Charlie Kirk's 'Non-Profit' Pays American Teens To Staff Kremlin-Style Troll Farm. USA! USA!

Well, democracy was fun while it lasted.

This year the part of the Russian troll farmers will be played by teenagers from suburban Phoenix in the pay of unfuckable troll Charlie Kirk . And that is a 2020 B-I-N-G-O!

The Washington Post   reports that Kirk's Trumper-Jugend Bund , Turning Points USA, has been paying teenagers, some of whom are under 18, to use their personal accounts to blast out pro-Trump propaganda. Whether it's "Don't trust Dr. Fauci" or lies about mail-in ballots leading to "fraud for this election" or bullshit about Biden "being controlled by behind the scenes individuals who want to take America down the dangerous path towards socialism," these kids will bring the blarble.

And while Twitter has disabled some 20 accounts associated with some 4,500 posts for "platform manipulation and spam," that's likely just the tip of the iceberg. In 2016, Putin's Internet Research Agency amplified TPUSA's content in its misinformation campaign against Hillary Clinton. This time, Charlie Kirk's minions are taking some of the load on themselves.

But don't you dare call it a troll farm! That would be a "gross mischaracterization," huffed TPUSA's field director Austin Smith. Sure these kids are being paid to pump out posts crafted by the mothership, carefully limiting the number of times each one is used and changing a word or two to evade anti-bot algorithms. And, okay, not all the posts are factually correct, such as one that said 28 million ballots went missing in the past four election cycles. But it's still not a troll farm like the Internet Research Agency, because, ummm, the kids actually believe this shit.

"This is sincere political activism conducted by real people who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Russia," Smith insisted in a statement to the Post . He failed to explain why teenagers in the non-profit's employ — albeit indirectly, since TPUSA subcontracts out the HR piece — go to such lengths to hide their affiliation with TPUSA and the paid nature of their work. One kid deleted the reference to TPUSA from his Twitter bio when the Post started asking questions.

And if that sounds like some spectacular arglebargle, get a load of this asshole patting himself on the back for his brave ingenuity in finding new ways to reach voters during a pandemic.

Charlie Kirk: "If the President loses, they will come for us all. They will come for your children" https://t.co/yUkv9BFmj3

— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1600270139.0 

No no, coming for your children is Turning Point's job.

"Like everyone else, Turning Point Action's plans for nationwide in-person events and activities were completely disrupted by the pandemic," Smith told the Post . "Many positions TPA had planned for in field work were going to be completely cut, but TPA managed to reimagine these roles and working with our marketing partners, transitioned some to a virtual and online activist model."

Slow clap for everyone but the person who actually believes Turning Points wouldn't have paid these kids to bombard the internet with lies about Democrats in the absence of coronavirus. The fact that the spam they were pushing out specifically downplayed the danger of COVID-19, a disease that just killed the organization's founder Bill Montgomery, is just icing on the shit sandwich.

We're not going to name the parent of a 16- and 17-year-old who spent the summer working as contractors for Charlie Kirk's goon squad and sat down to talk about it with the Post . It's bad enough that these girls' names will be attached to this horrible shit for the rest of their lives. But Daddy of the Year said it's totally fine that his daughters are spewing lies for money because Democrats do it, too.

"Liberals say things that are way out there, and conservatives say things that are sometimes way out there, or don't have enough evidence," said DOY.

Which is just a perfect encapsulation of modern conservatism today. The party of family values and "life" is perfectly happy to have its kids pimp out their names to spew invective and lies about Joe Biden in service of an amoral jackass who brayed about walking into the dressing room while girls were changing and has managed to kill 200,000 Americans from a preventable disease.

The Lincoln Party guys are right. Burn this party to the ground.

[ WaPo ]

Follow Liz Dye on Twitter RIGHT HERE! 

Please click here to support your Wonkette. And if you're ordering your quarantine goods on Amazon, this is the link to do it.