Tone Deaf in a Thunderstorm:
Why the Democratic Party’s Fundraising Machine Cannot Hear 5-Million Voices
"It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes."
Good morning, readers.
I am going to just jump right in here and state unequivalently that whoever is in charge of the current Democratic Party’s fund raising efforts is clearly and obviously TONE DEAF.
What follows here is a copy/paste of an email that I received this morning at 10:24 AM EST; after which I continue and conclude with some important observations.
Not great. [Subject line]
The stock market is crashing, Republicans are plowing ahead with their plan to pass tax cuts for billionaires, Donald Trump is not even three months into his second term and is talking about running for a third.
It's not great.
Robert - we are going to be as direct as we can possibly be. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment and the Democratic National Committee needs your help.
$240 That's the donation Kamala Harris is hoping you'll make today.
$240 to help them organize across the country in order to stop Trump's tax cuts for billionaires paid for by cutting Medicaid, nutrition assistance and other lifesaving programs.
$240 to help them elect a Congress who will serve as a check on Trump's agenda.
This is the moment -- as Republicans try to pass the billionaire tax cuts and as campaigns are starting to ramp up -- that your donation means more than ever.
So if you are concerned about the future of this country and are looking for a way to stand up to Trump, Kamala is asking:
Kamala Harris is asking, humbly, please make a contribution to the Democratic National Committee today. Their average donation is $40. Many give more, some give less. Whatever you give today will add up fast with so many Democrats chipping-in.
Thank you.
Team Kamala
Paid for by Harris Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee authorized by Harris for President, the Democratic National Committee and the State Democratic Parties in these states: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, and WY.
This email was sent to [REDACTED]. Thank you so much for being a supporter. But we don't want to bother you. If you’d like to unsubscribe, you can click here.
First and foremost let us put this solicitation attempt into the context of its immediately preceding time, namely the day after April 5, 2025.
Why is this important?
Why the answer to this question is remarkably simple; because during the day of April 5, 2025 the largest coordinated protest event in modern American civic memory took place.
How large was this country-wide event?
According to numerous reliable sources more than 5,000,000+ people across the country gathered together in approximately 1,400 locations to loudly, openly, peacefully, and assertively protest directly against Donald Trump and his cohort-cabal of criminal-cronies, all of whom are openly engaged in active efforts and measures to disintegrate and destroy our country’s proud once-upon-a-time strong Democracy and its historic liberal consensus. Not only are they seeking to commit a national self-induced suicide, they are openly colluding with America’s historic number one international enemy—Russia—to become one of its vassal states.1
So then let us take a brief look at how this solicitation email fails at its intended purpose.
To put the matter in its most concise form:
The problem is not the subject line—it's the timeline.
When your people are marching by the millions, and your first instinct is 'Not great,' you have mistaken absence of dollars for absence of momentum.
This is not just tone deaf. It is history-blind.
Instead of recognizing yesterday’s protests as the people’s pressure point—as a confirmation that the voice of democratic self-defense is rising—they defaulted to the familiar script of fear and financial desperation. This is no longer just ineffective—it is insulting to those who actually showed up, organized, marched, and stood in truth.
Which is also to say that when the story told by the Party diverges from the story lived by the People—trust collapses.
So yes, it is absolutely no wonder at all that intelligent thinking citizens of all types across the whole spectrum of America’s diverse and storied population—those who are native-born citizens, those who are naturalized citizens, those who are documented immigrants, and those who are Visa-card visitors—simply do not trust the Democratic Party any longer, especially in the face of five-million people taking a stand against the evil regime of an oligarchical cadre of super-wealthy persons for whom—the average citizen is nothing more than a nuisance, and who in their surreal world of obscene-wealth simply do not exist, that is until suddenly the factories stop producing and the profits and stocks tumble down to frightening lows that cause the entire global economy to falter and fail, resulting in systemic failures all around the globe, slowly at first then like lightning poverty envelopes those who were once well-to-do who will soon find themselves standing in lines at soup kitchens hoping for a free meal, while being careful to hide their faces, lest someone recognize them as someone who was at one time flush with money and lived as carefree individuals without having to exert themselves in any way necessary.
Now before I find myself entering into one of my well-known digressions, it is important to clearly detail the near singularly profound deafness that is to be seen in this curiously poorly crafted email (in fact upon penning that point it occurs to me that the email reads very much like an AI generated product, flat, disconnected, and wholly insincere) by dissecting it into three areas:
1- The Subject line: “Not great.”
The day after 5 million Americans peacefully flooded 1,400 cities, towns, and sacred spaces with banners, chants, and resolve—and the official voice of Team Harris chooses “Not great” to open a fundraising message?
This is not just tone deaf.
This is narrative amnesia.
It reveals they do not see the people. They see only the deficit.
2- The Body of the Email: Panic and Plunder
The email launches into the following primary focuses: Stock market crash, Billionaire tax cuts, and Trump seeking a third term.
Fear. Fear. Fear.
And the prescription?
Not mobilization, not praise for the public's rising voice, not even a symbolic nod to yesterday’s unity.
Just: Give us $240.
That number is repeated three times, like a hypnotic chant. It reads like a glitchy spell, not a call to arms.
They ask for money, while ignoring that people just gave something far more valuable—presence.
3- What Is Missing?
Everything that matters.
No acknowledgment of the civic action taking place.
No mention of the protests.
No solidarity.
No gratitude.
No awareness.
They are operating on a completely different timeline than the one the people are walking.
to put the matter ever so simply for them to say "Not Great?" is for them to say that they are the Party That Cannot Hear the People It Claims to Represent!
In closing I would like to single out what, from my perspective, is perhaps one of the best follow-ups to this astoundingly utter failure of the Democratic Party’s—in particular the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—blatant attempt to piggyback upon the efforts and work of 5-million+ citizens to reject and resist the Trump regime, I here present for you
with one of his excellent YouTube video reports, in this case titled:Trump in PANIC as protests ERUPT across America
It is just over 8-minutes long and has some of the best video footage with sound of many of the protests that took place yesterday; please by all means sit back, relax, enjoy and savor this superbly done independent news broadcast and take satisfaction in a job well-done America.
Thank you for reading, and please be sure to restack this bulletin, or share it or even better still go over it together with others who might benefit from its core message, which is that WE The People are the ones who collectively hold the power to usher in a true rebirth of America, back to its forward march into the future that still shines so brightly in the hearts and minds of all who are able, ready, and willing to stand up against Trump.
Robert J. Rei, April 6, 2025, Fall River, Massachusetts.
Tone Deaf in a Thunderstorm: Why the Democratic Party’s Fundraising Machine Cannot Hear 5-Million Voices © 2025 by Robert J. Rei is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
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“a country that is controlled by a more powerful country, and has to provide military support or pay money to it when needed”, Cambridge Dictionary,retrieved April 6, 2025, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/vassal
Thank you for this. I wrote my Democratic Senator after Schumer caved to the budget bill, advising that I was not going to donate a cent until I saw a plan from the House and Senate Democrats for how they were going to fight. They had no coordinated response to Trump‘s State of the Union address and they have yet to show a coordinated response/plan to anything. A handful are standing up, bless them, but it’s not enough.
I get 3 or 4 DNC texts begging for money PER DAY even though I block the numbers. They just change the number and text again. I did the same thing that Julia did. I only donate directly to candidates now. 🎤