“He is a TikTok product and launched his whole movement on the back of Covid disinformation, among other things,” he said.
Simion’s AUR party fanned conspiracies during the Covid-19 pandemic, opposing government measures to limit the spread of the virus and spreading falsehoods about vaccines to ride a wave of anti-science sentiment.
“Because of TikTok basically, he kind of exploded during the pandemic … he does lives on TikTok all the time, he films himself every-fucking-where, so he kind of gives off this really kind of genuine persona that he built,” Vlad said.
Most Romanians living in the diaspora were not well-educated, he added, and susceptible to Simion’s populist rhetoric and social media outreach.
“The vast majority of them, it’s actually people who don’t have such a high level of education, [and] work in really tough, menial jobs … we’re talking about truck drivers, we’re talking about construction workers, people who look after the elderly,” he said.
“They were always kind of living in their bubbles in their communities, sending all their money they were making back home and … living fairly lonely lives,” he added.
Simion bypassed traditional media to speak directly to those disenchanted diaspora voters, promising to hear their concerns — and they returned the favor on Sunday, helping to elevate him to first place, and potentially all the way to the presidency.