In all of my years of lurking, I’ve never posted something (though I started several drafts I never completed) and I rarely comment. Frankly, there’s always someone who already said something far better than I ever could by the time I’ve even formulated my thoughts, or else someone comes from an intersection of life and politics that makes what they say much more valid and meaningful. Sometimes (though only sometimes), I just have this feeling that my opinion won’t be well-received, not because it’s particularly disagreeable, but because I haven’t been a regular contributor; like we’re in school again and I’m not part of the popular group even though I’ve been listening to their conversations from the back of the room for years now.
In any case, my family is very upset and I did a search for this on the site but didn’t see anyone else talking about it… so, here we are, and my very first post is essentially just a plea to anyone out there who knows more about this than I do (boy, how anti-climactic!).
There is a PAC, (or alleged PAC), called the Police & Sheriff’s Support Alliance. A Quora thread informs me that it’s possible they were originally called Police Officer’s Support Alliance. They called my brother who is very high-functioning but on the spectrum, and the phonecall appeared to come out of our state. He gave them $40, despite being on unemployment and not really being able to afford this. While I wouldn’t have done it, he did so thinking it was a solicitation from our local sheriff’s office and our family has a history of giving money to the local force when they do their annual drive.
For context, the general belief around here is that if you CAN donate and get that sticker of support to put on your car, you should do it because the cops might take it easier on you when you get pulled over for minor infractions. Not saying it’s true, but it is what plenty of people think. It’s also the case that he’s used to thinking of it as being a normal and routine thing that he should do based on our father doing it when we were growing up. Thus, he had an underlying thought process outside of our current political situation, and frankly, he is neither well-informed nor savvy when it comes to politics. He hears the news sometimes but struggles to contextualize it outside of what people personally tell him and he takes most of what he hears at face value.
Anyway, when he was on the phone with them, his girlfriend (they both live with me now because they lost their jobs and were evicted during Covid) came and asked me if the county police ever ask for money over the phone. I told her they do, and in retrospect, I should’ve been more attentive, but my hours have been cut drastically and I was in the middle of doing the only project I’d gotten in about a week, so when she came to me, I didn’t have time to think much of it. At worst I thought he’d give them 5 or 10 bucks and get that oh-so valuable sticker. I wasn’t that worried.
Then, a letter came in yesterday and I saw that it was from a PAC based in Milwaukee and not our local sheriff. I remembered the conversation I’d had with his GF and immediately was concerned. Well, it turns out that he not only gave more money than anyone knew, thus upsetting his girlfriend (especially since he did NOT get his sticker), but it was evident that this organization only supported political candidates and legislators rather than our local police and none of the beneficiaries are even running in our state (so even if he were conservative, it would not be benefiting our area directly). The letter talks about building the wall and shutting down sanctuary cities and seems to support the use of chokeholds, which have been banned in our county for a decade.
My brother has voted democrat every election without even realizing he only votes for democrats. Being a little different in his thought processes and less-connected to politics in general, he doesn’t vote according to partisan divides. He gave them this money under the false pretense that this was the same local organization our family has contributed to in the past without asking which party they were calling on behalf of and they never divulged that information on their own.
They almost certainly misrepresented themselves and potentially spoofed a local number when calling, as the origin of the number was one of the only things he was very sure of when I spoke to him and it was from a city in our state. After reading through the letter that thanked him for the contribution, he was both upset and embarrassed because he just gave a chunk of his limited resources to propping up policies he is not supporting (he responds to the ideas, not necessarily the candidates). He will probably not pursue the issue as he doesn’t do confrontation well and can’t quite wrap his head around how the people on the phone weren’t who he thought they were.
I’m here just wondering how this is even legal… Is there anything he can do/I can do for him (if we’re being more realistic) to get that donation back? Is this a common issue? Are republicans fundraising by lying to people and misrepresenting themselves? Even if he can’t get that donation back, is this something others are looking into? I don’t want to make a big deal out of it because it obviously upset him already and I don’t want to stress him out further. It might just be a cost he has to eat and which myself and his SO don’t bring up again. But it still bothers me on another level because I wonder how many people are falling for this and supporting a group that doesn’t actually represent their values.
Any insight or advice you guys can add would be much appreciated.
Also, for final context: Again, I wouldn’t have donated either way, but it’s his money. I can understand some people not agreeing with giving police dept.s anything right now, and I feel that. I am pro-defunding the police. My brother is very abstracted from the realities of the rest of the country though and ultimately, I didn’t think $5 for a sticker (what I thought was happening) was worth a political discussion at the time he was on the phone. :(
