Gosar’s 23 tweets land him on Carlson’s show
You may think that Rep. Paul Gosar’s Twitter stunt, in which he spelled out a conspiracy theory in the first letters of 23 consecutive tweets, was clever. You may think it was nuts.
But it’s getting him what everyone on Twitter wants — attention.
And Thursday night, it got him an appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Oh, the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump continues apace; disparaging what Gosar has said was at the heart of his tweeting, in code, “Epstein didn’t kill himself” Wednesday. It’s a reference to Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire who hung himself in jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
But at least part of the intent of any tweet, whether it’s derailing an impeachment investigation or telling everyone what you had for dinner, is to get people to notice you.
Carlson — and millions of others — noticed.
Whether you like what Gosar tweets is dependent entirely upon your politics and your loyalty to Trump. But he’s effective at getting that message out on the platform.
“It’s definitely true, the use of social media has given a congressman from rural Arizona a platform that reaches the entire country,” Ben Goldey, a spokesman for Gosar, said Friday in an email.
“Take the Epstein tweets for example. All 23 tweets were substantive points pushing back on the impeachment narrative, but using a mainstream meme allowed us to reach millions more people than would ever see them.
“In the 24 hours since the tweets were posted, the @RepGosar handle had 15 million impressions. When the @RealDonaldTrump handle retweeted the @RepGosar account, the impressions were around 3 million.”
Ah, a Trump retweet — the rising tide that floats all boats (and occasionally interrupts impeachment proceedings).
Whatever the case, the tweets have raised Gosar’s profile for sure. Not always in a positive way — it was a pretty weird stunt — but raised it nonetheless.
“We’ve also had a growth of 20K followers since the Epstein tweets, so that’s 20K more people who will now be seeing our local content like efforts to save the Navajo Generating Station, Rosemont Mine, etc.,” Goldey said.
And, perhaps most importantly to conservatives, the thread landed Gosar a coveted spot on one of Fox News’ highest-rated shows.
“It made my day, personally,” Carlson said in an interview with Gosar on Thursday about the Epstein tweets. “But tell me why you did that.” Gosar laughed a little.
“Well, we wanted to have a different delivery mechanism and to a group of people that may not even be following what’s going on with this fake inquiry — impeachment inquiry of the president,” he said.
When Carlson asked why Gosar thought it was worth commenting on, I thought he meant Epstein. But Gosar went back to impeachment.
“Because we have to include people to find out how big of a hoax we’re actually seeing right now the Democrats put the president of the United States through,” Gosar said. “He did nothing wrong. And we were very poignant. Our 23 tweets itemized each different instance a fact right why he is not guilty.”
The two discussed, briefly — the entire appearance was brief — Epstein.
Carlson, who’s never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like (or at least couldn’t ride for ratings), asked, “Why do you think it is that some of our betters, the people in charge, the smart kids are demanding that we believe that he killed himself? Why is it important for people to stop the questions that you’re asking?”
“Well, I’ve never been one that likes to be told what to think, and so from that standpoint, when people tell me I’ve got to think some way, it’s usually the opposite,” Gosar said.
Gosar and Carlson are a good team. Just a couple of like-minded pals sitting around discussing conspiracy theories. That would make a good Twitter thread.