If you want to run for the US elections, you need money.
Donald Trump apparently took advantage of his supporters' willingness to donate.
And still does.
Washington, DC - Democrat Jesse Unruh once described the role of finance in the United States as the "breast milk of politics."
The US election campaign is inextricably linked to the flow of money.
And its source should at best gush vigorously in order to have promising chances for the highest office in the United States.
While this is by no means a guarantee of entry into the White House - as Hillary Clinton learned in 2016 - raising a lot of campaign donations can play a decisive role.
Especially in the final spurt.
Because US election campaigns have a second currency: emotions.
The candidates travel through the states to speak to their supporters - and to establish closeness.
However, the 2020 election campaign was shaped by the corona pandemic.
While US President Joe Biden increasingly relied on the digital election campaign, Donald Trump held on to appearances in front of thousands of supporters, despite the pandemic eating its way through the states.
Without money, no election campaign, that's obviously the bill.
And without emotions, no votes.
In the course of the 2020 US election, Donald Trump was able to elicit both from his supporters: emotions - and money.
Lot of money.
The
New York Times
recently revealed the ways in which the Trump team even made unwitting donations from the loyal base
.
It is a perfidious, elaborate system, which, however, held Donald Trump's crumbling election campaign together until November 3rd.
2020 US elections: America's most expensive election campaign - $ 14.4 billion
The 2020 US elections * were the most expensive in US history.
The independent
Center for Responsive Politics
(CRP) puts the spending of both parties at 14.4 billion US dollars.
Four years earlier, the cost was $ 6.5 billion.
A huge difference.
The Democratic Party spent the most money - not only in the presidential election, but also in the crucial race for the Senate seats in Georgia.
“Biden's campaign was the first to raise over $ 1 billion from donors.
Biden's cash advantage over Trump helped him cover swing states with far more campaign
ads,
”writes
opensecrets.org
.
From September 2020, the Trump campaign tried to counteract the immense income of the Democrats by setting up weekly recurring payments for online donations as the standard option.
A person who wanted to donate US $ 1,000 to Donald Trump's election campaign, for example, could easily get caught up in weekly payments.
Because in order to circumvent this, the online donors would have had to read the fine print and manually deactivate a check mark - which many overlooked.
The
New York Times
lists numerous cases in which those affected stared at their bank statements in amazement as sums for the Trump campaign were withdrawn every seven days.
Donald Trump's campaign used opaque but legal methods of making election donations
The closer the cut-off date of November 3rd came, the more opaque the disclaimer became, as the newspaper disclosed.
Finally, a second, already selected box was introduced, the “money bomb”.
You doubled the donation amount again.
Banks and financial institutions have been littered with fraud complaints from Trump supporters.
"He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars raised after the election under the guise of combating his unfounded fraud claims to cover the refunds he owed," the newspaper writes.
Because many donors asked for their money back, the campaign reimbursed the money.
More than 530,000 times by the end of 2020 - for a total amount of 64.3 million US dollars.
"In fact, the money that Mr. Trump * eventually had to repay was tantamount to an interest-free loan from ignorant supporters at the most important time in the 2020 race," writes the
New York Times
.
Regarding the campaign practice of the Trump team, Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, said: "It's unfair, unethical and inappropriate." new political action committee “Save America”.
Save America: Donald Trump's personal committee has a lot of money - and power
Donald Trump is still considered the most powerful Republican.
Even if without office.
So-called Trumpism, his populist political style, has anchored itself like a barb in the party.
And the former US president can still look back on a loyal base.
But apparently Trump wants more than that. With "Save America" he collects donations - directly to him and not to the Republican Party.
The site
opensecrets.org
According to his committee already had the end of 2020 more than 30 million US dollars.
Money that, according to the
New York Times, was
mostly collected after the lost election to cover Trump's legal costs against an election fraud that did not take place.
After the storming of the US Capitol on January 6 *, some donors turned away from Trump and other Republicans.
The independent journalist Judd Legum contacted 144 companies, among other things, with the question of whether they planned to continue financially supporting members of the Congress who voted against the certification of the election results by the electoral body.
Several companies told him they would stop making further donations, including Walmart, Amazon and Disney.
Judd Legum reported this in his newsletter
Popular Information
.
For Donald Trump, "Save America" is therefore now, after many donations have ceased to exist, also the opportunity to financially support Republicans he likes.
In addition, a personal treasure chest.
And: the “mother's milk of politics” at his free disposal.
(aka) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
