Rob Anderson parachuted into Southwestern Louisiana in 2017 and ran twice for Congress against the Gret Stet’s bull goose wingnut, Clay Higgins. In my fleeting online encounters with Anderson, he struck me as a dilettante with limited connections to his district. It was far worse than I imagined. That is why Twitter Famous Rob Anderson is malaka of the week.
Anderson built a substantial Twitter following over the last few years. That’s now gone along with his political prospects. Here’s why:
…Anderson’s Twitter stardom meant little in Louisiana’s 3rd District, where Higgins crushed three Democrats, taking more than two-thirds of the vote. Anderson fell shy of 12%, six percentage points behind the top Democrat.
In addition to building his fan base, Anderson used his campaign Twitter account to send nude selfies to women. A pseudonymous Twitter user known for exposing sexual misconduct allegations posted a sampling last week, sparking a war between the “Rob Mob” and several women accusing him of harassment. Screenshots of his lewd direct messages circulated.
Recriminations for Louisiana’s most Twitter-famous progressive were swift.
“I’m already ruined,” Anderson said in a phone interview Thursday, two days after the photos appeared.
A close friend and business partner quickly cut ties, killing a podcast venture the two had hoped to leverage from Anderson’s Twitter base.
Amid the backlash, attention turned to Anderson’s missing campaign finance reports. He has not filed any since the first quarter of last year, leaving the months covering his meteoric rise unaccounted for. Anderson blamed his staff for failing to file the reports.
Anderson says his political career is over.
“I may be Twitter famous, but nobody in Louisiana knows who the hell I am. Although they probably will now,” he said.
That long excerpt was necessitated by the vagaries of the Georges Media Empire’s web sites, which are hard to maneuver if you’re a subscriber like me and purt near impossible if you’re not. BTW, John Georges is the dullest Greek I’ve ever encountered. I usually brag on my countrymen, but I make an exception in his case. He’s not even interesting enough to be selected as malaka of the week.
Except for groveling in the pages of the Georges Advocate, Twitter Famous Rob Anderson has vanished from the internet. Taking the coward’s way out, he deleted his campaign’s web site, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook feeds. Curiously, the Rob Anderson for Louisiana YouTube page is still up as of this writing. Perhaps Malaka Rob is watching his greatest hits and pondering what might have been.
There was always something off-putting about Twitter Famous Rob Anderson. He struck me as a minor league con man who specialized in fleecing the gullible Hipster Twitter Left. Malaka Rob said all the right things but lacked a presence in the real world to back up his Twitter fame:
Anderson started organizing his 2020 campaign just prior to the pandemic lockdown. A four-person core consisting of Anderson, Leveque and two other staffers, Clare Stagg and Dave Langlinais, grew close as they worked out of Langlinais’s house. They formed a social pod, frequently sharing dinners, drinks and personal conversations.
But the two women staffers experienced Anderson as increasingly dictatorial as he became fixated on Twitter. They worried that his Twitter fame had divorced him from reality in southwest Louisiana.
“I think he thought that was enough to mean that he was a big name,” said Stagg, the campaign manager. “Everything else in the campaign fell by the wayside to him, no matter how much you told him, ‘Twitter isn’t real life, your following is not in the district.’”
There’s a lesson in the well-deserved fall of Malaka Rob Anderson. Twitter isn’t real life and an overdependence on social media and the Hipster Twitter Left in a campaign is a prescription for defeat.
It’s unclear if Twitter Famous Rob Anderson is a liar or a fantasist who believes his own bullshit. His Ballotpedia survey is revealing in that regard. He turns out to be a sci-fi fan:
What is your favorite book? Why?
“Flow my tears, the policeman said.” Before I was a teenager, it was the most complicated story I’d read, and it resonated with me. It’s themes are connection and alienation, and how to bridge the chasm between souls.
That’s a novel by Philip K. Dick, which is fitting given Malaka Rob’s propensity to share dick pix.
If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?
Valentine Michael Smith. It would be fascinating to be a postmodern Martian.
I grok that. I wonder if the self-proclaimed working class progressive knows that Stranger In A Strange Land author Robert Heinlein was one of those people who migrated politically from the far left to far right. Probably not, Anderson was too busy tweeting. He’ll have time to catch up on his reading now.
Anderson could even try emulating Heinlein’s political journey and become a Trumper. They’re indifferent to dick pix and others forms of sexual harassment, after all.
There’s another weirdly revealing bit in Malaka Rob’s Ballotpedia survey:
Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?
“The Great Shark Hunt” by Hunter S. Thompson.
I’m already on the record as a HST un-fan. His political philosophy, such as it was, revolved around getting wasted, shooting guns, and conning the gullible Left of his day into thinking he was a progressive. Maybe that’s why Malaka Rob admires him. That’s his shtick as well.
I’ve already told Dr. A to commit me if I start calling myself a “Twitter personality” or “Twitter Famous.” The Rob Anderson saga should be a cautionary tale for those who spend too much time on social media. He’s gone from having a “Rob Mob” and being Twitter Famous to being Malaka Rob and Twitter Infamous in the blink of an eye. And that is why Twitter Famous Rob Anderson is malaka of the week.
The last word goes to Cowboy Mouth:
Fifteen years ago I was teaching community college students it really wasn’t a good idea to post dick-pics to the ‘net, logon to Ashley Maddison dot com with your spouse’s credit card, or share tactical information during an insurrection … and I was gotten rid of.
In the most unpleasant, thoroughly Republican manner.
Posted at my house under Eiron, the Goddess of Irony’s, long arc …