The tactics are capable of being produced today – the ban on TikTok proves

When Congress recently began considering banning TikTok in the U.S. because of concerns that the app’s Beijing parent company would share private information with the Chinese government, the social media giant borrowed a page from Google’s playbook.

Earlier this year, the company sent notifications to a carefully selected portion of their 170 million users informing them of the move in Congress to shut down the app. The alerts targeted TikTok users in the districts of key lawmakers, especially conservative Republicans who favored the ban, and asked them to call their elected representatives and tell them to oppose the legislation.

It’s too early to tell if the tactic worked. Some say the campaign backfired. Lawmakers complained that the effort showed how the Chinese government could co-opt internet users to do their bidding in the U.S., and the House of Representatives voted to ban the app if its owners did not agree to sell it.

TikTok’s lobbyists said they were pleased with the effort. They persuaded 65 members of the House to vote in favor of the company and are confident that the Senate will block the effort. Perhaps more important, the lobbying tactic helped to make lawmakers aware that voters back home would hold them accountable at the ballot box if they outlawed the app.

“We showed members of Congress that there is a constituency and a community who support this app,” said one Washington operative for TikTok, “and there is an electoral price to pay for members who vote to take it away.”

Not long after taking office in 2021, for example, President Biden proposed a sweeping domestic policy agenda that included billions of dollars in new federal spending on climate change, education, social welfare programs and other long-held liberal priorities. To fund the agenda, Democrats planned to increase taxes on industries they disliked, including tobacco manufacturers, oil companies and private-equity firms.

With a popular new president in the White House, Democrats in control of Congress and many voters supportive of increasing taxes on corporate America, it seemed like an easy lift. But then corporate interests in Washington launched a series of outside-influence campaigns.

The oil-and-gas industry killed their proposed tax increases by getting voters in Texas and Louisiana to tell their members of Congress that the tax increases would kill jobs back home. Lobbyists for tobacco companies and convenience stores worked to persuade Black Americans that a new $100 billion tax on tobacco products would drive up illegal tobacco sales and increase the likelihood of conflicts with the police, like the violent encounter that led to the death of 43-year-old Eric Garner on Staten Island in 2014. Black lawmakers responded by striking the tobacco taxes from the bill.

The private-equity industry, meanwhile, got even more creative. Months before Biden proposed a $1 billion-a-year tax increase on private-equity investors, its lobbyists quietly launched a public-relations campaign to convince a few dozen centrist Democrats that increased taxes would lower the amount of money invested in small businesses and real-estate development in their states. A key target of the effort was Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

To win her over, the private-equity lobby identified her top political advisers, staff and campaign donors. The industry purchased advertisements on Twitter and Facebook pages targeting this inner circle, stating that higher private-equity taxes would lower investment and jobs in her state. “Private Equity is directly supporting 138 small businesses in Arizona,” read one social-media post from the industry’s Washington trade association. The lobby also paid for advertisements in Arizona that encouraged voters to call Sinema’s office and urge her to oppose the tax increase.

Industry lobbyists contacted Arizona business leaders and got them to sign opinion pieces in local media outlets to catch the senator’s attention. Most of the pieces were written by lobbyists, according to one of the private-equity strategists involved in the campaign. “Raising taxes on individuals and small businesses who contribute funds or sweat equity to a project will diminish the incentive to take on risk,” read one piece.

Facing pressure from her constituents in Arizona, Sinema came out against the tax increase, and it was dropped from Biden’s plan before it was called up for a vote.

When The Wall Street Journal reported that industry lobbyists had persuaded Sinema to oppose the tax increases, her spokesman said it was impossible because the senator never spoke with any lobbyists for the industry. But the private-equity lobby didn’t have to speak to Sinema. They spoke to her constituents back home.