On Thursday of last week, I spent the better part of an hour filling out a survey form because I had been informed by email that Democrats need my input and the input of others like me in order to refine the strategy for the 2020 election, so as to avoid a humiliation like the one suffered in 2016.
I did not rush through the survey, but answered every question as accurately as my memory would allow me to do. When prompted for a text response, I did not give a simple one-liner, but gave a thoughtful answer so that, if my response was read, it would be as useful as possible. I did this because if the Democratic Party needed my input to be as ready to succeed in the 2020 elections as possible, I did not want to withhold giving it my all.
Finally, there was the last “question” of the survey. I put “question” in quotes because this one wasn’t even phrased as a question. In place of a question was an explanation of the importance of donating money to an organization known as the National Democratic Training Committee, a Carey Committee associated with the Democratic Party. The available answers were different amounts of money that the “survey” respondent would contribute – ranging from three dollars to a final option that said that the respondent would contribute a larger amount than any of the other options specified.
The fact that there was no option to indicate a lack of any intent to contribute anything at all makes it a question that doesn’t offer a negative answer, which very plainly is something that has no place whatsoever in any serious survey. But not only is there no option offered for those who have no intent to contribute anything at all – there isn’t even an option for those who lack the funds to contribute monetarily but would be happy to contribute to the cause in other ways such as volunteering their time.
At any rate, the website that hosted the “survey” allowed me to submit my response successfully despite the fact that I hadn’t checked any of the boxes in that final question. Where did it direct my browser after I submitted the form? It directed me to a page that simply and brazenly asked me to contribute money to the National Democratic Training Committee.
This whole experience left me wondering whether the organization’s interest in my opinion is contingent on me donating them money – or whether their interest in my opinion is completely non-existent and the only reason they asked me to go through the motion of giving them my opinion was a pretext for hitting me up for money. I don’t know which possibility are worse, as both of them are very disturbing to consider.
It was suggested by a family member that the people who conducted the survey might be genuinely interested in the opinion of those who are committed to the Democratic cause and are simply using the contribution of money as an indicator by which to separate those who are serious about the cause from those who are not. On the surface, this explanation seems reasonable – but in reality it isn’t. How much money (if any) someone contributes to an organization is a function not only of that person’s commitment to the cause, but also of how much money that person has at their disposal, and a political organization worth its salt ought to know that. Since the Democratic Party is trying to portray itself as the party that cares about those who experience financial hardship, any indication that the opinions of those who are not able to contribute money are valued less than the opinions of those who are sends the wrong message.
This disturbing trend is limited not only to the National Democratic Training Committee. A day or so later, I got a request claiming to be from Elizabeth Warren asking that I sign a petition to abolish the Electoral College. Naturally, I signed the petition, as the importance of abolishing the Electoral College is something that I strongly believe in. Of course, in any website that legitimately handles petitions, signing a petition would take me to a page that gives me the option to share the petition with other people via social media, email, and possibly through a few other means – as well as possibly in addition to that links to a few other petitions that I may or may not be interested in signing as well. Do you think that I saw any of that after signing Senator Warren’s petition against the Electoral College?
No, I did not. It, once again, took me to a page that asked me for one and only one kind of support – the contribution of money to her campaign. It did not even give me any option for volunteering to do other things such as phone-banking that someone who is tight on money would be far more able to do than contribute even small amounts of money. And the options for sharing the petition with my friends that I would have gotten had it been a legitimate petition (rather than, once again, a blatant pretext for hitting me up for money) were also completely absent.
Now, I understand full well that mounting a political campaign can be expensive, and the Democratic Party and all of its candidates need to raise funds to be able to pay for such expenses. But doing so in such a bait-and-switch manner that conditions people to be suspicious every time that their opinion or other involvement is asked for is not the way to do it. It is bound to alienate people whose support the Democratic Party needs for victory as surely as it needs money.
While the policies of the Democratic Party are far from perfect, anyone who is paying attention knows that they are a far cry better for Americans suffering any kind of hardship than those of the Republican Party. Also, anyone with any sense of realism knows that in virtually every political race in this country, especially the higher-level political races, the Democrats are the only alternative to the Republicans who have a snowball’s chance of winning. But to actually win, it is essential that Democrats make it clear to the down-and-out voters that they are a party that is serious about having their back.
No matter how much money is raised in the bait-and-switch fundraising bids I described in this letter, there is no way that money is worth the erosion of your constituents’ confidence that such fundraising strategies will invariably cause.
For this reason, I strongly urge any Democratic organization, every Democratic campaign that engages in fundraising of any kind – when you make your requests for money, make them requests that from the get-go are upfront about being requests for money. If you ask your constituents to participate in a survey, sign a petition, or do anything of that sort – then no matter how tempting, do not poison that effort by hitting participants up for money. Keep your fundraising efforts separate from your voter-energizing efforts, no matter how tempting it is to do otherwise.
And even when you send out a message that is upfront from the get-go a request for financial assistance – always give people who are too financially strapped to donate even a small amount of money an opportunity to help by non-monetary means. This is essential in order to make it clear that the Democratic Party values those who don’t have the financial means to donate money as much as it values those who do.
I say this because the prospect of further political victories by the Republican Party is something that I find to be terrifying – as would any American voter who understands the difference between the policies of the parties and their respective effects on the nation. But certain things that the Democratic Party does, the practice described in this letter being a prime example, are a sure-fire way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Sincerely,
Sophia Elizabeth Shapira
