In the snippet of video that roamed around social media this week, Lara Trump \u2014 daughter-in-law of the former president and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, in that order \u2014 appeals for people to contribute to the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can\u2019t afford a donation today,\u201d she says, sitting in a stylishly appointed room, \u201cI ask that you would save it for a later date. But even if you could donate even as much as $5, it will go a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Picked up by the liberal \u201cPatriotTakes\u201d account on X, several critics of the former president and his politics criticized Lara Trump\u2019s suggestion that people give what little they could. In part, this was a function of PatriotTakes misrepresenting Trump\u2019s ask; she wasn\u2019t asking people to save up to give $5 but, instead, to save any donation until later. In part, the criticism was a function of the incongruity of a member of a very wealthy family asking people if they could spare five bucks.<\/p>\n
This is a misread of what\u2019s really happening, though. That little patter about not being able to afford a contribution is, instead, political rhetoric aimed at bolstering the idea that Americans are suffering inordinately under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n
This is more explicitly demonstrated in ads featuring Donald Trump himself. In ads that have run on Facebook, you can see the \u201cif you can afford to\u201d bit in context.<\/p>\n
\u201cDO NOT DONATE IF YOU CAN\u2019T AFFORD TO!\u201d one says. \u201cJoe Biden has destroyed our country, so if you can\u2019t afford to chip in, don\u2019t even think about it!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe Biden has destroyed our country,\u201d says another, \u201cso if you can\u2019t afford to chip in, don\u2019t even think about it!\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the point. It\u2019s not that Lara Trump and her father-in-law are greedily asking poor Americans to send in whatever they can scrape together. It\u2019s that they want to reinforce the idea that there are millions of people who have been thrust into economic insecurity thanks to the policies of Trump\u2019s general election opponent. And that idea, they obviously hope, might prompt some wavering donors to chip in \u2014 to make up the difference for those rendered unable to do so by Bidenomics.<\/p>\n
You know how you can tell that Trump isn\u2019t really worried about the economic position of his supporters? Because this is the same person who last month pitched his supporters on buying a Bible with public-domain text for $60, a portion of which goes into his pocket. This is the guy who, earlier this week, insisted that the stock for his social media company \u2014 which increased his fortune dramatically when it shot up after the company went public \u2014 was worth the investment. This is the guy who is pitching $400 sneakers and Trump-branded cologne. Who has tried to get people to buy $99 NFTs, including a promotion in which buyers got a piece of the suit he wore in his mug shot.<\/p>\n
This is the capitalist buffet of an inveterate hustler who would unquestionably take your last dollar if you wanted to offer it to him and maybe if you really didn\u2019t. (His 2020 campaign, you might recall, had to refund a huge amount of money to people who inadvertently signed up for recurring donations.) If Donald Trump suggests you keep your money in your pocket, it\u2019s probably either because he wants something else from you \u2014 like a vote \u2014 or if he thinks that\u2019s a way to get more money out of you later.<\/p>\n
All of this aside, there is utility in Lara Trump\u2019s ask for people to give $5, and not just that maybe they\u2019ll accidentally agree to giving $5 a month indefinitely. Political campaigns want your small-dollar donations because they come with your contact information and an indication that you\u2019re willing to give them something. They go from having potentially no information about you to having a way to ask you for another $5 or $10 or $3,000 over the next six months.<\/p>\n
In YouGov\u2019s most recent poll, incidentally, the lowest-income respondents were more likely to indicate support for Biden than for Trump. Trump had the advantage among those in the middle range of incomes, who would presumably be less likely to be merely scraping by.<\/p>\n
And heck, when you\u2019re done giving that $5 to the RNC, why not pick up a few shares of Trump Media?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In the snippet of video that roamed around social media this week, Lara Trump \u2014 daughter-in-law of the former president and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, in that order \u2014 appeals for people to contribute to the party. \u201cIf you can\u2019t afford a donation today,\u201d she says, sitting in a stylishly appointed room, \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}