Politics today is just trolling by other means. The Indiana Republican Party provides the latest example. Recently, those Hoosier politicos purchased the domain name of Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly.
Donnelly is up for re-election in 2018 and doesn’t yet know who his challenger will be. And now, thanks to the trolls at Indiana GOP, he also doesn’t have the website, www.joedonnelly.com.
As of Tuesday afternoon, visitors were greeted with a large graphic announcing that page was under new management and that the Indiana Republican Senate Committee would soon update the website. Though relatively nondescript, the message is simple: In the boyhood home of Lincoln, cybersquatting’s fair game.
These tactics have become par for the digital course after 2016. Statesmanship used to look like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, where reasoned arguments bested an opponent. Today, it’s all about memes, pictures of cats, and hashtags. Politicians who don’t learn this new lesson are likely to be left behind.
During the presidential primaries, Carly Fiorina failed to register the domain, www.carlyfiorina.org. Through the power of the Internet, an anonymous prankster purchased it and created a site critical of her career at Hewlett-Packard. The day she announced her candidacy, traffic exploded. But certainly she wasn’t the first to make the digital gaffe.
Though much more tech savvy now, during his early days Sen. Ted Cruz let a number of domains slip through his fingers. Go check out www.tedcruz.com for a view of an alternative universe where President Trump didn’t win. Or if you’re looking to find the Canadian love of your life, head over to www.tedcruzforamerica.com.
It remains to be seen what impact the Hoosier stunt will have. When compared to the Cruz and Fiorina examples, it doesn’t demonstrate that Donnelly’s the outlier. It just shows that in the age of viral politics, he has some catching up to do.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
