Say this about the 10-day-old Trump administration: it knows how to get things done. And by “things,” I mean create all kinds of subversive movements.
Last week, following the silencing of several federal agencies, up popped more than a dozen “alt” and rogue social media accounts run by either employees or fans of those agencies.
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Then, the administration, which is trying to do away with the Affordable Care Act — a.k.a. Obamacare — canceled a last-minute advertising and outreach campaign to get people enrolled in individual marketplace plans before the Jan. 31 deadline for open enrollment. That’s Tuesday.
The move was supposed to save as much as $5 million.
The White House reportedly walked the decision back a bit on Friday, authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services to continue to call, email and text eligible individuals and to resume tweeting from the HealthCare.gov Twitter account. Any TV and digital ads that the government could not receive refunds for would still run, the Washington Post reported.
That hasn’t stopped the underground Internet from mobilizing again to pick up the slack. Enter #PullThisAd, a hashtag campaign apparently started by actor/comedian Colton Dunn, a former writer for Comedy Central’s “Key and Peele” who now is part of the cast of “Superstore” on NBC.
Dunn has produced four low-budget but effective videos as alternative ads for HealthCare.gov. He’s shared on Twitter and YouTube, though the latter platform hasn’t gotten much traffic.
https://twitter.com/captdope/status/825038239073308673
https://twitter.com/captdope/status/825435215765966849
https://twitter.com/captdope/status/825679913390833666
https://twitter.com/captdope/status/826079427742330881
A few other celebrities — and wannabe celebrities — have gotten in on the action as well. Notably, Lena Dunham made a video of herself in the bathtub, which might distract from the central message. We won’t show that here. But one we will show is from someone you probably don’t know.
https://t.co/EMWGXNRax9 #pullthisad
Sign up for healthcare today! Could save your life. pic.twitter.com/pfKsjYSxCn
— Dan Richter (he/him) (@Dan_Richter4) January 27, 2017
And at least one very famous person tweeted, though he didn’t bother with a video.
Sign up for Health insurance today at https://t.co/6WeMhjB9ZY! Deadline January 31st! #PullThisAd
— Nathan Fillion (@NathanFillion) January 28, 2017
If you want to see an official ad from HHS about HealthCare.gov, one that the Obama administration released in December is still up on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odfd5qf9oiQ
It’s hard to scrub the Internet completely, isn’t it?
Photo: Flickr user Pascal
