In an episode on his YourVoice America webcast this Friday, Twitter’s “most absurd Trump supporter” Bill Mitchell delved into what he sees as the “very interesting week in politics” and the ever-elusive drop of the Mueller report. According to Mitchell, he confident that the report will reflect his belief that there was “no Russian collusion.
Instead of provable collusion, Mitchell predicts that the “axe is going to fall on Deep State,” whatever that means.
Mitchell has incredible reach on social media. According to a 2016 profile on Mitchell by BuzzFeed, the MIT Media Lab listed him as the 26th-most influential Twitter account during the 2016 election.
But a lot of his engagement isn’t necessarily due to people thinking he’s some sort of bastion of truth. For example, it’s fairly well documented that many of the retweets he earns on Twitter are due to people mocking him.
In his rant this Friday, Mitchell took a page from the far-right evangelical contingent, and declared that Trump’s policies are much more than the ideology of a mere man or political movement. According to him, there’s a divine component.
It might seem like what Trump is doing makes no sense, but that is because you don't realize that "he is literally being guided by the hand of God." pic.twitter.com/ZFiXn0eeh4
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) March 11, 2019
“I think Donald Trump is so strategic, that it’s beyond just his ability as a human to think this way, I think he’s literally being guided by the hand of God … to make the right moves at the right time.”
Mitchell went on to say that Trump’s actions as president only “seem like they don’t make sense.”
“And yet at the end, when the clock hits zero, when the final gun sounds, we are in the winner’s circle over and over again.”
According to Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos, it isn’t influence that helps people like Mitchell go viral. It’s something called “reverse outrage.”
“‘Reverse outrage’ is the righteous internet backlash against an initial statement or display of outrage … The irony is that in the rush to prove one’s moral superiority by speaking out against some racist, sexist, or otherwise hurtful sentiment (whether it’s a hashtag or a viral video about a coffee cup), the sentiment is frequently amplified on a scale that wouldn’t have been possible had people not taken the bait,” Abad-Santos writes.
“Social media has given us an avenue to prove our worthiness. And we’ve turned it into an express lane.”
Featured image via screen grab/YourVoice America
