Herman Cain’s Posthumous Political Tweet Spooks Twitter: ‘Dude, You’re Dead’ By Mediaite Staff Aug 13th, 2020, 6:44 am Conservative luminary Herman Cain died last month after a brief.
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- The most jarring example of that disconnect came on Sunday, when the Herman Cain twitter account—recently rebranded as The Cain Gang, but still tweeting under the same handle—shared a link to.
After Herman Cain passed away last month, his family and social media team decided to keep his Twitter account active. They’ve been posting all the same sort of pro-Trump, anti-Democrat, anti-Black Lives Matter nonsense the Black Voices for Trump co-chair posted before his death, but this weekend, the account also posted some puzzling COVID-19 propaganda.
The now-deleted tweet linked to an article about underlying pre-existing conditions and their relationship to coronavirus-related deaths. “It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be,” the tweet read.
A deleted tweet from Herman Cain’s Twitter account pic.twitter.com/cuHMjN4LV1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 31, 2020
The message is incredibly bizarre given that Cain died from the coronavirus, which he reportedly contracted after attending a Trump rally.
The fact that Herman Cain’s Twitter account is tweeting about how Covid-19 isn’t as deadly as ✨the media✨ makes it out to be when Cain’s death was the result of Covid-19 is just absolutely pure lol.
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) August 31, 2020
Losing my mind that Herman Cain’s zombie twitter account is tweeting conspiracy nonsense about how Covid isn’t real despite the fact HERMAN CAIN DIED FROM COVID. https://t.co/GsKAkjU3G2
— Intellectual Duck Web (@pixelkitties) August 31, 2020
This is the sassiest, “Surprise! I’m a zombie now!” announcement ever https://t.co/P5tBLJoEtW
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) August 31, 2020
The article the account tweeted is from the extremely conservative Western Journal, which is less an actual journalism outlet and more a website designed to be shared on Facebook, founded by a guy who staked his claim peddling conspiracy theories about Bill Clinton and later tried to convince conservative readers that Barack Obama was secretly Muslim.
So when you hear that this site is saying only 6% of reported COVID-19 deaths are in fact due to the virus, you’ll want to take that with all the grains of salt you have at your disposal.
In reality, the CDC study that number comes from lists other contributing factors that have been noted in COVID-19 related deaths. They include things like pneumonia, influenza, and respiratory arrest—all issues that have been shown to be caused by the coronavirus.
That’s like saying the knife stab didn’t kill him, it was the loss of blood.
It also looks like being shot in the head not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be. Keep up the good work. #FakeNewspic.twitter.com/IKEUnDjZz1
— Abraham Lincoln (@Subhah) August 31, 2020
Despite its lack of scientific accuracy, the 6% conspiracy theory has been picked up not just by conservative media hacks and Hermain Cain’s ghost, but also QAnon groups, which means it inevitably found its way to Donald Trump’s Twitter account, where he retweeted a Q-related account that posted the “data” in a tweet Twitter then removed for violating its rules on misinformation.
Even in death, Herman Cain is still pushing Trump’s favorite conspiracy theories.
(image: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
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© 2019 Michael Tullberg/Getty Images Premiere Of 'No Safe Spaces'It appears that not even death can stop former presidential candidate and businessman Herman Cain from posting tweets in support of his good friend Donald Trump. On Wednesday night a post taking aim at newly-selected VP pick Sen. Kamala Harris and former vice president Joe Biden sent Twitter into a frenzy exactly two weeks after his COVID-19 related death.
“Just in case you thought Biden's candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts,“ Cain’s tweet reads, “team Trump has released a new video.” The post links to commentary on hermancain.com that criticizes Biden for his gaffes and praises a new Trump ad that suggests the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is a racist.
The tweet drew both criticism and satire from people amused by the idea that a deceased man was still posting on social media. By Thursday morning the post was ratioed, with close to 25K comments mostly attacking the tweet.
© Provided by Essence Hermain Cain attends Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa“Uhhhhhhhh, aren’t you dead?” comedian David Alan Grier wrote in response. That tweet received nearly the same amount of likes as the original attack. Outside of jokes, Twitter users also questioned the platform’s rules on a dead person’s account being used for political propaganda. And others were simply disgusted by the fact that somebody would want to use the account to push such a narrative.
On August 11, Cain’s daughter, Melanie Cain Gallo wrote a message to the deceased businessman’s supporters saying the work her father did with his website will not end with his passing. “We’ve decided here at Cain HQ that we will go on using this platform to share the information and ideas he believed in. He often talked about the site going on once he was ready to step away from it. We had hoped he could enjoy reading it in his retirement, but he made it clear he wanted it to go on.”
Herman Cain Facebook
The family clearly went on using his Twitter profile as well. Criticism about the decision may have pushed holders of the account to be more forthright about who was tweeting. On Thursday morning Herman Cain’s name was replaced with “The Cain Gang.' The avatar for the account reflected the same name, a departure from the profile shot of Herman Cain that remained on Wednesday night when the tweet was originally posted.