Late in the evening of August 2, 2017, Neera Tanden—the longtime Democratic operator, policymaker and President of the Center for American Progress, one of the most well-funded and prominent left-of-center think tanks in Washington—was tweeting.
The target of her posting that night was an Ohio-based PR specialist and Bernie Sanders supporter with some 500 Twitter followers. Tanden (whose then 88,000 followers grew to over 375,000 as of this writing, according to the Internet Archive) told the Sanders supporter, with whom she’d exchanged tweets hours earlier, that she was “still waiting for [her] to denounce this ‘corncob’ BS.”
Tanden was referencing an esoteric Twitter controversy at the time over leftist critiques of then Sen. Kamala Harris, with the “corncob” term itself being a reference to an absurdist Twitter comedy account. Like most online controversies, it amounted to little if any real-world impact and was quickly forgotten. But as Felix Biederman of the Twitter-obsessed leftist podcast Chapo Trap House pointed out at the time, Tanden’s tweeting made for an uncanny comparison to where she may have been in a slightly different world: Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016, Tanden was expecting a high-level White House job, and may have spent that August evening strategizing in the Oval Office; instead, she ended up arguing with a stranger on Twitter about “corncob.”
Three years later, Tanden’s professional aspirations ran head-on into her posting addiction. Tanden’s nomination for director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Joe Biden is all but officially dead, with moderate senators like Joe Manchin citing her often hostile, partisan and personal tweeting as a reason to vote against her.
There’s credible evidence suggesting Tanden’s online persona alone is not responsible for sinking her nomination, with one former senate aide instead pointing to Manchin’s desire to bolster his anti-partisan credentials. Even so, Tanden’s constant, aggressive tweeting made her an easy and predictable target, with her downfall potentially carrying an important lesson for others: Twitter is where enemies are made and ambitions are derailed.
It’s an open question whether anyone on the left watching Tanden’s implosion will heed the warning.
An addiction to online battles backfires
Twitter-holics are common among today’s left-of-center political class, with Tanden’s peculiar and noteworthy behavior running counter to oft-repeated liberal lectures about how “Twitter is not real life.” On the contrary, for many politicos and media figures, Twitter is just as meaningful a part of their day-to-day existence as anything else.
“We all know all journalists are on Twitter, and you can say that Twitter isn’t real life all day and night,” said Briahna Joy Gray, former press secretary to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and a prolific tweeter in her own right. “But the reality is, when things trend on Twitter, they tend to get written about and they become real life. They poke through to print journalism.”
For some progressive Twitter obsessives, their constant online presence may also be warping their ability to think clearly.
“[N]eera, you’re responding to a graduate student on Twitter at 1:40 am,” pointed out Hannah Gais, then a master’s student at Harvard, during an online dispute with Tanden in 2019. The exchange between Tanden and Gais was later cited in a New York Times article about Tanden’s contentious, extremely online relationship with the left, especially Sanders and his supporters.
Tanden’s sharp elbows helped her cultivate a loyal Twitter following, but the path to social media fame can run counter to political success. As Daniel Denvir, a longtime socialist organizer and host of The Dig podcast pointed out in a conversation last month with Blue Tent, media incentives—for Twitter engagement, Patreon supporters, or ad sales on YouTube—are often in complete inverse to successful organizing and coalition-building strategies. Stoking intra-left conflict attracts followers, Denvir says, but it doesn’t widen the appeal for a bigger movement.
The #ForceTheVote campaign’s vicious failure
Denvir’s comments, though applicable to Tanden and any number of other Twitter-related political disputes, were in response to the efforts a few weeks earlier to get progressive House members to force a floor vote on Medicare for All. YouTube comedian Jimmy Dore first pushed for the strategy, which depended on convincing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive House members to refuse to re-elect Speaker Nancy Pelosi unless she committed to a floor vote on the healthcare plan.
Dore’s idea was echoed by a chorus of left Twitter heavyweights, including NFL player Justin Jackson, fellow YouTuber Kyle Kulinski, and Gray, the former Sanders press secretary now working as a writer and podcaster.
The strategy inspired widespread debates within the online left’s associated Twitter feeds, live streams and podcasts. Ocasio-Cortez and other “squad” members rebuked or ignored the #ForceTheVote demands, leading Dore to condemn the congresswoman as a “liar,” a “coward,” and a “gaslighter,” yelling “fuck you and fuck anyone who protects [you]” at Ocasio-Cortez from his YouTube show. Dore did not respond to requests for comment.
With recent losses on the left, questions about social media’s efficacy
Asked how left media stars can be more useful in building real-world power, Denvir told Blue Tent that influencers “should be intellectually curious, and skeptical and honest” but shouldn’t “try to displace or demonize left organizers and leaders and take that role up themselves.”
“To me, that’s very undemocratic and very dangerous, given that the incentive structures governing the conduct of a democratic organization’s leaders are one thing, and the incentive structures governing the behavior of a social media or podcast or YouTube celebrity are another,” Denvir said.
Gray, who was arguably the plan’s most prominent and outspoken booster online, agreed with Denvir’s general point, but cited those opposed to #ForceTheVote as a group following the wrong incentives, squeezing out content by attacking herself and others in bad faith. She told Blue Tent that her goal was to defend the idea on its merits, which is partially why she penned an essay arguing for the strategy in the leftist magazine Current Affairs: to take Dore’s boorish behavior out of the equation.
“I’m not in league with anybody,” said Gray, who implored Blue Tent not to characterize her “independent thoughts, feelings and analysis” as an extension of what Dore or anyone else advocated. “I’m a human being who is able to pick up ideas or put down ideas as she sees fit.”
But Gray appeared on Dore’s show, co-headlined a town hall with him, and offered little pushback during a livestream event with Dore when he exploded in anger at other panelists. Moreover, the #ForceTheVote idea gained widespread purchase in late 2020 thanks to Dore, and his toxic condemnation of Ocasio-Cortez and the squad poisoned #ForceTheVote to other progressives.
Last week, “Majority Report” host Sam Seder was quoted in Vanity Fair saying Dore’s actions alienated people, himself included. In the same article, Gray was quoted saying it is not her job “to protect ‘the squad’ and their careers,” though her critiques of Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives, abundant as they were, remained substantive and never approached the crude and personal nature of Dore’s.
A more level playing field for the left, but challenges in organizing persist
Unlike Tanden, Gray has no plans to go quiet on Twitter, even after facing an onslaught of both racist and misogynistic abuse online. She still sees the site as a net positive for leftist voices, calling the platform “incredibly democratizing” and lauding its ability to flatten certain media hierarchies.
“Without Twitter, bullies get to go on MSNBC and berate Black women and get to go on Sirius Radio and call them ‘misfit Black girls’, and no one gets to respond,” Gray said. “The bully still has the platform to say everything that they want because they are part of the corporate media structure, and the everyday person gets no opportunity to respond. What Twitter does is empower those who otherwise had no outlet.”
But as Denvir explained, and Gray knows firsthand, social media is still rife with many of the old pitfalls and challenges for political coalition building, but in challenging new contexts.
Social media, podcasts, YouTube and whatever comes next will undoubtedly continue to muddle assumptions about how democratic political change is best enacted, for good or ill. To some on the left, Twitter in particular serves as little more than a permanent record of poorly phrased thoughts and heated exchanges. Disagreements or misunderstandings can often spiral into pile-ons, condemnations or factionalism, polluting attempts at grassroots organizing and high-level politicking alike.
In other words, Neera Tanden losing her cabinet position should be the least of anyone’s worries.
