Silicon Valley backed super-PAC uses social pressures to attack Trump
A super-PAC backed by high-profile tech entrepreneurs is launching a new campaign on Monday to push voters into voting for Hillary Clinton.
“Not Who We Are,” a super-PAC that launched in September to oppose Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, launched a new website on Monday, IsTrumpYourFault.com, that is aimed at voters who aren’t entirely convinced about Clinton. The website fits in with the PAC’s other efforts, which, according to sources affiliated with the group, were designed to highlight Trump’s “negative values” and create social pressure by showing people that others in their communities reject Trump’s policies and conduct.
While the PAC has not commented on its backers, Federal Election Commission reports show it has received funding from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. These records show that Not Who We Are has received $200,000 from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who has given to other anti-Trump efforts and financed a media company aimed at taking on the financial and political establishment. The PAC also received $250,000 from billionaire Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, Cari Tuna. During this election cycle, Moskovitz has emerged as a Democratic megadonor by pledging to give $20 million to groups that back Clinton. Another Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, also gave $250,000 to Not Who We Are.
IsTrumpYourFault.com quizzes users about their views and political affiliations. It then scores them on how large a role they supposedly played in Trump’s nomination and potential victory. The scores are rendered in hyperbolic, Trump-style language, including “bigly responsible” and “tremendously innocent.”
Josh Handler, Not Who We Are’s campaign manager, told Yahoo News that the quiz is a final effort to highlight Trump’s record of controversial comments and policies.
“Donald Trump is a hair’s breath from the White House because so many people enabled him along the way. The responsibility for his rise primarily lies with Republican politicians who backed and legitimized Trump or stayed silent when he denigrated, attacked and scapegoated so many groups in our society. IsTrumpYourFault.com is a satirical way to hammer home the need to do everything possible to thwart Trump’s presidential campaign and defeat this brand of politics,” Handler said. “While Republican enablers deserve the blame for his rise, we’ll all be responsible if we don’t stand up on Election Day and send a resounding message that Donald Trump is not who we are as a country.”
According to a source with the group, the PAC did “extensive polling and research” before it settled on the strategy of highlighting Trump’s “values that people don’t want to be associated with.” Their data showed 30 percent of Trump’s supporters — particularly those under 40 years old — would be less likely to vote for him if they heard messaging designed to show Trump is “not who we are.” The source said the research found that these Trump voters “could be susceptible to social pressures” if they saw this message coming from people within their own community rather than celebrities or other high-profile surrogates.
Prior to IsTrumpYourFault.com, the PAC launched a website that painted Trump as a “sexist.” The group also created a website highlighting stories of people who were offended by Trump’s remarks on the campaign trail, as well as a woman who felt ripped off after signing up for the defunct Trump University, which has been accused of fraud. The source said the group hopes the new quiz website will add to social pressure created by prior campaigns when users share their quiz scores on social media.
