GOP’s Voter Disinformation System Spins Up

Donald Trump is desperate to get in front of an audience. Any audience will do….but the bigger, the better.

That’s why he’s pushing hard for the Republications to hold a national convention in the middle of a pandemic despite the fact that there is absolutely nothing for a Republican Convention to do since no one is running against Donald Trump for the Republican Nomination.

It is, of course, obvious that Trump wants to get the bounce that he imagines he will get from the convention. (There won’t be a bounce this year, but that’s a separate article.)

Nevertheless, holding a national political convention, bringing people together from all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the middle of an epidemic, keeping them in a very large and very crowded room for three or four days and then sending them home again sounds like a prescription for a second outburst of COVID-19 infections. It also sounds like a very special kind of stupid. Remember, a significant percentage of the people attending the convention are going to be COVID-19 deniers….and they will be attending a convention  featuring the denier in chief himself. Do you think that anyone attending the Republican convention, if there is one, is going to mask up?

Of course not.

Well, go ahead. Be my guest. Make my day. Your party leaders will be dropping like flies all way down to Election Day….I can live with that. You can’t. Imagine it. Governors, senators and members of Congress unable to campaign because they are too sick to hit the campaign trails. You gotta love that scenario.

My theory is that Trump is running scared, or he’s just plain desperate….because I am suddenly getting fundraising pitches from Republicans. Lots and lots of Republicans.

I’m a Registered Democrat. (I know, but I registered as a Democrat to vote in the primaries this year.)

The Republicans have to know that I’m a Registered Democrat. It’s a matter of public record.

They obviously don’t care.

Maybe they think they can turn me.  Good luck with that, kids.

Or, just maybe, they know exactly who I am and what my views are…and they are trying to infect my computer with a virus of some kind.

But it probably all comes down to the money because the Republicans are going to need a LOT of money.  This is going to be the most media saturated presidential campaign in history. (It might also be the last one, but that’s yet another story.)

Money – not polls – is how the pros really keep score, how they really assess how well or poorly they are doing. Contributions tell party managers whether they are hitting their marks (literally and figuratively) or missing them.

The email started coming in a few hours ago. My incoming emails suddenly increased by around 30 percent – and most of those additional emails are coming from The Republican Disinformation Machine, from people I have never corresponded with, all warning the Good Republican Voters of America of the Democratic party’s evil assault on everything that Republicans hold dear.

Emails from Donald Trump, Jr., Senator Rick Scott (R-FLA), Nickki Haley, The Official Pro-Trump Super-PAC, Donald J. Trump HIMSELF, a website called Conservative Politics, Newt Gingrich, Republican Alert, all urging me to Contribute to the Cause.

The Republicans want my money. I suppose they also want my vote…but they really want my money.

You’re probably not getting these emails. I’m getting them because, a few months ago, I ordered a couple of pocket knives from a company that contacted me via email, or maybe it was the flashlights I ordered. These companies – if indeed they aren’t just one company operation under different facades, off these products to free of charge because I’m a good red-blooded American. All I have to pay is shipping hand handling, which turns out to cost exactly what I would have paid for the same products from my local Harbor Freight.. (Yes, exactly the same products.)

It’s a scam. The products are free, but the actual cost of the postage is around a dollar. So, yes, they are lying through their teeth and making around a fifty percent markup.

I didn’t care, because I was getting the exact same products at the exact prices.

Now I do care, because these companies are a Republican marketing project and they are obviously selling my information to the Republican fundraising machine, also known as the Republican Disinformation Machine, which is why I am getting these fundraising pitches from Republican luminaries.

(To be absolutely honest, they might have gotten my email address from Midway, USA after I bought some ammunition from them but that rather doubt that because Midway is a real company selling real products at real prices.)

You see the logic, right?

If I am buying ammunition, or “combat knives” or “combat flashlights,” then I must be a red-blooded American rather than some Anti-American Democrat.  (Neither the knives nor the flashlights are the real thing; they’re run of the mill products, good enough to keep, but not good enough to buy again.)

But there’s another issue here, one that’s not so obvious:  I have not  gotten ONE SINGLE fundraising pitch from anyone in the Democratic party. It’s almost as if they aren’t actually in the race at all this year….AND THAT HAS ME SCARED STIFF.

Question: Would you go to the Democratic Convention if they actually have one? (They will. They are going to need the bump.)