In addition to the administration’s push for a large scale COVID relief package, and the heated debate around impeachment, the confirmations of several of President Biden’s cabinet nominees have become high-pitched political fights both in the halls of Congress, and in the news feeds of many Americans.
Growing partisan dysfunction in the Senate has resulted in one of the slowest Cabinet approval processes in recent history, and as these nominations become more drawn out, online activists and pundits on both sides of the aisle are pushing for and against confirmation of several key individuals. In this week’s FWIW, we take a look at how the fights over three of Biden’s nominees are waged on social media.
But first…
FWIW READS
It was a big week for those of us following the intersection of media, tech and politics. Here’s what we were reading:
You may have heard by now, but Google lifted its restrictions on political advertising this week, allowing campaigns and organizations to reach voters using ads on its sites including YouTube. We should have a first look at new ads running on the platform in next Friday’s newsletter.
Meanwhile, on Snapchat, spending continues to ramp up. In fact, political advertisers have already spent more on the platform this year than in the entirety of 2018.
Excluding the Georgia Senate runoffs, here are the top political and issue advocacy spenders on Snapchat in 2021, as of Feb. 25th:
Progressive group Sixteen Thirty Fund continues to be the biggest spender on Snapchat political ads, more than doubling their total spend on the platform since last week. The group continues to run the same accountability ads we reported on previously - reminding young voters of GOP lawmakers’ roles in the January 6th insurrection.
THE VERY ONLINE™ CONFIRMATION FIGHTS
The long process to confirm Joe Biden’s Cabinet and other political appointees started to come to a head this week, as Republicans tried making a huge stink about three prominent nominees: Xavier Becerra for HHS, Deb Haaland for Interior, and Neera Tanden for OMB.
While most of Biden’s other nominees (many of whom are white men) sailed right through their confirmation processes, Tanden, Haaland, and Becerra are facing different levels of contention, meaning there are partisan pushes and online campaigns to get them confirmed or dropped. Let’s take a look at how those are playing out, starting with…
Neera Tanden for OMB Director
Proving that Twitter is Real Life™, the President’s pick for OMB Director has hit a bit of a wall in the confirmation process, as Republicans’ faux outrage over her past tweets has solidified into a chorus of opposition.
Republicans’ hypocritical focus on Tanden’s past tweets have made her nomination one of the most politically charged of Biden’s nominees, and her unvarnished criticism of high-profile politicians has made it easy for right-wing partisan media to latch onto her and drive lots of engagement for their anti-Tanden content. For example, these two videos from Ben Shapiro and The Blaze from earlier this month have racked up hundreds of thousands of views each:
Tanden’s bluntness on Twitter wasn’t reserved for Republicans, though, providing an opening for opposition to her nomination from both the right and the left. Her past criticism of Bernie Sanders - and her ties to Clintonworld - has driven some lefties with large audiences to publicly lobby against her confirmation. Krystal Ball’s Instagram posts about Tanden are some of the most engaged content about her nomination on the platform.
All that said, though, Tanden isn’t entirely without air cover. Progressive media personalities like Maddow are publishing content on Facebook defending Tanden and highlighting the hypocrisy holding back her nomination, but their impact pales in comparison to the avalanche of bad-faith content that the right-wing media is so good at pushing.
Xavier Becerra for Health and Human Services Secretary
Becerra, who is currently Attorney General of California, is a former member of House Democratic leadership who would also be the first Latino to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. From the right, anti-choice fury is driving the energy opposing Becerra’s confirmation, and because irony is dead, so are claims of inexperience (Trump’s first HHS secretary was Tom Price, whose primary healthcare policy experience was being a corrupt doctor and politician who opposed the Affordable Care Act).
While Becerra’s nomination doesn’t appear to be at all imperiled by the GOP’s pearl-clutching, there is very little pro-Becerra content on Facebook and Instagram from the past month. The few pro-Becerra posts that have earned high interactions + impressions are from progressive content shops like Occupy Democrats that are spreading this tweet.
Deb Haaland for Interior Secretary 🦅
If confirmed, Rep. Haaland would have the distinct honor of being the first Native American to ever serve as a Cabinet secretary. Nonetheless, a handful of fossil fuel-friendly Republican senators are dead-set on opposing her nomination because of the Biden administration’s bold conservation and clean energy agenda. (FWIW, here’s how much cash some of Haaland’s fiercest GOP critics have received from the oil and gas industry 🙃).
Unfortunately for these oil-soaked Republicans, a coalition of progressives, Native rights activists, and environmental activists have been campaigning for Haaland’s nomination since before she was even nominated. These groups and friendly media outlets put out some of the most-engaged Facebook and Instagram posts between Biden’s victory and Haaland’s nomination.
And when Biden did come around to nominating Haaland, social media exploded in celebration and congratulations. CrowdTangle estimates that on December 17th, when her nomination was announced, posts mentioning Haaland received over 3 million interactions across Facebook and Instagram.
Looking at content from the past 30 days, pro-Haaland content has still dominated the online conversation around her, driven largely by AOC, Occupy Democrats, and even Pearl Jam. Activists on Twitter have organized #DebForInterior tweet storms calling on progressives to lobby Senators in support of her nomination. On the right, though, only Dinesh D’Souza and Breitbart have been able to come remotely close to the success of the left’s content on the issue.
At the end of the day, President Biden has already been successful at building a historically diverse cabinet that reflects America and the broad coalition that elected him. These high-stakes confirmation fights are inevitable regardless of who’s in power, and Republicans would look to sink a nominee or two no matter who Biden picked.
However, this week’s confirmation battles show that right-wing politicians and accounts on social media are experts at making partisan content meant to inflame and persuade, and that in order to compete, the Left has to continue organizing and building online campaigns to defend and push their own agenda.
KEEP IT GOING
That’s it for FWIW this week! Before you go, we have one more ask of you. As the Biden administration tries navigating a marketplace of ideas poisoned by extremist disinformation, we’re dedicated to keeping our friends and colleagues in the know about digital strategy in this new era of American politics. If you’re one of the over 15,000 people who enjoy reading FWIW each week, give us a follow on Twitter, and help get out the word by forwarding this email to two friends who care about democracy + the digital strategies that influence it.
