Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

Per Buzzfeed, that account is in fact an actual Nigerian guy who likes Pete Buttigieg
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/pete-buttigieg-campaign-sockpuppet-nigerian

Uh huh.

Okay, I've changed my mind and I was wrong, Lis Smith isn't actually behind that Nigerian account unless she went *really* hard into making a fake account. The FB account of the guy with the same handle has the same avatar (the Curb/Republican one) from 2017. pic.twitter.com/BF1OfXlrCF

— Aric Toler (@AricToler) February 16, 2020

Even Ashley Feinberg agrees this is a real guy

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/nigerian-man-twitter-lis-smith.html

Heartbreaking.

What about the posts by smith under his handle?

Addressed in the interview.

He is a passionate Nigerian supporter of Buttigieg who impersonated Smith in public as a joke because this... helps Buttigieg?

And he is unaffiliated with the campaign but tweeted encouraging messages to its communications advisor because that is what unaffiliated supporters do?

It's weird, but people are weird. Posters are even weirder.

Like, it could be true, and prob is, but idk that people could be blamed for thinking it was a sock. It's not a conspiracy theory to think that one person was being an ass on the Internet.xp

So basically it's been a productive Sunday on Twitter.

No it was definitely reasonable to believe it was a sock. It was sus as fuck.

no, it's lis smith. don't care

ashley feinberg is on the bloomberg payroll now

i do think it's funny that the Pete campaign had to walk back their announcement that Michael Key would be endorsing him in an upcoming NV appearance, and instead MK will just be there encouraging early voting and voting registration and hasn't formally backed any of the candidates.

i mean, i guess he still could formally endorse Pete, but i'm going to enjoy this lol for now.

I hate that I learned about lis smith/eliot spitzer today. Being off twitter was supposed to spare me such cursed knowledge.

Chinedu was a key and peele character all along

Chinedu B.

We have Danes into the minutiae of the Iowa caucuses, not that much weirder than a lonely dude in Nigeria getting hooked on Pete.

people are weird. Posters are even weirder.

like it

People are weird
Posters are weirder
Twitter is lonely
When you're a sock

^Quality content

Bernies are bro-ey
When you're a centrist
Bloomberg's uneasy
When you're brown

so exactly how much corroboration has to exist before people, if not themselves convinced, at least concede that it does not make you evil incarnate to believe that it is an actual guy

i accept that it's a real person. honestly the evidence that it wasn't was pretty paper thin to begin with and I suspect most of us (me included) wanted to believe it because it was funny.

Left-twitter is just taking the #resistance job of calling everyone they don't like/understand on Twitter a Russian bot, it's cool and funny

I accept that it's a real person but c'mon it was weird as hell and he literally called himself Lis in one of 'em. That's a bit of an outlier.

Also, ppl turning up as supportive socks in their own mentions, only to forget to switch accounts later, is not exactly a rare occurrence.

more corroboration: https://theoutline.com/post/8681/pete-buttigieg-nigerian-supporter-lis-smith-chinedu?zd=1&zi=cnavtorp

I enjoyed some of the conspiracy theorists who thought the gotcha was that he 'woke up' to find out he was Lis Smith because being Internet-right means not understanding colloquial English.

Know I shouldn't be drawn into it, but 'the minutiae of Iowa caucases' was a headline story all over the world. I agree that a Nigerian Lis Smith fan isn't that weird either, though.

even the danish newspapers, huh?

Dude, even the Swedish newspapers!!!

who gaf about this story lol

I enjoyed some of the conspiracy theorists who thought the gotcha was that he 'woke up' to find out he was Lis Smith because being Internet-right means not understanding colloquial English.

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Monday, February 17, 2020 1:20 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

He told Ashley Feinberg: "I was trying to explain to people that you could take naps in Nigeria. I guess it’s a controversy to wake up at odd hours."

big mood tbh

Has anyone been attacked or called evil for believing that this was an actual Nigerian guy? I still think that i) stanning a communications advisor and ii) pretending to be her are odd things for someone to do but I'm not sure anyone is still denying it was a real guy doing them?

Afraid I’m full Gatwick drone on this - there’s a whole load of weird shit going on and being a nobody who’s experienced weirder than this online for much lower stakes(!). Definitely think there were several people using the account, but cbf to do my own digging at this stage.

Chapo's still running with this, huh?

profiles in courage

Former Michigan Rep. Mark Schauer endorses Mike Bloomberg for president. Schauer, a Democrat, ran for governor in 2014. At that time, Bloomberg spent millions to help incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Snyder defeat Schauer #migov

— David Eggert (@DavidEggert00) February 17, 2020

Thank you sir, may I have another?

*hic*

my take was that it was either lis smith or someone really horny for lis smith and the latter has not been disproven

lis smith does seem pretty horny for lis smith tbf

well, she has put her own foot in her mouth on occasion, if you catch my drift

lol

loooooool

it doesn't make you evil incarnate to believe the sockpuppet is real i guess.. it just makes you a fucking rube lol

yeah, what rubes to not believe in a sockpuppet account theory that was built on two grains of sand