A schadenfreudelicious story up in the Guardian offers karmic lessons in being chinchy. Chinchy like the Senate Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill in 2021 (and refused to keep funding it this year). Chinchy like Republicans have been about providing high-speed internet to rural areas since the Obama years. Chinchy like the Lump campaign, which has hoovered up all the rubes’ donations for lawyers and blow and has to turn to Charlie Kirk’s Christian Soldiers and the World’s Richest Adolescent.
All of which lead, inevitably, to stories like:
Trump ground game undercut by slow internet that crashes app
Trump campaign wants to hit rural voters but slow internet limits the functionality of the Campaign Sidekick app
Donald Trump’s campaign has limited ability to know whether their ground game operation is reaching target voters in battleground states, as the software being used needs fast internet service to properly track canvassers, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.
...
But the Trump campaign and the Elon Musk-backed America Pac, which is now doing an outsized portion of the Trump ground game, use a management app called Campaign Sidekick that struggles in areas with slow internet and means canvassers have to use an offline version.
Without real-time connectivity and geo-location, the app can’t track canvassers, This leaves the system open for cheating, “for instance, by ‘speed-running’ routes where they literally throw campaign materials at doors as they drive past,” It also can’t confirm honest canvassers’ contacts, stiffing canvassers who get paid by the door, not a way to encourage repeat signups.
America Pac has tried to deter cheating by sending out teams of auditors to trail canvassers, but there is no way to directly audit every offline walkbook – which is particularly high because of the Trump campaign’s focus on hitting low propensity voters.
...
“Maybe Elon Musk can give his canvassers a Starlink,” one political operative involved in the America Pac operation joked, referring to Musk’s satellite-based mobile internet router.
Or at least a ride in a Robotaxi.
