MAGA Twitter is addicted to a fake 'liberal' account and refuses to let it go
July 06, 2023
Fans of Donald Trump who followed a fake account purported to be the words of a former Barack Obama campaign worker are refusing to believe that she's not real because the account has fed into their beliefs about how opponents of the former president think.
That is the conclusion of Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte who took up the curious case of "Erica Marsh" whose account was suspended after it was exposed as fake.
Marsh amassed a huge following -- 130,000 followers strong -- on the social media platform until the plug was pulled, thereby depriving both liberals and conservatives alike who were lured in by her over-the-top and often ludicrous proclamations.
As Marcotte explained, part of the appeal of Marsh was her photo, with the columnist writing it, "...portrayed a conventionally attractive young blonde woman. As anyone who watches Fox News regularly can attest, 'hot girl liberal' is a favorite hate object offered up to their aging and largely male audience."
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As she elaborated, conservatives on Twitter don't want to accept it was a fake account because it fed their out of touch with reality MAGA fantasies.
Marcotte notes that the Marsh tweets "read as an over-the-top fantasy of what MAGA wishes liberals were like" and then adds that "one gets the sense that the person behind the account was testing if conservatives have a limit to how much B.S. they'll swallow. This doesn't diminish the possibility that the person behind it is also a right-winger. Longtime observers of the right will note that they view each other with total contempt, which is why the GOP is stuffed full of grifters and con artists who are always hustling their fellow travelers."
Sharing an assortment of tweets from conservatives who refuse to believe they have been conned ("And let the damage control begin. Sorry, but I believe it is a real account, in spite of numerous trolls trying to say it is not so. But please, keep on trolling."), Marcotte wrote, "They weren't embarrassed, much less apologetic. Instead, there were a lot of 'so what' reactions and people sticking to the lie that 'Marsh' must be real."
She then added, "Not that it's hard to keep MAGA Americans suckling at the disinfo bottle. As the Fox News/Dominion lawsuit showed, the GOP base is addicted to lies. If they are exposed to real facts, they throw tantrums, screaming and crying until they are restored to their comfort zone, which is an ocean of nonsense."
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