Nevada Assemblywoman Chasing Clout with Misinformed A's Posts
If you're on social media often enough, you start to notice some trends. When someone on TikTok has a video blow up, they tend to do variations of the same thing that made them famous until people are sick of them. Nevada Assemblywoman Danielle Gallant is out here chasing clout with her recent posts, and it's pretty obvious.
This all started on April 15, when out of the blue she posted a video to social media titled, "Nevada is NOT paying for the A's new Stadium..." She then went on to misunderstand what it is that she voted for last June. You heard that right, she is bringing up a vote that was passed in a special session nearly a year ago to "explain her vote." Seems like something that could have been done nine months ago, no? Why now? And how does she still not know how the ballpark will be funded?
Recently there has been some polling done to suggest that if the public funding that Gallant voted in favor of went before the people, that it would voted down and the funding would disappear. According to the poll, 52% oppose the use of public money going towards the baseball stadium for the Las Vegas A's, while only 32% support. The other 17% are undecided. Regardless of how those undecided voters lean, the nays have this one, and it would likely be decisive.
You could make the case that Gallant felt the need to defend her vote in the face of public scrutiny, though nobody knew who she was prior to this, and that's not the case she made. Instead, when confronted with the facts, she replied to numerous tweets with "time will tell" or "we'll see."
This one video brought her a decent amount of infamy across A's fandom, but then she went back for more, as many clout-chasing people on social media will do.
The second video, posted the following day, is simply titled "Why are A's fans so mad?" In this one, she says that she is a former Bay Area resident, but she left because of the liberal policies that have run the community into the ground. She then goes on to call Oakland a third world country, and claims that fans are scared to go to games at the Coliseum because of the crime in the area.
While there have been a number of arguments made about why the A's attendance has been low, crime has never been one of them. One reason is because it can be easily disproven. This study from October of 2023 ranks the Las Vegas homicide cases per capita at No. 14 across the U.S. in the third quarter last year. This same study has been cited by local news channels in Las Vegas. Sacramento, the next town the A's plan to move, ranks No. 39 in that same quarter.
You know what city wasn't listed in this report? Oakland.
After gaining some traction so that people kept an eye out for her with the first video, and then dumping all over the town that still houses the A's, she started day three off with an incredibly disingenous statement that included quotes such as, "Recently, I've come to realize a misunderstanding I had regarding the financing of the A's stadium project." She then ends it with, "Let’s remember we are all human. We all stumble, we all err, and admitting those mistakes is a rarity deserving of respect. I look forward to continuing this discussion with all of you, reflecting the best of what civic engagement should be." She is claiming that she is deserving of respect, even though she was brash about the vote she made that she didn't fully understand, and then doubled down over the next day. Respect is not given. It is earned.
For anyone thinking Danielle had turned over a new leaf, those dreams were short-lived. Two hours after the statement she was back talking about the A's situation in the same shirt as the previous video, saying that the A's did not buy her vote. Of course she's going to stick with the same trick, because the posts on Twitter that came before this were getting hundreds, and sometimes thousands of views. These latest videos have been getting hundreds of thousands.
Engagement--good or bad--increases people's awareness. It can also tell the algorithm to put her in front of more people when she's receiving so many comments. Quote tweets to dunk on someone still increase the number of people that see the original video. It's a tried and true method for politicians. Say something inflammatory to your opponents, and gain followers that believe in what you're saying. It's obvious when you know to look for it, and lots of people do it.
On Thursday there was another video, this time asking for civility in politics. This, from the woman who just two days earlier called Oakland a third world country and made up her own facts about crime. The comment section asked her to start the civility process by issuing an apology, to which she asked, "for what?"
There will undoubtedly be another post on Friday trying to drag this out even further. Just remember that like trolls, the best way to get rid of people desperately searching for clout is to starve them of any attention.