The Grand Illusion
I’m now receiving roughly a hundred emails a day, and sometimes more, from right-wing Republican candidates for office, from ultra-conservative right-wing groups, and from both Trump and Trump Junior. I’m even getting blasts on my cellphone, and that’s a number that I only give to a few people and certainly not to political types.
These emails are essentially devoid of even the semblance of factual accuracy, with such leads as Get Justice for all January 6th Protesters!; The Need to Impeach Joe Biden; Impeach Alejandro Mayorkas; Stop the Media Blitz to Destroy Clarence Thomas; Stop Biden’s Assault on Retirees; The Democrats Lied About January 6th; Investigate the Corrupt January 6th Committee; Expose the Democrats’ Plan to Establish Authoritarian Rule.
I even got one entitled “GOP Election Integrity Report” – which I find rather ironic coming from the party who tried to steal the 2020 election and whose leadership continues to lie about what happened.
All those don’t include near-hourly protests from Donald J. Trump about how the entire government is persecuting him and how all the judges are corrupt and impossibly biased.
And why am I getting this barrage of rightwing falsehoods?
I suspect there are two reasons. First, email barrages are cheap. I took a look at some of the bulk email services, and the rates for continuing services (most offer free services for a short time to hook the user) seem to run between 1-2 cents per name per barrage (if I read the information correctly), which is far, far cheaper than junk postal mail.
Second, so far as I can determine, it’s simply because I’m a registered Republican. It’s not because I contributed to any Republican candidates for office, because I haven’t made a contribution to any Republican candidate or organization in twenty years. I also haven’t ever contributed to any PACs, conservative or otherwise.
But if I’m getting all this bombardment of garbage propaganda, I hate to think what most Republicans are getting… and from the polling data I suspect it’s having some effect. How much we may not ever be able to determine, but the only effect it’s having on me is convincing me that the Republican Party leadership and most of its candidates make Darth Vader look like an honest man.
If you have 100 emails getting through, I would hate to see what your spam filter deals with. I am not sure your Star Wars reference is quite right since Darth Vader was honest. He didn’t lie but he was evil.
I am sure the people sending the emails are doing it, to do something. At this point it is overkill. The message has reached everyone 100 times over. Their goal is to convince people that the system is unfair and rigged to justify any unethical actions on their part. If your opponent is fighting dirty, then fighting dirty yourself is just self-defense.
I am Canadian, and receive a lot of these emails as well. It fills my spam folder very fast.
Huh. Registered Democrat here (and in a swing state to boot) and I only get regular political email spam from the two candidates I’ve ever contributed to. Not sure what that says about the respective parties, but I’m sure it says something.
Aside from all the other reasons given, this crap is being sent out so someone can go to Donald Tantrump and be able to say, Look, I don’t just stand there, I Do Something. Effectiveness in this case is irrelevant.
I feel lucky or neglected here in the UK as near election time I just get the odd flyer in my physical postbox and hardly anything via email even though I have sent donations to a major party in the past.
All parties are propagandists pursuing power. The Democrats may be using less of one particular media (email), but they’re using plenty of every other media, including some that have pretended to be neutral but clearly aren’t.
Ignore all propaganda and all attempts to frame one side or the other as monstrous (although one could argue both are to some degree or another). Just look at what they do (or don’t do) given the chance. That’s why I prefer what I do, certainly not style or communications skills or propaganda.
I want illegal immigration (as contrasted with legal immigration which could even have more resources to enable it at a larger scale) shut down by whatever means necessary, criminals prosecuted and hopefully punished to the fullest extent of the law regardless of excuses, and less interference in the normal lawful activities of persons and businesses. Neither party will really give me that, but the Democrats are much further away from that than the Republicans. What I think we really need is more libertarians (not a majority, they’re unrealistic about some things) to keep the Republicans somewhat more honest.