Twitter's Most Famous Resistance Celebrities Have Been Banned
If you, like me, are under an ancient curse that requires you to visit Twitter every day in exchange for keeping your extraordinary beauty, then you're probably familiar with the Krassensteins. There's a whole cadre of Resistance Famous Twitter personalities who are always the first to reply whenever Trump tweets, firing retorts back at him like they're the most annoying person at the Q&A portion of a book talk. The Krassensteins are two brothers, Ed and Brian, whose saucy replies to the president ("That's what you think!" et cetera) are usually directly under the original tweet making them controversial figures in the MAGA world (a septic tank under Mar-a-Lago) and heroes to a portion of Resistance Twitter (a collection of profiles with bios that read "Blocked by Trump!!!!"). It's a superhero ecosystem where both sides have fans who think that they're unbeatable and the truth is everyone is annoying.
Anyway, the Krassensteins were permanently banned from Twitter, which is a huge blow to the people who believe that you can launch impeachment proceedings by retweeting a meme enough times. Twitter claims that the Krassensteins, who had just under 1.7 million followers between them, were banned for "operating multiple fake accounts and purchasing account interactions." The company did not elaborate on the latter claim, but it could mean purchasing retweets or buying followers.
I tell ya, as someone who wants to affect change as much as the next person and will retweet whatever it takes to make that change happen, this is devastating to me, personally. I'm really going to miss logging on to Twitter, seeing a Trump tweet (even though I don't follow him because ugh), and then scrolling down to see the Krassensteins working themselves into a frenzy of replies from both of their individual accounts, like two Rumplestiltskins dancing a jig around a fire. I'm like a less certain Tyra yelling at Tiffany: "I was... rooting for you? We were all, sigh, rooting for you?"
This is a serious question: where are these dudes finding the time? The brothers started tweeting at and about Trump in 2016 and saw their profiles rise quickly as they devoted massive portions of their days to political rage and opinion in tweet-able chunks. It didn't seem to matter when the tweet came, either. They were on it within seconds, often working the graveyard shift grift. They replied to everything Trump tweeted, using the sort of goading tone perfected by Biff Tannen in Back to the Future. Which is ironic because, well, this is Trump:
It is unclear what the brothers' ulterior motive for seeking Twitter fame on the back of the president were, but many have surmised its the same reason anyone does anything relating to the president: trying to get rich, bish! The grift is not just for reincarnated Confederate soldiers who golf with Trump anymore; anyone can get in on it. In this version of America, it is equally likely that the Krassensteins could have ended up with a nightly news talk show or a cabinet appointment. You know in your heart that this is true.
I'm not trying to make hard accusations about the grifters being grifters, but why else would you spend every day barraging the president's Twitter account with replies? Like, go take a walk. Open a CrossFit gym. Something. The Krassensteins also recently started a podcast that they co-host, despite the fact that they sound exactly alike and so the listening experience becomes an aural farce in which it seems like one person is talking to himself. And agreeing!
Trump never engaged with the Krassensteins, so their interactions were also one-sided online. It seemed like the other side of that Old Man Yells at Cloud meme: Cloud Yells Back; Nothing Happens.
In a truly dumb turn of events, incompetent nincompoop Jacob Wohl claimed responsibility for the Krassensteins' ban, claiming that he had tricked a huge internet company with a couple of prank phone calls.
It feels like Jacob Wohl is taking credit for the krassenstein ban. pic.twitter.com/0WVD4AGZLn
- Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) May 24, 2019
Wohl, of course, is the same person who was caught in bungling attempts to frame Pete Buttigieg and Robert Mueller with false allegations of sexual impropriety. He is the dude who is constantly holding press conferences in empty conference rooms at airport motels and probably fancies himself a Bran when he's really a Joffrey.
Like the Krassensteins, Wohl has been banned from Twitter. So, for now, this peculiar segment of the world of grifters and re-grifters must try to piece together a new grift on their respective websites, on other social media platforms, and most of all, through the retweet in our hearts. Call it requiem for a scheme.
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