
Teenagers campaigning for Mike Gravel on Twitter - ordiblah
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/magazine/mike-gravel-teens-twitter-presidential-campaign.html
======
dluan
> “Everybody is just a larger child,” Williams said, finishing his chocolate-
> chip pancakes.

I love these kids. Every step of the way they've figured out little hacks to
get to the next checkpoint. PG once said that he was always interested in
hacking politics, and as someone who's amusedly been watching the Gravel
teens, I have a feeling they'll go pretty far.

~~~
codesushi42
_> PG once said that he was always interested in hacking politics, and as
someone who's amusedly been watching the Gravel teens, I have a feeling
they'll go pretty far._

Hacking politics has already been done, and more successfully. If you are
interested in seeing someone "hack" politics, then Trump's election has been
the best case study by far.

~~~
ajxs
Absolutely. Trump also serves as a case study of what kinds of safeguards
exist within the American political system to prevent an incumbent president
from really moving the needle. You cant go too far off script in the white
house. You can be an embarrassing PR nightmare if you like, that's fine. So
long as you keep supporting the institutions that have their grip on American
democracy it's no problem.

~~~
jesssse
Which institutions do you think have a grip on American democracy?

~~~
jessaustin
Eisenhower called it the "military-industrial complex". He observed how
lobbyists and Pentagon reptiles could lead Congress around by the nose, voters
be damned. He didn't anticipate the ways in which journalism would be co-opted
into the constant push for more war, always constantly more war. This was
foolish of him, since the Spanish-American War during his childhood was also
started by lies in the press. He also didn't mention the part the unsupervised
services would play in destabilizing societies at home and abroad, although
since the Mosaddegh coup was his doing I guess he probably didn't have to say
a damn thing about that.

~~~
bfuller
Funny enough, Trump recently called out the MIC by name regarding Iran

~~~
OBLIQUE_PILLAR
with his next breathe he ranted about how The Iran Deal was the worst deal
he's ever seen, because he knows deals. Trump is not a dedicated foe of The
MIC.

------
TillE
They're doing completely typical Twitter shitposting, on Mike Gravel's
verified account. It's a funny joke, but that's all it is. You could hand over
the account to anyone on lefty irony Twitter and get the exact same results.

It's been somewhat disheartening to see people take this at all seriously, to
think that Mike Gravel is going to even have anything useful to say at the
debates. We all (well, maybe not the teens) remember Gravel from 2008. He's
not about to blow anyone's mind.

~~~
tanderson92
Calling out the hypocrisy of top-tier candidates like Biden or Harris with the
same panache as in 2008, while advocating policies not considered ‘Practical’,
is their explicit goal. Some people view the 2008 performance as brave truth-
telling—how many of those serious, smooth-talking candidates voted for the
Iraq War?

Speaking truth to power doesn’t always mean speaking truth to people with
elected power.

------
apo
> ... @MikeGravel had already established that Mike Gravel was not just an
> individual but also a kind of group project. Strangely enough, this had
> opened up a loophole that allowed him to talk like an actual person — and
> somehow it seemed as if this person mattered least. I found myself imagining
> a candidateless campaign — fronted by a hologram of George Washington, or
> “freedom,” or Apple ...

There's an old saying to the effect that:

1\. FDR proved that a person can be president forever;

2\. Nixon proved that anyone can become president; and

3\. Regan proved that nobody need be president at all.

There's a case to be made that a good chunk of the current president's success
stems from the fact that his administration/campaign appears to be so tightly
controlled by the man himself. Like him or loathe him, with this president,
what you see is what you get, and he has gone to the mat repeatedly to make
good on his campaign promises no matter how misguided.

So the mental model of a presidential campaign being run by a bunch of kids
wrapped in a trench coat is fascinating. As the article points out, the Gravel
campaign's uniqueness stems from the fact of how open it is about this:

> In an online world where everything is understood to be a performance,
> @MikeGravel looks us squarely in the eye and admits, “Every politician is
> just a bunch of kids in a trench coat — so why not make them actual kids?”

It's also not outside the realm of technical feasibility that an AI could make
a viable presidential candidate. Whether or not the necessary legislation
would ever come to pass is another question, but I sometimes wonder whether
this might be the ultimate legacy of Corporate Personhood:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood)

~~~
knolax
> he has gone to the mat repeatedly to make good on his campaign promises no
> matter how misguided.

Where's his wall?

~~~
apo
Not saying he's been successful, but he has tried repeatedly.

I'm also trying to set aside whether I agree with these policies. Failure to
do so is part of the reason so many Democrats have been so utterly ineffective
against this president.

Oddly enough, the latest iteration (threatening new tariffs on Mexico) appears
to have lead to a concession by Mexico to station 6,000 of its national guard
units at the border to prevent emigration to the US.

I'd say this more than demonstrates that this president will take things to
extremes few thought possible in an effort to make good on his campaign
promises.

I even suspect a large number of Mexican national guard troop stationed at the
border might even qualify as a "wall" that was "paid for" by Mexico. It also
hints that further concessions by Mexico to fund a constructed wall might be
forthcoming by making the same threat again.

~~~
Svip
> Oddly enough, the latest iteration (threatening new tariffs on Mexico)
> appears to have lead to a concession by Mexico to station 6,000 of its
> national guard units at the border to prevent emigration to the US.

Just for the record, Mexico were already doing all of those things.[0] Mexico
didn't just form a National Guard over night; they were already planning to
send 6,000 troops their southern border.

Mexico refused to accept that people fleeing should seek asylum in Mexico, if
they enter it first. Which would have been pretty significant.

[0] [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/08/trump-trade-
deals-...](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/08/trump-trade-deals-mexico-
china-1358155)

~~~
nwienert
Just as a note: linking to politico is no different than linking to Breitbart.
It’s a incredibly partisan, biased source that blurs opinion into news.

Second: do you know the details of the deal? Because no press source knows
them as of yet, as they weren’t released by either administration.

Just noting here for clarity. If you’d like to see the “other side”:
[https://www.breitbart.com/tag/tariffs/](https://www.breitbart.com/tag/tariffs/)

Note: just as much propaganda, in the other direction, just as few details.

~~~
bitwize
> It’s a incredibly partisan, biased source that blurs opinion into news.

We're living in a post-Thompsonian world. There's no difference anymore. The
far left gets it, the right _certainly_ gets it, it's the mainstream "liberal"
J-school crowd who think there's still such a thing as objective reporting.

~~~
nwienert
There’s no such thing as no bias, but there’s more than just left and right,
and certainly sources that are upfront about their bias are more reputable
than ones that try and act non-partisan.

There is “a difference”. Quality still exists outside bias, and that matters
very much.

But yes, read far and wide these days so you can yourself understand the
various world views and not be fooled into thinking the NYTimes or Politico
are “centrist”.

------
teh_klev
Jeremy Scahill interviewed Mike Gravel back at the beginning of May this year,
I found it quite enjoyable:

[https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/everywhere-is-war-the-
am...](https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/everywhere-is-war-the-american-
threat-to-iran-venezuela-and-women/)

Gravel's an interesting guy. He filibustered the Senate with a reading of the
Pentagon Papers back in '71.

See also:

[https://theintercept.com/2014/11/10/mike-gravel-senator-
put-...](https://theintercept.com/2014/11/10/mike-gravel-senator-put-pentagon-
papers-public-record-urges-udall-torture-report/)

~~~
OBLIQUE_PILLAR
Gravel did some great stuff in the 70s but he's a bit of a kook now. He used
to speak at Lyndon LaRouche conventions until very recently. I guess everyone
needs to make a buck. I full support the Gravel Teens though.

~~~
teh_klev
I don't know anything about Lyndon LaRouche...will have a dig into him. And
your comment is why I like hanging out on HN :)

------
eclecticsceptic
Vice News did an interesting segment on these kids and Gravel a couple of
months ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU-
EDZaV4h4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU-EDZaV4h4)

------
stunt
Glad to see these teenagers. Promising to see such examples to remember that
we often draw a wrong picture of Gen Z. Regardless of which side they are
taking, the fact that they are doing it is great.

------
pizza
The Gravel campaign was recently endorsed by the Iraqi journalist who threw
his shoes at Bush!

------
tx8653
This shows that the Twitter verified accounts system/blue checkmarks are
pretty worthless. Gravel may have handed his password over to the kids, but
other “individual” accounts are run by multiple admins using Twitter’s built-
in features, and some politicians have the disclaimer “tweets by me have my
initials”.

Twitter should restrict verified individual accounts to a single user (the
actual person who owns the account) and remove the check mark from people who
violate those rules. There are also individual accounts that seem to be
selling access to their followers by giving admin rights to others.

Accounts that have multiple admins should have this explicitly called out in
the profile/name (“Office of XYZ”) , and which admin posted the Tweet needs to
be made explicit.

~~~
ryanmonroe
It's not feasible for Twitter to evaluate what person actually typed the
characters, and that isn't very relevant to the issue of knowing whether the
message is something the person supports anyway. The check-mark means the
account is verified to be _owned_ by a certain person, and I think it's very
useful to know whether an account is owned by a certain figure/politician.
It's very useful to know that this account is making posts supported by Mike
Gravel, and that these kids are not just people he's never met making posts
under his name. Most popular politicians have a lot of popular parody
accounts, and knowing whether you're looking at a message made by a campaign
vs one made by someone parodying a campaign is valuable information. At the
end of the day, if an account is making posts [verified person] does _not_
support that person can either (a) change their password or (b) ask twitter to
remove the verification. The blue checkmark then signifies the account _is_
actually run by that person, regardless of who is typing the majority of the
posts. It's a matter of common sense that it's possible for me and anyone else
with an online account to give my password to someone else, and then that
person could make posts with my account. What the check mark tells me is that
no one has taken the account and locked the owner out of it, because if they
did the person would have just told Twitter and the check mark would be gone.

~~~
tx8653
_That 's not what it means, and I don't think any large number of people
actually think that's what it means. It means the account is verified to be
owned by X,_

I beg to differ. Twitter accounts of individuals come across as a personal
medium, not a mass propaganda outfit. I would be extremely surprised if a
majority of users realized that an individual account with a blue checkmark
was actually being run by a team.

As for sharing passwords: Twitter has to have mechanisms for detecting
multiple logins to the same account.

~~~
ryanmonroe
Checkmarks verify that the post is not made by someone claiming to represent a
person, who does not actually represent that person. It solves the issue of
fake accounts, which is a very real problem. For politicians, it doesn't
really make much of a difference anyway whether they are the person physically
typing the message. When a politician gives a speech, that speech will be
written by a team of people working for the campaign. Even when answering
questions at a town hall, the answers will just be talking points decided by
the campaign, and I think that's common knowledge. Even if Twitter could
verify 100% that a certain person typed the characters what would that get us?
Gravel would just ask these kids what he should type, or they would send him
the text directly. You could argue that this would at least guarantee he's
seen the posts and that he therefore approves them, but don't we know that
already? If he doesn't approve the posts he can either change his password or
ask Twitter to remove the accounts verification.

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willart4food
This is great!

Looking forward to see more of these types of candidates phenomena.

------
angel_j
This might be a stunt, or it might just be... news?

