The most amazing difference between the Democrats and the Republican conventions was the nature of the message, the Republicans talked about fear and the end of the world as they know it, while the Democrats talked about hope and growth. The amazing thing of course is that it's not the Democrats that have changed it's the Republicans, their outrage machine has taken over the entire party, and it has taken over because it achieved the primary goal which is to raise money. This week, it came out that the Trump family were paid nearly $28 million for services to the Republican party. Two things to consider, the cost of fundraising for the GOP is extremely high, nearly 50% of the money raised is used to pay consultants. In reality, this is a money grab by conservative operatives who see a golden opportunity to make money. One of the reasons that the FEC only shows the GOP raising a quarter of what the Democrats raise is because so much of the funds are paid in service fees.
An American acquaintance's wife from deeply conservative Arizona did a fundraising exercise, in total, she raised, via the internet, nearly 3 million dollars. My friend told me that she paid herself a consultant fee of nearly $400,000, Server fees of $100,000 and other expenses of more than $250,000. None of these expenses are reportable because the only amount shown to the FEC is the net amount raised. My friend told me that his wife had all four of their children active in the fundraising project which amounted to them sending a few Tictocs, tweets and other social media messages, in his view none of his children spend more than 20 minutes in total in the process, and yet they were each paid consultant fees of $75,000. My friend was the chairman of the fundraising, and he did absolutely nothing but lend his name to the project, he is a prominent Republican, and he admitted that he received nearly $400,000 for the fundraising exercise. In total, the family generated income of nearly $1 million with almost no real expenses, aside from creating a special purpose company or two. She plans to do this three more times before the election, each time a different member of the family will be the spokesperson. He disclosed that total revenue from the "trump train" for 2024 would be around $4 million for the family. Still, they plan for half the money raised to go to the Republican party. If Trump wins they will do a victory fund raising project with a similar objective, he tells me that he is far from the only one doing this in Arizona. The money is pouring in! If Trump loses they will do a "defend the election" fundraising project his wife is an attorney and very capable, he disclosed that she is not even a Republican but no one is paying attention to the grift in the GOP.
However, ordinary Americans are beginning to notice, they also noticed that virtually all of Trump's old cabinet members including all his chief of staff have said publicly that Trump is unable to be President. As for RFK, he brings the conspiracy theorists, the greens and the former were never going to vote for the Democrats and the latter are almost certain not to vote now.
Still, the week has been good for the DNC, and bad for the GOP, but there are still nearly 70 days to go, and a lot can happen. It's even possible that Trump will stay on message (unlikely but possible)
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