Thousands of dollars from the Commonwealth were reportedly used to train content creators from across the country.
The July 25, 2024, publicly funded “Democracy Summer Camp” hosted by Governor Josh Shapiro was a day-long training for social media influencers to get their “get out the vote” message out to their followers and how to identify “misinformation” on the internet. According to the list of influencers, at least 70% have expressed progressive views on their platforms.
“We all need to get off the sidelines, get in the game, and fight for what we believe in. Stand up strong and proud for the values we hold dear”, is one of the messages Gov. Shapiro told the content creators, and some attendees that posted about the event highlighted that it was a “vote blue” event with hashtags.
According to an invoice from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, where the invitation-only event was held, almost $4,000 was spent on food for the influencers throughout the day. This sum does not include the salaries paid to state workers who planned and executed the event.
Pennsylvania State Rep. Seth Grove, the top Republican on the Pennsylvania house appropriations committee, has been outspoken about the event. He told the Daily Caller, “Having the governor’s office use taxpayer funds to only have Democrat social media influencers…is very, very sketchy and was a waste of taxpayer dollars. That was a cost to the taxpayers to do campaign work. I don’t believe for a second they had any interest in inviting Republicans…it was lopsided and targeted to Democratic influencers.”
Some of the notable attendees were:
- Maggie McGregor, the daughter of Democratic National Committee treasurer Virgina McGregor. On September 24, she posted a video of herself on Instagram wearing a Kamala Harris t-shirt and echoed what Gov. Shapiro said when she told her followers, “The election in the United States is about eight weeks from today and I am not sitting on the sidelines…As you can see, I am endorsing Kamala Harris.” She went on to say that people should try to change others’ minds about who they will support in the election.
- Alex Pearlman, a Philadelphia-based comedian who recently posted a video repeating the claim that Republicans want to get rid of Medicaid and Social Security.
- Ethan Kelly attended the DNC and also regularly posts about his support for the Democratic party and Kamala Harris.
- Aaron Parnas works for the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party and attended the DNC in support of Kamala Harris.
- Isaiah Martin ran a failed Congressional campaign and worked for Democratic Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. He recently worked with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who lost his Senate bid to incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz, to register voters at the University of Houston.
- Sami Sage, co-founder of the social media brand Betches Media and co-author of the political book “Democracy in Retrograde”.. She attended the DNC with the Betches News as an invited content creator.
- Jordan Meiselas is a co-founder of the social media brand MediasTouch that got its start as an anti-Trump PAC. In 2021, Rolling Stone reported the PAC had a big problem with publishing falsities to raise money.
- Elizabeth Booker Houstono was part of the Harris campaign’s “reproductive freedom” bus tour in September and regularly posts anti-Israel content.
- Elizabeth Strong was also on the “reproductive freedom” bus and regularly posts in favor of Democrats.
According to PennLive, Grove expressed his concerns over the camp and the invited attendees back in July, when Gov. Shapiro was rumored to be on Harris’s VP short list. He said, “You got a Democrat administration who is angling to be high ranking in the Democratic Party, looking to be VP, asking national content creators to come to Pennsylvania and they give them what they think should be misinformation, disinformation and honest discussions about elections…There should be a huge level of transparency around this, this is how misinformation begins.”
Governor Shapiro’s Office has not officially commented on the July event.