THIS WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE – CAMPAIGN GURUS AND DATA TRICKSTERS

Brad Parscale might be the most unlikely presidential campaign manager in history. Being a Texan web designer, he had zero political experience until receiving an email: Donald Trump is thinking about running for president. Wanna help? After Trump’s election in 2016, journalists and politicians began digging. Terms like psychographics, manipulation, dark posts, and voter depression began circulating. When a former employee turned whistleblower and revealed that 50 million people’s private Facebook data were stolen to build psychological warfare tools, all hell broke loose. Add to that Cambridge Analytica’s Russian data scientist and a secret recording of their CEO, and it seemed plausible that they had hacked the election for Donald Trump. From interviews with former key employees and clients, it becomes clear that the science of data analysis in American politics may be hard to distinguish from the art of bullshitting – and it will help us understand how Brad Parscale, The Data Guru of Donald Trump, is running his campaign to reelect the president.