The movement has a really big problem where the grasroots don't feel valued and part of a team. Not rocket science when the only comms they ever receive from said movement are desperate pleas for money. People don't like feeling like a pocketbook, and don't believe in a cause that doesn't work for them.
ALSO (and you and I have both talked about this elsewhere) the double whammy of NOT investing in any digital infrastructure means these please are the ONLY coms people get. If we had a robust SM comms structure, it would be frankly less damaging.
As a creator, I have received a shocking number of offers to work with orgs on a fundraising commission basis (and nothing else). They see no value in my work communicating message, only anoter vehical to raise. Makes me deeply upset.
Hear hear. I am so tired of getting a dozen text messages a day, it takes ~10-15 minutes/day to send STOP and DELETE AS JUNK. And yet they keep coming! From the same campaigns! Can’t someone figure out a better way? I am not rich, but I am committed to helping good candidates in two states that are my main focus. I’ve written back that if I gave $10/mo to every candidate that wrote to me I would literally have not enough money to live at the end of the month. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SYSTEM? I am dedicated to good governance, have been all my life, mostly working for nonprofits and gov’t so not wealthy. I am so sick of the mainstream Dem Party, do they care what we rank and file folks think?
Thanks for bringing these email and text tactics to the light of day. As a small donor, I am deluged with fear inducing emails, that I have come to simply ignore. I unsubscribe often. I take note of "who does this" and note that I will not support groups or candidates that use these flashpoint/world is on fire tactics. I see them as one more attempt to trigger my "dinosaur brain" which is the last thing any of us need.
I usually make many, targeted small donations to those doing good work, almost all paid through ActBlue.
I don't know if it is ActBlue or the individual politicians, but the widespread sharing of my phone number data(texts) with others not of my choosing has enraged me and stuffed my text stream with garbage.
I am now routinely reporting them as Spam. I'm tired of replying "StOpMeBeforEiTexTagAin" to control the flow.
DNC perhaps? needs to set some standards because I am DONE.
I will continue to fund certain pols I learned about on my own, but I will not broaden to appeals via text or email.
Thank you, Amanda! I'm a pro-democracy $$ contributor who is bombarded (bombarded!) every day by urgent!, hair-on-fire! texts and emails requesting "just $5" to meet finance reporting deadlines, or to help pay for lawsuits against the regime, or any number of ridiculous reasons that any fool would know is BS. BTW, I was an elected official, myself, and I know first-hand the need to raise money for a campaign. But I also know that you shouldn't insult your contributors, your constituents or your base while you're at it. Asking for money is tough, but if you do it professionally and with respect, it's also rewarding. I wish – I hope – my party gets the message.
Agree 100%. What’s most disappointing is signing up for an elected official’s campaign newsletter - very clearly opting in - and then ONLY receiving fundraising pitches. A giant empty cavernous zero for news about what they’re doing in DC, their platform, events they’re going to be at, town halls they’re holding, contrasts with their opponents, issues in the news, volunteers needed, etc.
Every single one of my former state’s members of Congress pulls that garbage. It’s ridiculous and insulting.
YES, and YES they are stuck but it's their own damn fault, and schumer and the 8 senators fucked them even worse. they should not be fundraising on total capitulation right after 7 million people marched for them under their banner, FUCK THAT and FUCK THEM is my reaction. You know how they can get their reputation back? stfu with the fundraising, and DO SOMETHING, SOMETHING ACTUAL, it doesn't take money to do most things and stand by their voters. You know how they can get us back? fire schumer and put bernie in charge of the senate, fire jeffries and put aoc in his place, how fucking stupid ARE they? that capitulation cost them tenesee, I guarantee. if they want to see donations, they need to do more than make promises and then fold, putting them in place would show they're serious and have heard the message loud and clear. If that pisses off wall street, my reaction is GOOD. Wall street is not on their voter's side.
I love your honesty and explanation of how it works! I am a fan of keeping my inbox intimate and useful. I’m big on unsubscribing… sometimes over and over. I am even more protective of my texts!
From my perspective, the Democratic Party has left its core base, which was the blue-collar segment of the population. They've become corporate Democrats chasing large dollar donors and ignoring the middle class, ignoring the blue-collar, ignoring the Mexicans, ignoring the blacks, ignoring unions, ignoring the people that have been their base since FDR. The working class, not the wealthy, have been the backbone of the Democratic Party up until the 1980s.
And until they move back in that direction, I don't see a lot of success generated by the Democratic Party other than the blowback that we're seeing now because the Trump administration is so absolutely abysmal. Key issues like healthcare and affordability (whatever that term actually means) is a bit nebulous, but it all has to do with the economy, stupid. For the first time in my life, I've given serious consideration to leaving the Democratic Party and becoming an independent. It's almost embarrassing anymore to be called a Democrat.
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes. Thanks for saying this. I think I actually asked you about this years ago when I first learned about Run For Something, but I suspect you were too busy to react at the time.
The thing about this is, what are these people doing with all that money? Why do they need so much? They haven't been particularly effective. Maybe less money acquired in a gentler and kinder way, as you've described, would allow them to be more effective.
It feels like what's needed to actually change things is grass roots work, not feeding the advertising-industrial-complex. If they relied less on ads and more on outreach, it certainly wouldn't be cheap, but in order to effectively do outreach, you have to provide a different message.
These days when I get one of these ads, which I rarely do, I mark it as spam. I felt guilty about that at first—am I causing harm by doing this? But it was clear that they weren't getting the message—I'd tried replying, sending comments various ways, etc. Nothing worked. I think it was the Sara Gideon campaign that finally broke me—that's when I started doing this. She took in more than ten million dollars more than she spent. I was desperate to win, and I sent her a lot of money. I felt SO betrayed when I found out what her campaign (hadn't!) done with it. Right up to the end it was URGENT URGENT URGENT to send more money. And they didn't spend it.
A spam message from someone in some state I've never been to came the other day with an embedded picture of James Carville with more platitudes about how sending money will win the day, and I just had a visceral reaction of disgust. I never signed up for this candidate's email, I have no clue who he is, and all the email told me was not to support him, because he's friends with James Carville. It literally said nothing about why he was running or why I should help him. Ugh. No wonder we keep losing.
So I really appreciate you saying this now, when people are paying attention to you. I hope they get the message. I hardly donate to anyone anymore—Run For Something is one of the few, and Indivisible is another. And it's because if the way you message (and also that I think you do such good work!).
Amanda, thank you for taking the time to create this post that is infused with detail and concern. You impress me each time I read what you write and listen to you on podcasts.
I am also inundated with fundraising texts everyday for a myriad of people and causes. I gave up deleting, blocking, unsubscribing. They just switch to another number and send more texts. I simply open them and leave text app.
Typically these text messages have no brand to give me comfort that the $ would go to a cause or a person that I might support. The democrats need to somehow brand the texts, have a simple statement regarding why I should donate and severally reduce the number of texts. Right now, it’s meaningless garbage in my text “inbox”.
This is great, but it also seems like we have a collective action problem here- one big org might stop, but there could still be dozens of others sending hysterical texts and emails. Pod Save America did a good show on this problem and noted that there are too many groups in this space that aren’t coordinating.
There might be tension between "doing it the hard way is worth it” and “suffering has no intrinsic value”, but it's not a contradiction. You shouldn't suffer just for its own sake, but if you're suffering for a good reason then it's worth it.
Thank you for fighting the good fight against the awful spam emails.
I realize I'm behind the game replying to this, but a web search on the topic of constant democratic fundraising spams led me here. I'm beyond disappointed that the party has by and large separated from the interests of its core. And I'm beyond annoyed at the multiple daily sky-is-falling-but-you-can-help-stop-it-by-giving-now spam. They come from campaigns, from party leaders, and many directly from the DNC. Even those act like they're delivering some breaking news only to be yet another ask for money. I'm sick of it.
The movement has a really big problem where the grasroots don't feel valued and part of a team. Not rocket science when the only comms they ever receive from said movement are desperate pleas for money. People don't like feeling like a pocketbook, and don't believe in a cause that doesn't work for them.
ALSO (and you and I have both talked about this elsewhere) the double whammy of NOT investing in any digital infrastructure means these please are the ONLY coms people get. If we had a robust SM comms structure, it would be frankly less damaging.
As a creator, I have received a shocking number of offers to work with orgs on a fundraising commission basis (and nothing else). They see no value in my work communicating message, only anoter vehical to raise. Makes me deeply upset.
It's hugely fucked up.
Hear hear. I am so tired of getting a dozen text messages a day, it takes ~10-15 minutes/day to send STOP and DELETE AS JUNK. And yet they keep coming! From the same campaigns! Can’t someone figure out a better way? I am not rich, but I am committed to helping good candidates in two states that are my main focus. I’ve written back that if I gave $10/mo to every candidate that wrote to me I would literally have not enough money to live at the end of the month. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SYSTEM? I am dedicated to good governance, have been all my life, mostly working for nonprofits and gov’t so not wealthy. I am so sick of the mainstream Dem Party, do they care what we rank and file folks think?
Thanks for bringing these email and text tactics to the light of day. As a small donor, I am deluged with fear inducing emails, that I have come to simply ignore. I unsubscribe often. I take note of "who does this" and note that I will not support groups or candidates that use these flashpoint/world is on fire tactics. I see them as one more attempt to trigger my "dinosaur brain" which is the last thing any of us need.
Thank you for rejecting the “inevitability” of this approach. We do not have to do it this way!
Thank you for this.
I hit the text campaign wall this year.
I usually make many, targeted small donations to those doing good work, almost all paid through ActBlue.
I don't know if it is ActBlue or the individual politicians, but the widespread sharing of my phone number data(texts) with others not of my choosing has enraged me and stuffed my text stream with garbage.
I am now routinely reporting them as Spam. I'm tired of replying "StOpMeBeforEiTexTagAin" to control the flow.
DNC perhaps? needs to set some standards because I am DONE.
I will continue to fund certain pols I learned about on my own, but I will not broaden to appeals via text or email.
ActBlue doesn't sell data! The orgs and campaigns behind the scenes swap/sell data around.
Glad to hear that!
Thank you, Amanda! I'm a pro-democracy $$ contributor who is bombarded (bombarded!) every day by urgent!, hair-on-fire! texts and emails requesting "just $5" to meet finance reporting deadlines, or to help pay for lawsuits against the regime, or any number of ridiculous reasons that any fool would know is BS. BTW, I was an elected official, myself, and I know first-hand the need to raise money for a campaign. But I also know that you shouldn't insult your contributors, your constituents or your base while you're at it. Asking for money is tough, but if you do it professionally and with respect, it's also rewarding. I wish – I hope – my party gets the message.
Agree 100%. What’s most disappointing is signing up for an elected official’s campaign newsletter - very clearly opting in - and then ONLY receiving fundraising pitches. A giant empty cavernous zero for news about what they’re doing in DC, their platform, events they’re going to be at, town halls they’re holding, contrasts with their opponents, issues in the news, volunteers needed, etc.
Every single one of my former state’s members of Congress pulls that garbage. It’s ridiculous and insulting.
YES, and YES they are stuck but it's their own damn fault, and schumer and the 8 senators fucked them even worse. they should not be fundraising on total capitulation right after 7 million people marched for them under their banner, FUCK THAT and FUCK THEM is my reaction. You know how they can get their reputation back? stfu with the fundraising, and DO SOMETHING, SOMETHING ACTUAL, it doesn't take money to do most things and stand by their voters. You know how they can get us back? fire schumer and put bernie in charge of the senate, fire jeffries and put aoc in his place, how fucking stupid ARE they? that capitulation cost them tenesee, I guarantee. if they want to see donations, they need to do more than make promises and then fold, putting them in place would show they're serious and have heard the message loud and clear. If that pisses off wall street, my reaction is GOOD. Wall street is not on their voter's side.
I love your honesty and explanation of how it works! I am a fan of keeping my inbox intimate and useful. I’m big on unsubscribing… sometimes over and over. I am even more protective of my texts!
From my perspective, the Democratic Party has left its core base, which was the blue-collar segment of the population. They've become corporate Democrats chasing large dollar donors and ignoring the middle class, ignoring the blue-collar, ignoring the Mexicans, ignoring the blacks, ignoring unions, ignoring the people that have been their base since FDR. The working class, not the wealthy, have been the backbone of the Democratic Party up until the 1980s.
And until they move back in that direction, I don't see a lot of success generated by the Democratic Party other than the blowback that we're seeing now because the Trump administration is so absolutely abysmal. Key issues like healthcare and affordability (whatever that term actually means) is a bit nebulous, but it all has to do with the economy, stupid. For the first time in my life, I've given serious consideration to leaving the Democratic Party and becoming an independent. It's almost embarrassing anymore to be called a Democrat.
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes. Thanks for saying this. I think I actually asked you about this years ago when I first learned about Run For Something, but I suspect you were too busy to react at the time.
The thing about this is, what are these people doing with all that money? Why do they need so much? They haven't been particularly effective. Maybe less money acquired in a gentler and kinder way, as you've described, would allow them to be more effective.
It feels like what's needed to actually change things is grass roots work, not feeding the advertising-industrial-complex. If they relied less on ads and more on outreach, it certainly wouldn't be cheap, but in order to effectively do outreach, you have to provide a different message.
These days when I get one of these ads, which I rarely do, I mark it as spam. I felt guilty about that at first—am I causing harm by doing this? But it was clear that they weren't getting the message—I'd tried replying, sending comments various ways, etc. Nothing worked. I think it was the Sara Gideon campaign that finally broke me—that's when I started doing this. She took in more than ten million dollars more than she spent. I was desperate to win, and I sent her a lot of money. I felt SO betrayed when I found out what her campaign (hadn't!) done with it. Right up to the end it was URGENT URGENT URGENT to send more money. And they didn't spend it.
A spam message from someone in some state I've never been to came the other day with an embedded picture of James Carville with more platitudes about how sending money will win the day, and I just had a visceral reaction of disgust. I never signed up for this candidate's email, I have no clue who he is, and all the email told me was not to support him, because he's friends with James Carville. It literally said nothing about why he was running or why I should help him. Ugh. No wonder we keep losing.
So I really appreciate you saying this now, when people are paying attention to you. I hope they get the message. I hardly donate to anyone anymore—Run For Something is one of the few, and Indivisible is another. And it's because if the way you message (and also that I think you do such good work!).
Amanda, thank you for taking the time to create this post that is infused with detail and concern. You impress me each time I read what you write and listen to you on podcasts.
I am also inundated with fundraising texts everyday for a myriad of people and causes. I gave up deleting, blocking, unsubscribing. They just switch to another number and send more texts. I simply open them and leave text app.
Typically these text messages have no brand to give me comfort that the $ would go to a cause or a person that I might support. The democrats need to somehow brand the texts, have a simple statement regarding why I should donate and severally reduce the number of texts. Right now, it’s meaningless garbage in my text “inbox”.
This is great, but it also seems like we have a collective action problem here- one big org might stop, but there could still be dozens of others sending hysterical texts and emails. Pod Save America did a good show on this problem and noted that there are too many groups in this space that aren’t coordinating.
It's absolutely a race to the bottom.
There might be tension between "doing it the hard way is worth it” and “suffering has no intrinsic value”, but it's not a contradiction. You shouldn't suffer just for its own sake, but if you're suffering for a good reason then it's worth it.
Thank you for fighting the good fight against the awful spam emails.
I realize I'm behind the game replying to this, but a web search on the topic of constant democratic fundraising spams led me here. I'm beyond disappointed that the party has by and large separated from the interests of its core. And I'm beyond annoyed at the multiple daily sky-is-falling-but-you-can-help-stop-it-by-giving-now spam. They come from campaigns, from party leaders, and many directly from the DNC. Even those act like they're delivering some breaking news only to be yet another ask for money. I'm sick of it.