Former President Donald Trump and his team of high-profile endorsers have resorted to out-of-the-ordinary methods to implore voters to push for his name for re-election on November 5, Election Day. From teams being tasked to engage in door-to-door knocking persuasions to Elon Musk’s America PAC kicking off $1 million a day giveaways to a registered voter who signs a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments, they’re doing it all.
With the latter move being sued, given the possibility that it might violate federal law against buying votes, the Republican presidential hopeful turned to a different approach. However, it ended up ringing up the wrong door, prompting laughs and swarming comments from Desis on his social media even though Vice President Kamala Harris’s mixed-race identity leans into part Indian roots.
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On Tuesday, October 29, Trump appeared to have tagged X/Twitter users in a US election post. One of those tweets saw the former POTUS mentioning user@Trendulkar on his otherwise captioned, “NORTH CAROLINA: TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO REQUEST A BALLOT
“If you plan to vote ABSENTEE IN NORTH CAROLINA you need to request your ballot TODAY.
“Click the link to learn how to request your ballot NOW!
“Reply#stop to opt-out.”
Indian man tagged on Trump’s tweet responds
In a hilarious crossing of wires, the person he tagged turned out to be an Indian man based in Goregaon, a suburb of Mumbai city in Maharashtra. He reposted Trump’s message and replied, “Bhai, main Goregaon main rehta hoon,” candidly informing the US politician in Hindi that he lives in the South Asian country’s suburb.
HT in US: Special Coverage of the American elections by Prashant Jha
Indian netizens raced to the comments section of Trump’s Tuesday post as people continued joking about how to vote for US presidential candidates from India. The hilarious situation ironically unravels beyond the Republican presidential candidate’s control as MAGA and numerous conservative commentators previously accused Democrats of the “voter importation scam.” Elon Musk, one of Trump’s most ardent high-profile supporters, also alleged that the rival political party was employing a “diabolically smart” plan to get enough migrants to “flip all swing states” in Kamala Harris-Tim Walz campaign’s favour.
Why did Donald Trump tag an Indian on his US election post?
Although the mystery deepens as to why the Republican leader or his team tagged the Indian man on his election-related post, a similar development targetting a Scottish football fan page seemingly lifted the lid on it.
LikeTrendulkar from India, Alex Marr, who runs the popular account SPFL Mediawatch on X, was also tagged in a similar North Carolina-focussed election post.
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He, too, then replied, “#stop Sorry mate I live in South Carolina.” The X user explained how he ended up getting a shout-out on Trump’s page. According to The Courier, there’s a great possibility that he may have liked a Trump post in the past, which enrolled him for an auto-response. “To be fair, Twitter (X) is really weird since it was taken over by Elon Musk,” he told the Scottish local news outlet.
“I must’ve liked one of his tweets at some point about something, because I’ve seen others getting similar posts as them. It’s weird, as you can’t see the post in his account or replies, I could only see it like it was sent a message,” he elaborated. And Marr’s statement stands corrected. If you head over to Trump’s official X page, you won’t be able to locate these tweets. As Marr said, you would either have to access it through the message option on the off chance you’re tagged, or as in Trendulkar ‘s case, here quote-posted the message, rendering it accessible to others on his personal page.
In a similar auto-generate trail of responses sent to random X users earlier this month, netizens noted that they received personalised replies from Trump’s official account.
His October 2 (IST) post said, “North Carolina: Get ready to vote!
“LIKE this post to get IMPORTANT election reminders in North Carolina.
“Whether you vote early or in-person on Election Day — have a plan and make sure you VOTE!”
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Consequently, users who liked the post received automated shout-outs from Trump himself. “@greg16676935420 THANK YOU for liking my post!
“I’ll send you IMPORTANT ELECTION UPDATES for North Carolina. Make sure you are ready to VOTE FOR DONALD J. TRUMP by November 5th.
“Reply #stop to opt-out,” was one such response.
At one point, the automated response also addressed “big time” Yu-Gi-Oh! anime YouTuber @MBTYuGiOh.
Despite the auto-generated nature of these tweets, the tactic has considerably gained an edge on the microblogging platform and has served as a head-turning strategy in Team Trump’s latest bid to woo voters.
