Political fundraisers, like the boy who cried wolf, may get eaten alive

Continuous, hyperbolic hectoring cannot be good campaign practice. Maybe it works, maybe it can generate enough cash to distribute a winning message, but it is corrosive and ultimately self-defeating.

You know that story about the boy who cried wolf so often that his actual plea for help went unheeded? Well, campaign fundraisers obviously never heard about that.

There are lots of reasons to wish this election season was over. One of my biggest is to put an end to the relentless, apocalyptic fundraising that swamps my email inbox and floods every social media channel.

I’m as invested in defeating authoritarian assaults on electoral democracy as the next citizen, maybe even a little more than most. I’ve contributed money to some races that seem especially important to me, and I am pulling hard for all those candidates.

But I am profoundly tired of hearing from their hyperventilating fundraising machines.

OMG!! Herschel Walker…

Howard, I can’t sleep at night…

Dr. Oz SURGES…

And so on, and so forth, world without end. Most of these campaigns are singing from the same hymnbook when it comes to how they ask. Everything is ESSENTIAL and needs to happen RIGHT NOW. Important political figures add their names to the pitches (looking at you, Martin Sheen, Bernie Sanders et al). The ask is usually modest (If everybody reading this sends in just $15 before midnight…) but it’s always followed almost immediately by another frenzied request. Every request is made with the same breathless, desperate intensity.

Look, I get it. I’m no cosseted intellectual or starry-eyed idealist (okay, maybe a little) and I know money has taken over politics in this country. Ever since the Supreme Court opened the floodgates with Citizens United, the ultra rich have been turning dollars into votes across the political landscape. One ideological billionaire can prop up stalking horses like Dr Oz or Hershel Walker, insulating them from the natural consequences of their failing campaigns. Vigorous, grass-roots fundraising is an essential tool for progressives working to counter that.

But continuous, hyperbolic hectoring cannot be good campaign practice. It must be working, to some extent, and I pray it will have generated enough cash to distribute a winning message, but it is corrosive and ultimately self-defeating.

I now trash every fundraising text and email I receive these days. I’m still sending a little money to specific campaigns, but generic requests from some congressional district in Iowa or a candidate for Secretary of State in Indiana stand no chance. I don’t have the bandwidth (or bank book) to answer them all; even reading them has become dispiriting. If things are really that bad, why bother?

Contrary to the “aging journalist” stereotype, I am not at heart a cynic. Neither am I a Yellow Dog partisan nor insurrectionist Oath Keeper locked into an ideological echo chamber with no way out. I can still both see and appreciate nuance, even when there’s precious little on display.

One of my literary and philosophical icons, Michel de Montaigne, was once described as “multilinear and perspectivist,” a description I immediately aspired to for myself. It’s a tough spot to occupy in the heat of battle, but it’s the only one that works if you’re looking for sustainable change.