up in her polling numbers.
  • Yang was the only other six-figure gainer (though Harris and Sanders were close), and he should break one million followers soon.
  • Marianne Williamson’s mere 416 gain shows her buzz is dead.
  • Steyer still seems to be getting a pretty pathetic return on his Twitter ad buys.
  • Bill Maher Slams White Guilt

    Sunday, September 29th, 2019

    Ignore the usual “white privilege” throat clearing, as Bill Maher takes aim at the risible nature of white liberal guilt:

    “Hating all whites is just tedious virtue signaling.”

    (Hat tip: Jack Posobiec on Twitter.)

    Democrats Get Ready To Throw Br’er Trump In The Brier Patch

    Wednesday, September 25th, 2019

    Can Democrats let President Donald Trump’s constant Twitter jabs at them lure them into throwing him into the brier patch?

    On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) admitted her plans to put a resolution on the House floor Wednesday to investigate President Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal, a process that will likely grow into an impeachment inquiry as Democrat demands for impeachment grow ever more insistent.

    “Confirmed: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planning to put a resolution on the House floor tomorrow to address the Ukraine issue as there are increasing calls by Democrats to start the impeachment process for President Trump,” PBS White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor tweeted.

    In an interview with CNN Monday night, Pelosi declined to say whether or not she would fully endorse an impeachment inquiry, but she suggested a move toward impeachment proceedings was certain. “We will have no choice,” she said.

    The renewed push for impeachment gained steam following reports that President Trump pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter in cooperation with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. On Tuesday, Trump announced he would release the full transcript of the call, during which he reportedly pressured Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden no fewer than eight times.

    Hunter Biden was a board member of Ukrainian firm Burisma Group when Joe Biden served as secretary of State. During his tenure, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

    Yes, a scandal where a sitting Democratic Vice President withheld aid from a foreign country unless they stopped investigating his crooked son’s crooked deals is somehow Trump’s fault. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    The whole thing is transparently yet another “get Trump at any cost” ploy by Democrats.

    It’s ironic that this so-called whistleblower scandal is going to be the thing that kicks off an actual impeachment inquiry, since it looks like just another nothingburger in a long line of nothingburgers:

    The democrats in the House of Representatives are at it again. Is this their third or fourth call for impeachment of the president? Each week it seems media bring us a new sensational story of theft and intrigue, that then very quietly falls by the wayside once the facts emerge.

    This time the controversy centers around business dealings that former Vice President Biden’s son had in the Ukraine. Allegedly, Biden’s son was on the board of a company that bribed Ukrainian officials to end a corruption investigation into it. Democrats now allege that the President threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine should it not reopen the investigation into Biden’s son. The President denies this claim, and intends to release the transcript of the phone call in question. Currently Speaker Pelosi and her cohorts are planning impeachment, before any real evidence of misconduct has come to light.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

    The way the House is going about sounds less like an impeachment proceeding than a clown show:

    Outside the hard left, the public is not wild about the idea, with 61% of all registered voters opposed:

    Perhaps because it’s obvious that the entire thing is politically motivated by Democrats’ irrational hatred of President Trump:

    Democrats seem not to have noticed that Trump thrives in environments of opposition and chaos. There are a lot of people (not just among Republicans) who believe that actual impeachment is several bridges too far, that Br’er Trump is going to thrive in the impeachment brier patch, and that instead of derailing President Trump’s reelection, it’s going to ensure it.

    Kat Timpf expounds on why this is a bad idea:

    Team Trump sure seems ready for it:

    But it’s also possible that this is just a mime show for the hard left rubes, that Pelosi has no intention of allowing an actual a vote on impeachment:

    Remember that the House tabled an impeachment motion against Trump three months ago. 137 Democrats voted to table the motion then. Does Trump look any weaker today?

    Buckle up…

    The Twitter Primary Revisited for September 2019

    Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

    As I did in previous months, here’s an update on the number of Twitter followers of the Democratic presidential candidates, updated since last month’s update.

    Last month I started using a tool that gives me precise Twitter follower counts.

    I do this Twitter Primary update the last Tuesday of each month, following Monday’s Clown Car Update. Today’s falls on the 24th, while last month’s fell on the 27th, so feel free to adjust accordingly for the three day difference.

    The following are all the declared Democratic Presidential candidates ranked in order of Twitter followers:

    1. Bernie Sanders: 9,695,041 (up 101,797)
    2. Cory Booker: 4,357,161 (up 14,798)
    3. Joe Biden: 3,747,843 (up 52,558)
    4. Elizabeth Warren: 3,187,498 (up 124,085)
    5. Kamala Harris: 3,129,357 (up 49,935)
    6. Marianne Williamson: 2,763,349 (up 4,148)
    7. Beto O’Rourke: 1,611,598 (up 55,055)
    8. Pete Buttigieg: 1,442,981 (up 53,657)
    9. Andrew Yang: 878,076 (up 147,817)
    10. Amy Klobuchar: 767,019 (up 14,092)
    11. Tulsi Gabbard: 573,937 (up 34,068)
    12. Julian Castro: 389,362 (up 13,251)
    13. Tom Steyer: 245,075 (up 276)
    14. Steve Bullock: 185,762 (up 847)
    15. Michael Bennet: 39,477 (up 945)
    16. Tim Ryan: 37,374 (up 374)
    17. John Delaney: 36,270 (up 516)
    18. Joe Sestak: 12,938 (up 499)
    19. Wayne Messam: 8,599 (up 509)

    Removed from the last update: Kirsten Gillibrand, Bill de Blasio

    For reference, President Donald Trump’s personal account has 64,699,182 followers, up 1,133,230 since the last roundup, so once again Trump has gained more Twitter followers this month than all the Democratic presidential contenders combined. The official presidential @POTUS account has 26,750,341, which I’m sure includes a great deal of overlap with Trump’s personal followers.

    A few notes:

  • Twitter counts change all the time, so the numbers might be slightly different when you look at them. And if you’re not looking at the counts with a tool like Social Blade, Twitter does significant (and weird) rounding.
  • Andrew Yang gained the most of all the contenders, up almost 150,000 followers, passing Amy Klobuchar for ninth place. At that pace he’ll break the million follower mark next month.
  • Cory Booker gaining less than 15,000 followers since last month, despite starting with over 4 million, is a strong indication his campaign is dead in the water.
  • Marianne Williamson’s mere 4,000+ gain is even more pathetic. Clearly her magic ride is over.
  • Most pathetic of all is Tom Steyer, who has reportedly been throwing fistfuls of money into social media advertising…and gained 276 followers. That’s less than last-place Wayne Messam gained. Steyer could have gained more by posting cute puppy memes.
  • As predicted, Elizabeth Warren zoomed past Kamala Harris into third place, but her momentum has slowed, as she gained roughly half the followers in September she gained in August.
  • In fact all candidates seemed to slow the rate at which they acquired new followers. Maybe younger people stopped paying as much attention to politics after returning to school after summer vacation.