As the current election cycle heads into its grueling 10,000th week (with a scant 700 more before the election) the campaigns of human hellmouth Donald Trump and presidency-seeking robot Hillary Clinton are both hard at work grinding for cash to stay afloat. While the larger cash injections to these campaigns seem to come from a complicated web of corporate pals, shady oligarchs and people who owe the Clinton Foundation a favor, they’re not above seeking a couple bucks from the average Joe, either. Thus, for many Americans, quickly identifying and moving contribution-seeking emails into trash or spam folders has become as much a part of their morning routine as a first cup of coffee.
To be blunt, these emails are weird as hell. They’re frequently formatted in a style that’s a little too similar to those scheming spam messages seeking your help to unlock an enormous African fortune held in place by international banking regulation, or promising longer lasting, more satisfying boners. The caps are locked, the graphics are lo-fi. A recent message from DCCC.org features splashes of red, green, and blue highlighting, and opens with a single-sentence paragraph: “We’re freaking out.”
I get that the choice of words there is supposed to come off as relatable to the casual constituent, and scary enough to motivate donations – but isn’t the idea of congressmen “freaking out” a little upsetting? Hey, DCCC, “freaking out” is reserved for college freshmen who just found out their roommate’s cousin dated the drummer from Twenty One Pilots in 2006. We’re counting on you chumps to govern us. You only get to publicly freak out when you either discover that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth or your email gets hacked. That’s it.
Emails from the Clinton campaign are a bit nicer and more polished. I received one the other day purporting to be a personal note from Hillary that opened: “Friend –I’ll keep this short because I know how much you already do for this team.”
Isn’t that nice? We’re friends; she knows I don’t have all day to read emails; she’s recognizing what I’ve already done to service her commitment to the idea that she deserves to be president.
The Trump campaign’s latest messages offer an interesting incentive to donors –Executive Membership. There’s a graphic of a gold card that says “Trump” at the top, and at the bottom it has Trump’s signature over “Authorized by the future President of the United States”. Pretty cool, right? And get this – normally there’s a one-time induction fee of $100, but for a limited time only they’re slashing rates and offering the deal for the low, low price of 35 bucks.
So the list of things the Trump campaign has in common with a late-night infomercial now includes: a cheap, garbage product you absolutely don’t need; a spokesperson who is either feigning enthusiasm for cash or actually soulless; multiple vague promises to improve the quality of your life with little to no evidence the product can do what it claims; and limited time, low, low prices if you act fast.
The only problems with the Trump campaign Executive Membership (beyond that it involves giving money to Donald Trump, the worst thing to happen to North America since … I don’t know … the Jamestown settlement?) is that it isn’t clear what the membership gets you. It’s not even clear if you get that golden card.
That’s a big mistake. The Trump campaign needs to offer its Executive Members some perks. How about offering cardholders personalized messages explaining what Trump meant to say after each public statement and a strand of Mike Pence’s weirdly brittle hair to use as a lockpick? And why stop there? How about a Super Executive Membership for $50, which could entitle members to a free consultation with a Trump campaign attorney following any violence they take part in at an authorized Trump rally? At the top level, there could be a Huge, Fantastic Membership, where for just $1,000 Trump will take you on a personal tour of the Kremlin.
I don’t get any contribution emails from third-party or independent candidates, because none of those people will ever be president and my time on Earth is ultimately finite, but I’d be willing to guess that Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson’s emails arrive totally blank, allowing recipients the freedom to decide how the text should appear. E-mails from Green party candidate Jill Stein are probably rife with crossed-out text and revisions, as I can only imagine she would have just as tough a time deciding the right way to request your money as she seems to have deciding whether vaccinations are harmful.
