The Hypocrisy of Paywalls and Political Campaign Contributions

01 Jul 2025 8 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

If you are reading this blog, you will note two aspects of my blog that might be salient.  They will only be evident if you look closely.  First, there is no Paywall.  I charge nothing for my ideas.  Indeed, I encourage you to repost or use my ideas in any way that you think will help others.  Second, there are no advertisements.  I take no money from anyone.  I am beholden to no companies or corporations for endorsements or financial remuneration.  If anyone does not like what I say, that is their problem.  I am free and unencumbered to say it and you are free and unencumbered to read it.  No sixty second sound bites from anyone before you can plow ahead.  The only thing standing between you and my blog are the bits and bytes of your computer and the speed of your Internet provider.

I point the above out because it seems that what is obvious to me is not obvious to others.  Most of us know that the USA and its government is seriously broken.  It is dysfunctional, immoral and often now illegal and unconstitutional.  What is the biggest reason for this?  Simple.  Money and greed and the power that money begets.  Ergo, if money is as they say, “The Root of All Evil,” than how can asking for more money fix the problem.  Imagine if there were a fire burning in your house and you tried to put it out by throwing money on it?  Well, that is what too many people are trying to do. 

Many bloggers are now asking for money before you can read their blogs.  How do they think this will make the world a better place to live?  “Just give me money and I will share my wonderful ideas with you.”  In other words, I am no different than the other greedy people who would sell their souls for a few dollars.  I will sell my soul for a few bucks that I might make on Substack or some other place that allows Paywalls and advertisements.

If you think advertisements are benign and harmless, you are delusional.  Madison Avenue and the corporate advertising machine are the number one brainwashers in America.  They are the primary reason that people keep spending and spending.  Madison Avenue exists to convince you that you are inadequate and that if you only buy product X, it will make you feel better and bestow happiness on your life.  Than, you only have to keep buying more to stay happy.  Think of the junk that you see every day trying to be sold to suckers to make their lives better.  Not a prophet in history preached that you can have a better life by having more things.  If you support advertising, you support this evil concept.  The foundation of this concept is Greed that pervades Corporate America. 

Next we have politicians whose every message ends with “SEND MONEY” or “DONATE TO MY CAMPAIGN.”  I cannot think of a campaign or revolution in history from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon or Lenin to Toussaint Louverture or Simon Bolivar or Gandhi or Martin Luther King, where they sent out advertising brochures or flyers asking for money.  They might have solicited soldiers or workers but people not money were their primary objectives.  You of course can argue that some of these individuals had the power and resources of the state to fund their campaigns.  I concede that this is true.  However, it is equally true that without people, their campaigns and revolutions would have failed. 

I see too many politicians who seem to believe that if they can only get enough money, they will then be able to buy enough advertising to convince you to vote for them.  Nothing could be more stupid.  Harris spent nearly a ¼ billion dollars more than trump during the last election and obviously lost.  All of her money did her no good.  Nor did her celebrity endorsements.  The day after the elections, the DNC asked for more money to defeat trump’s policies.  [By the way, the CEO of ActBlue, the major fundraiser for the Democrats has a gross salary of approximately $500,000 dollars a year and many of the senior executives of this organization make well over $100,000 dollars a year.  This should dispel any notion you have that fundraisers for the Democrats are benevolent donors of their time and energy.] 

The other point about advertising’s power to convince anyone to vote concerns the voters themselves.  How many trump supporters do you think changed their mind because they listened to or watched a Harris ad?  How many Harris supporters do you think changed their mind because they watched a trump ad?  And what of the thirty-three percent of the people who did not vote?  A percentage that has remained roughly the same since the first voting in this country for George Washington.  Nearly every election a third of Americans DO NOT vote.  How many of these non-voters do you think changed their mind to vote for either Harris or trump because of some cute and slick campaign ad?  Madison Avenue is laughing their asses off every time an election comes around because they are the real winners.  As the famous pianist Liberace once said, “I am laughing my way all the way to the bank.” 

Einstein once made the following two profound statements, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking we used when we created them” and “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  We are insane if we think that we are going to change a system based on greed and money by simply donating more money to fund this system.  What could be more preposterous than this idea?

Let me tell you a little story that I experienced in the 2024 election.  A friend of ours from church decided to run for state representative.  I believe that she supported many if not most of the same policies that I do.  However, I told her as well as others that I knew that I was no longer donating money to any campaigns.  We discussed some ideas at church one day and she was very pro-education, and she thought that we needed to do some things differently.  I gave her my personal card and said that I would be happy to discuss some of my ideas on education.  Ideas that come from teaching for over fifty years now.  A short time later,  she sent me a notice that she was hosting a campaign fund raiser.  I was somewhat surprised since I thought I made it clear that I would not donate money to anyone for a campaign effort.  I was also perplexed since I believed in her ideas, and I admired her personally.  Nevertheless, I decided to stick with my convictions about money.  Instead, I sent her an email saying that “I would not make campaign donations, but I would help her with phone calls, signs or going door to door.” 

Weeks went by.  She never called to set up a time to talk to me about my theories of changing education nor did she ever call to ask me to help physically in any way with her campaign.  Come the election, she lost to her opposition by a 56 to 44 margin.  Would my help have made any difference, or would my money have made any difference?  I have no way of knowing.

During the last election, being a guest on Podcasts has emerged as a new political tool and strategy.  Judging by the election results, it might be a better strategy than the money wasted on advertising.  Some data concerning the visibility that trump gained versus Harris gained on podcasts are as follows:

Trump’s Appearances/Mentions: Trump has been mentioned in or appeared on a significantly larger number of podcasts, with nearly 70,000 instances, according to Brookings, citing Ivy, a podcast discovery service.

Harris’s Appearances/Mentions: Kamala Harris has been mentioned in or appeared on a little over 12,000 podcasts.

This data suggests that while Trump had more individual podcast appearances, he also received substantially more mentions or coverage across a wider range of podcasts compared to Harris.

A friend of mine recently called me up to tell me that I should watch Pete Buttigieg on a Podcast called Flagrant with a guy named Andrew Schulz.  Four other young males of various ethnicities all casually dressed flanked Shultz and Buttigieg as they engaged in a casual banter about life and politics.  

This podcast and others of the same ilk have nothing in common with the traditional sit-down interviews that politicians used to have on shows such as Face the Nation and 60 minutes.  Podcasts like Flagrant are like sitting in your buddies living room or Arizona Room and slurping a beer while casually discussing the latest news.  Not a woman was present in the room with Buttigieg and Schulz.  A more or less macho image pervaded the discussions.  It seem macho has become the new norm in politics today.  Women can stay in the kitchen while the men hide out in their man caves and solve the problems of the world. 

My friend had asked me what I thought of Buttigieg?  I wondered if Pete attending all the macho podcasts was a strategy to set him up for the next election cycle.  I have a strong belief  that is what his advisors are endorsing.  Perhaps this is being pragmatic and simply making maxim use of the new media.  Or perhaps it is targeting the same demographic that trump targeted so successfully.  I queried ChatGPT to get the results on trump’s election demographics.  They were as follows:

| White voters (overall) | ~80–82% | Largest core group |

| White evangelical Protestants | ~82% (South); 43% of R base | Bedrock core |

| Latino voters | 46–48% | Historically high support |

| Latino men | ~54–55% | Key swing within Latino support |

| Asian Americans | ~40% | +10-point gain since 2020 |

| Black voters | ~15% (esp. young men) | Doubled since 2020 |

| Young men | ~55–56% | Social media & influencer effect |

A reasonable estimate for men aged 25–45 is around 50–52% of Trump voters.  This is a majority of his voting demographic.  Watch some of the podcasts like Joe Rogan and Flagrant and you tell me what demographic you think they are appealing to.  Rogan averages 11 million views on Spotify and Flagrant (numbers are not public) is estimated to be in the millions with specific episodes passing ten million viewers.  With these numbers and the type of audience watching, millions of dollars on traditional advertising is a waste of time and money. 

Conclusions:

  • If you want change in this country, do not send another dime to a politician.
  • If you must fund any politician, look at how many PACs they subscribe to or how many lobbyists they get funding from. Stay away from any with PACs hiding under aliases like Patriots for Freedom or Americans for Liberty.
  • Donate your time and talent to anyone running for public office before you donate any money.
  • Encourage your choice for office to get out there and talk to people. Consider people for office who can really relate to the people who are going to elect them.  Any lawyer that went to a private high school and then graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard and never served a day in the military or put in an honest days work is not likely to know the problems of the common people. 
  • Think before you send any money to anyone. What are they going to use your money for? 
  • If you have a printing press in your house or a tree that grows money, than by all means, send all the money you want. While you are at it, could you send me a few thousand dollars? 

P.S. 

Before I could even get this blog up, I get an email from the new “Hero” of the Democratic Party telling me the following and three times asking for donations in the same email.

“We will need to run the largest and most effective campaign in history for the next five months to win the general election. The same billionaires whose money could not stop us before, are throwing everything they have to crush us. And the reality is that they are going to go after any candidate in any part of the country who dares to champion working people.”

“What we will achieve together sends a message across America — and throughout the world.

The people can topple political dynasties. The people can build coalitions. The people can win.

So join our movement and lets bring forward a new generation of leadership.

In solidarity,”

Zohran Mamdani

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Money! Money! Money! No! I Don’t Have Any More Money to Give You!

14 Sep 2020 20 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Political-FUNDRAISING-DURING-A-PANDEMIC

I am sick, sick, sick of being asked to donate money to people running for office.  From Alaska to Hawaii to Maine, every day some incumbent or would-be incumbent is sending me a request for money.  The requests come in various disguises.  From surveys, to matching funds, to desperate pleas for a last-minute donation.  I get requests on email, by phone, in regular mail and often text messages.  I just completed a “survey” and the last question was a hook.  “Are you willing to support the causes that you say you believe in?”  If so, I am supposed to send a small $3 dollar donation off someplace.  I am sick and tired of these click bait requests for money.  I get even sicker when I think I have about 50 days more days to put up with these incessant requests for money, more money and ever more money.

John,

I wish I were emailing with a better update but unfortunately, we missed our goal Saturday night.

We needed to raise $75,000 to fight back against the more than $60 million Mitch McConnell and his allies plan to spend to beat us. But even with the support from this team, we still fell short.

There is an irony here as well.  The Democrats which I am supporting for this election all agree that we need campaign finance reform.  We must get money out of the political process.  Too much money is spent on lobbying, advertising, promoting candidates, media, and media consultants.  And what is the secret to getting money out of politics.  Very Simple My Friend:  “Just send me $10 dollars today so I can defeat my greedy opponent.” 

A few months ago, my wife and I both received Covid Stimulus checks for $1200 each.  When we received these checks, we had been self-quarantining to avoid contagion with anyone who might be harboring the virus.  As a result of the virus, we had no place to go.  Our auto gas bill was near zero.  Our entertainment expenses were zero.  Our eating out expenses were zero.  We are both semi-retired and I lost some income since I had been doing substitute teaching work which was terminated when the schools all closed.  My wife continued her part-time work as a medical coder working from home and her income did not decline.  All in all though, we were in a better financial place than we had been in years.

Mark’s 72-hour fundraising deadline ends tomorrow, and I know he could use some help to close the gap, which is why I have to ask:

If you are able, will you make a $50 donation to Mark’s people-powered campaign? He can’t afford to fall short of this goal, not when Mitch McConnell and the NRA are spending millions on ads to defeat him.

When the checks came, we realized that many other people were hurting.  Many people needed the money more than we did.  We decided to donate the first check of $1200 dollars to six charities at $200 each charity.  We sent the money to a variety of charities that we thought worthwhile. Subsequently, we sent another $400 dollars from the second stimulus check to a few other charities.  We felt good that we could help others.  During this time period, we also received many requests from politicians.  We decided that we would not send any money to any politicians until after the primaries were over.

John, with our FEC end-of-quarter deadline approaching, we need to raise $41,000 more by September 30 to show that we can win this election.

It’s going to take a lot, but I know we can do it together. Can you contribute today to help us reach this goal and flip this seat blue?

Several months have gone by.  Hundreds of requests for money to support this candidate or that candidate have been received.  No exaggeration here either.  I get between five and ten requests every day to send money to some would-be politician.  Nevertheless, both my wife and I agreed that we would send at least ½ of any further stimulus money received to politicians that we supported.  As time has gone by, we realized that:  1).  Probably, no further stimulus money would be coming and 2).  We needed to send money to candidates that we supported now before it was too late.  Any money sent later would come to late to be of any use.

But look, John, this will still be an uphill battle against Lindsey and his massive fundraising war chest.

We need to raise another $40,599 by midnight tomorrow or we won’t be able to compete.

We decided to take six hundred dollars out of our savings and allocate it among the various candidates.  Using an approach developed in baseball and called the “Money Ball” approach, we selected candidates based on the following priorities:

  1. Defeating Trump for the Presidency
  2. Flipping the U.S. Senate
  3. Supporting three local candidates that we knew

Our money went as follows:

  • $200 to Biden
  • $250 dollars to U.S. Senate candidates (5 candidates at $50 dollars each)
  • $150 dollars to local candidates (3 candidates at $50 dollars each)

We sent the money directly to each candidate via their website donation buttons.  Every candidate now has a prominent place to send money to them via their websites.  We decided that if we received any more stimulus money, we would make a second round of donations.  If not, this was all the money we were sending.  Further pleas, requests, entreaties, appeals, supplications, and petitions for more money would be ignored.  Balancing out our concern for a “Better USA” was our concern for many charities which we would like to support but could not since our extra money was now going to the political arena.  An arena I might mention that is worse than a bottom less pit.  Did you ever wonder where all the campaign money that you give to your candidate goes?  Here is one break-down that I found on Wikipedia:

  • Grassroots fundraising
  • Opposition research
  • Consultation
  • Advertising
  • Canvassing
  • Retail politics
  • Election promises
  • Get out the vote efforts
  • Lawn signs
  • Attack ads
  • Push polls
  • Candidate needs
  • Campaign manager
  • Campaign staff
  • Political portals and websites

I have four political lawn signs that I either bought or gave a donation for.  One of my signs is a Biden sign.  It was stolen about a week ago.  I went on line and purchased two more Biden signs.  The first one lasted about two weeks.  I figure that two more should get me through the election.  After the election, they will either be a souvenir or junk depending on which way the voting goes.

Dear John

In a country devoid of national leadership on this public health crisis known as the COVID-19 pandemic, and devoid of a national health system like Medicare for All that would put the interests of the public over those of greedy commercial profiteers… Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) knows we can do better. Please support our efforts with a donation of $20, $10, or $5.

After we sent our money.  We received one Thank You letter from the Wisconsin Democratic party but not a single acknowledgement from any single candidate on either a national or local level.  What we did receive was at least 5 more requests for money from each of the national candidates.  The Biden campaign alone has sent us more than a dozen requests since they received our $200 dollar donation.  No Thank You message.

John, the first ballots are being cast right now in North Carolina, so I’m emailing you today to ask you to roll up your sleeves and join Joe and me in the fight for what he so rightly calls “the soul of our nation.” Will you split a $10 donation between our Biden-Harris ticket and Democrats nationwide to give our campaigns the important resources necessary to move the needle?

My wife Karen and I were talking about the aggravation we are both experiencing with all of these daily requests for money.  I said I would like to start a “No Money Party”.  She remembered an Andrew Greeley book she read.  It had a candidate running for office who swore that he would never ask or request money for his campaign.  People were so enamored of the idea that he received a great deal of unrequested money.  I want to start a No Money Party.  No candidates running under my party banner would ever request a single penny from anyone.  We might request help in turns of time or volunteering, but we would never request a single penny.  Of course, you are saying “How naive.  Your candidates would never get elected.”  You might be 100% percent right.  However, that is not the point.

The point is that all of these people running for office are clueless.  They all think or at least act like every USA citizen has a printing press in their basement.  They are the most important people in the world.  Their getting elected will cure the Covid-19 Pandemic.  Their getting elected will end Global Warming.  Their getting elected will create an economy like the world has never seen before.  Promises, promises, promises and all you have to do to make these promises come true is to send MORE money.

quote-the-money-in-politics-is-a-cash-cow-for-the-media-noam-chomsky-142-72-37

Well friends, Romans, and other countrymen.  I am making a promise today.  NO MAS.  No more money.  I am not sending another penny, shilling, drachma, farthing or even an IOU to anyone running for office for the remainder of the 2020 year.  If something happens and I am granted another Corona virus stimulus check before the election, my stimulus money will go to help someone get an education or get needed health care.  I can’t think of any politician really worth sending another centavo to.  Most of them have more money than I will ever see anyway.  I am sure they all eat for free someplace on Capital Hill and laugh at the suckers who keep sending them money to get reelected.

If you agree with me, please don’t sent me any money.  I will only waste it on buying another bottle of Tequila so that I can forget this election and drown my political sorrows.

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