An Email from the Abyss
As a professional email writer who was trained to write fundraising emails for the left fifteen years ago, I have watched the decline of the quality of liberal fundraising emails slide down first a gentle slope, followed by a rough plummet, to I don’t know which circle of hell to assign to the current state of affairs.
Let’s take a look at one together, shall we?
It goes against the grain with me to criticize the work of people who I am taking an informed guess are overworked and underpaid. But I truly am at a loss to understand the logic behind this email, sent by Democratic Turnout Project PAC a Leadership PAC affiliated with Ann Kuster (D-NH).
First of all, the point of this email is purportedly to gather data to be used to advocate for member priorities. I remember when I actually believed that this was what would be done with my input. Such naivete makes me SOL (scoff out loud) for three hours straight today.
Okay, so then we went into the phase when we all knew the survey was just a useless prelude to the donation ask. Sure, the data was still being analyzed, still being put forward, but let’s just say out loud what we all know — nobody on Capitol Hill CARED EVEN THE TINIEST BIT, NOT EVEN THE TINY BIT THAT USED TO PRETEND TO CARE JUST TO KEEP UP APPEARANCES.
Then it became an insult where they don’t pretend to need even the slightest bit of scientific validation (come on, a SURVEY??) to just pester you for money to do the absolute bare minimum with it (e.g., write a weak insult about Mitch McConnell in their next email newsletter).
Today, we’ve got a subject line begging you to take the survey the right way in the yelling parlance of a five-year old combined with the color palette of a high school student marking up an old textbook with a yellow highlighter (don’t they know highlighters come in a variety of colors now?) and a complete meaningless deadline to take a survey about Trump’s first few days in office — which I’m sure people will know how to rate now that it’s almost a month into his term. It makes a mockery of data and its uses — at a moment in time where vital, life-saving data is being illegally purged from government websites. What is going on, Dems?
This email is just such an embarrassment to the people sending it and an embarrassment to everyone receiving it. I just don’t know what the point of it is. I’ve lost the will to even describe, let alone attempt to understand, the rest of the email. Perhaps if you rush your donation of $12.35 to me in the next hour, I’ll regain that will.
