Can ghosts interact with the rest of us on Twitter?
That’s what some people started to wonder aloud, when tweets like this one — still bearing the name “Herman Cain” — began to appear in their timelines Wednesday afternoon:
Just in case you thought Biden's candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts, team Trump has released a new video. #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris https://t.co/GjAC8VDaVF
— The Cain Gang (@THEHermanCain) August 12, 2020
Mr. Cain, of course, passed away on July 30 due to coronavirus complications, as our Sister Toldjah reported.
So, it was completely reasonable to wonder what was going on with his account, or to even gently joke about it:
Appears Herman has 9-9-9 lives 🤔
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) August 13, 2020
But a quick check of the late, former GOP presidential candidate and businessman’s website reveals there’s a perfectly simple — and earth-bound — explanation, after all.
There is news from Cain HQ. The mission continues… https://t.co/LnxmoZDHRu
— The Cain Gang (@THEHermanCain) August 12, 2020
In a piece published Tuesday on Herman Cain.com, his daughter Melanie Cain Gallo wrote, in part, that her dad:
“….believed in using his voice to teach, enlighten and give hope. It’s one of the ways he used this web site every day, and he wouldn’t have wanted that work to stop with his passing.
[…]
…Dad was the most positive thinker I ever knew, and one of his favorite things to do was to help people find their way to happiness in their own lives.
He based that on three principles: 1. Something to Do (Work Life, Joy) 2. Someone to Love (Everybody) 3. Something to Hope For (America, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness).
[…]
That’s why we’re going to bring you material every day from The Cain Gang while working to help more people find happiness, strength, and positivity in their lives through The Cain Leadership Institute. We are his team, and he’ll always be our leader. He would have wanted us to do this.
The site’s editor, Dan Calabrese, also shared in a separate piece why his team “felt there was a lot of value to,” as he put it, “keeping Herman’s voice alive”:
If this had been the end of our work together, I would have been grateful for 15 amazing years – seven as Herman’s syndicator and eight as editor of this site – and soldiered on.
[…]
But we would have missed all this. We all still wanted to do it. We felt there was a lot of value to keeping Herman’s voice alive through his family and us, his team, if we could.
That’s when Melanie Cain Gallo, Herman’s daughter, stepped into the gap and assumed the leadership of this organization. She was very resolved: Herman would have wanted us to continue.
[…]
I know that, in the midst of this election campaign, Herman would be glad we’ll continue to amplify his voice. But it’s about more than any election, or even any year. Herman cared more about people than he cared about politics, and he loved to help people grow and learn how to drive their own destinies to success. That will be central to the work we do here going forward.
Predictably, though, a much uglier response to the tweets emerged from some on the Left — something my colleague Kira Davis brought up on a recent episode of her eponymous podcast mentioning Mr. Cain’s passing.
In just one example of these total ghouls, this guy sent a knee-jerk report to the Twitter Police that the Cain Twitter account was fake:
Reported as a suspicious/fake account, given that Cain is dead.
— Bruce Ediger (@BruceEdiger) August 13, 2020
People like Bruce show no curiosity at all about why something might be happening, if it’s not helping their political narrative. Ever helpful, I replied, trying to alert him to his error.
But I just as quickly realized that there was no error. And his later retweet of this smear of both Cain and President Trump hammered that point home:
Herman Cain continuing to tweet in favor of Trump after dying from a disease he probably caught at a reckless Trump rally is a pretty decent encapsulation of why it’s a waste of time for Democrats to try and court Republican voters.
Herman Cain continuing to tweet in favor of Trump after dying from a disease he probably caught at a reckless Trump rally is a pretty decent encapsulation of why it’s a waste of time for Democrats to try and court Republican voters.
— Josh Gondelman (@joshgondelman) August 13, 2020
Dana Loesch commented on this phenomenon.
She wrote:
The same left that ghoulishly celebrated Herman Cain’s death now want to act like the people still running his account are doing so in bad taste. FFS be consistent.
The same left that ghoulishly celebrated Herman Cain's death now want to act like the people still running his account are doing so in bad taste. FFS be consistent.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 13, 2020
Amen to that.
H/T: @NewsPolitics
Editor’s note: this article was edited after publication, including a quote from Dan Calabrese which was corrected for accuracy.
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