Since Day One of Trump’s presidency, it’s been all about boosting Trump’s bottom line and building his brand. From raising money by celebrating war criminals to taking frequent vacations that funnel taxpayer money right into his business empire, Trump knows no shame. (There’s speculation that Trump never wanted to win in the first place — he just saw running for the presidency as a chance to build his brand and cash in. Oh well.)
So there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing the Trump brand getting ripped off by others. There’s no honor among con men. Politico has a report from Maggie Severns that lays out how millions are being raised on the Trump name by groups that have no real connection to Trump — and little to none of the money is going to his campaign. (But the groups have highly paid staff and expensive consultants that seem to get a lot of the action...)
...Overall, $46.7 million flowed into close to 20 Trump booster organizations, structured as PACs or political nonprofits and with names like Latinos for the President and MAGA Coalition, between January 2017 and the end of June 2019, according to the most recent data available. The overwhelming majority of the money comes from donors giving $200 or less.
Additionally, 265 Facebook pages spent more than $4 million on Trump-related advertising in the past year and a half, but they are not registered political committees, according to advertising disclosures from the social media company. There are no public records of how much money these groups raised off their advertising, but the millions spent give some indication of the size of the lucrative online market selling pro-Trump merchandise — which, of course, the Trump campaign also sells.
These groups usually have disclaimers that state they are not officially connected to the Trump campaign, but that doesn’t seem to be dissuading the small donors that are being targeted. The Trump campaign is not amused.
“President Trump’s campaign condemns any organization that deceptively uses the President’s name, likeness, trademarks, or branding and confuses voters,” the Trump campaign said. “There is no excuse for any group, including ones run by people who claim to be part of our ‘coalition,’ to suggest they directly support President Trump’s reelection or any other candidates. We encourage the appropriate authorities to investigate all alleged scam groups for potential illegal activities.”
This was inevitable. Whatever the Republican Party used to claim it stood for, it is now the Party of All Trump, All the Time. It’s a cult, and their followers are begging to be ripped off. This is not really anything new; the conservative political/monetary ecosystem has long been infested with scammers. There’s no truth in advertising, no accountability — but a lot of money to be made. The fact that Trump is now the one getting ripped off is a small bit of ironic justice. His followers have been getting ripped off all along.
In The Beginning
Rick Perlstein has a must-read 2012 write-up detailing how politics for profit is all through conservative causes going back long before Trump came down that escalator. Perlstein starts The Long Con by pointing out in detail that 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a liar — and then:
All righty, then: both the rank-and-file voters and the governing elites of a major American political party chose as their standardbearer a pathological liar. What does that reveal about them?
Compared to Trump, Romney almost looks like a statesman — which says more about the GOP today than it does about actual principles, morality, or ethics. The con goes back to the 60’s, with the rise of people like Richard Viguerie and mailing lists that allowed the direct targeting of people with fund-raising appeals based on hot-button political issues. By 1980…
The Viguerie Company’s marketing genius was that as it continued metastasizing, it remained, in financial terms, a hermetic positive feedback loop. It brought the message of the New Right to the masses, but it kept nearly all the revenue streams locked down in Viguerie’s proprietary control. Here was a key to the hustle: typically, only 10 to 15 percent of the haul went to the intended beneficiaries. The rest went back to Viguerie’s company. In one too-perfect example, Viguerie raised $802,028 for a client seeking to distribute Bibles in Asia—who paid $889,255 for the service.
This is in the DNA of the “New Right” which started with Viguerie but is now a world-wide phenomenon. It’s an appeal to authoritarian followers. The Internet has allowed it to expand even more, and it works even better when people are isolating themselves in their own info-bubbles apart from reality. As Perlstein notes in the section Waging Culture War for Fun and Profit,
Dishonesty is demanded by the alarmist fundraising appeal because the real world doesn’t work anything like this. The distance from observable reality is rhetorically required; indeed, that you haven’t quite seen anything resembling any of this in your everyday life is a kind of evidence all by itself. It just goes to show how diabolical the enemy has become. He is unseen; but the redeemer, the hero who tells you the tale, can see the innermost details of the most baleful conspiracies. Trust him. Send him your money. Surrender your will—and the monster shall be banished for good.
This is nothing new for those who’ve been following evangelical preachers. They warn of eternal damnation and the rise of the devil in the world — unless the faithful send in their money now. Then they can be saved and prosper. It’s why so many of them are devout followers of Trump. He’s giving them the same kind of message. Trump’s inaugural “American Carnage” address was playing directly to the hordes who have been conditioned for decades to view the world in these terms.
Following the Money…
When you have a political movement that is infested with people who are seemingly only in it for the money, (like this guy here?), they don’t care where the money comes from. The amount of Russian Money flooding into Republican pockets, as annielli spelled out, goes a long ways towards explaining why the GOP is so reluctant to call out Russian interference in our elections, and why there have been so many retirements lately on the Red side of the aisle. (You’d think this would be front-page news. Imagine what Joe McCarthy would say if he was still around.) It also shows why conservatives fought so hard to get Dark Money unleashed with the Citizens United decision from the Supreme Court.
On the Other Hand...
That’s one reason there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing them victimized by the monster they helped create. It’s a satisfaction we can ill afford though. Campaign finance reform is going to be essential going forward — but even despite what’s happening to the Trump campaign, there’s no sign Republicans will ever get behind it. Ripping off others is their business model.
Beau of the Fifth Column has some thoughts about this:
Thanks to D.L. for pointing me at this.