Have you ever heard of Bill Mitchell? If this were 2015, the answer would almost certainly be no. But in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election, the 56-year-old businessman has become a household name amongst the political elite as Donald Trump’s biggest fan.
According to a new profile in BuzzFeed, Mitchell says he was an obscure, self-employed guy living in North Carolina with about 100 Twitter followers when Trump first announced his presidential campaign.
Now? “I have 90,000 followers and a blue check,” he boasts, though that number has already ballooned to more than 108,000 since the article was published.
He tweets with reckless abandon about how awesome he thinks Trump is, an estimated 270 times daily, to be exact. And MIT’s Media Lab ranked him most influential non-journalist or politician in this year’s election. In other words, he’s literally the most-influential ordinary citizen in arguably the craziest election in American history.
And while he has already made a lot of enemies in the established media, BuzzFeed notes that Mitchell actually seems like a perfectly nice guy, unlike the Alt-Right social media trolls that have become infamous for “supporting” Trump’s rise.
But he also relishes in conspiracy theories, telling the site that he refuses to do in-person interviews because, “There are those on Team Hillary who do not wish me well,” and insisting that he’s 100 percent Trump will win the election unless the Clinton campaign engages in massive voter fraud.
He refuses to read any mainstream news sites, insists all polls are bogus and has even compared Trump to Jesus Christ.
Republican strategist Rick Wilson says Mitchells wins, “The prize for the dumbest motherfucker on the internet,” and he’s been the source of mocking posts from sites like Vox on the progressive left and The Weekly Standard on the right.
Sure, he doesn’t appear to believe in math, basic logic or even many of the words coming out of his own chosen candidate’s mouth.
But despite it all, his influence is rapidly growing with a popular radio show and speaking engagements, leaving Buzzfeed to call him, “The only person alive who will come out of the 2016 presidential campaign better than he started it.”
