January 15, 2023

The GOP Sent 61 Insane Emails Begging Me to Buy a $35 Membership

“We tried to warn you but you kept ignoring us.”

House Republicans, freakinggg out

House Republicans, upon learning I had failed to renew my membership. “We are freakinggg out!" they shouted in unison.Andrew Harnik/AP

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It started innocuously enough. A week after the election, I got an email from the National Republican Congressional Committee. Having just taken back the House, the GOP’s campaign arm was very excited to offer me an “exclusive” chance to pay $35 for a “House Majority Membership Card.” But I had to act fast. “If you do not accept before midnight,” they warned, “we will offer this slot to the next top Conservative Patriot on our list.”

Apparently, I didn’t take this opportunity seriously enough. “You CANNOT be serious!” the NRCC fumed the next day in a follow-up email, complaining that I hadn’t yet purchased my card. From there, things got vaguely threatening. “Did you just forget to claim it, or have we lost you to the Radical Left?” they continued. “You have until 11:59 pm tonight to claim your 2023 Majority Membership, or we will be forced to assume you have abandoned us and joined forces with the Radical Left.”

you CANNOT be serious!

Now, I’ve written a couple articles about overly eager political fundraising tactics, but what happened next surprised even me. The NRCC really wanted me to buy that membership, and they weren’t going to take silence for an answer. Over the next two months, they sent me at least 61 emails about it—in addition to all their other fundraising emails offering 1300% donation matches and “MY PRONOUNS ARE INVESTIGATE/FAUCI” shirts.

Here’s a sampling:

11/19: Emotional manipulation. “OFFER EXPIRES AT MIDNIGHT…We can’t bear the thought of losing you to the Radical Left, so please act now!”

12/7: Challenging my patriotism.  “We still haven’t heard back from you. Did you receive your email notifying you that THE DEADLINE to renew your 2023 House Majority Membership is coming up??…You only have one more chance to renew your membership with us and confirm you are a Republican who is willing to fight for the future of our country.”

12/13: They’re shocked! “We’ve reached out to you over 5 times now and we’re shocked to hear you haven’t finalized your 2023 House Majority Membership yet!”

12/19: Maybe it was all a big mistake? “Our membership team informed me that you failed to renew your membership for 2023. I hope this was a mistake.”

12/21: Disturbing levels of anger. “We tried to warn you but you kept ignoring us. Now, you are letting your fellow Republicans and our country down with each passing day…You were the patriot who finally helped us FIRE Nancy Pelosi ONCE AND FOR ALL, but our work isn’t done here. We need you to stay on our team to help us DEFEND our Majority and stop the Democrats’ radical agenda in Congress. Or you can ignore this message, do nothing, and watch Democrats destroy this country…Please make the right choice.”

we tried to warn you

12/28: Now even Newt is angry, possibly from being mistreated on a plane. “A DEVASTATING loss…Newt Gingrich here: and I can’t believe my ears…Did you mean to IGNORE our emails about renewing your membership? Or have we just LOST you to the Radical Left?”

1/5: Everything?? “You could lose everything!…Your Majority Membership expired, and your elite status is about to be GONE.”

1/7: Spoiler alert—my name was not removed from their list. “We are freakinggg out! Because we just found out that your House Republicans Sustaining Membership expired!…Failure to renew your membership will devastate our efforts to defend our Conservative House Majority and save America. If you fail to act today, your name will be REMOVED from our member list permanently, and neither of us wants to see that happen!”

1/8 (morning): More threats. “You are now marked in our records as standing with the RADICAL LEFT as they continue to wreak havoc on our American First values. By renewing your membership before MIDNIGHT you will prove that you are committed to defeating the Radical Left and supporting strong Conservatives.”

radical left

1/8 (afternoon): STOP IGNORING US! “We can’t believe our ears…Did you mean to IGNORE our emails about renewing your membership? Or have we just given up on us and our Conservative movement?”

1/14: Now they are begging me. “I’m NOT going to reach out again…We’ve tried to contact you about your EXPIRED membership 5+ times. And you’ve IGNORED our pleas…PLEASE renew before it’s too late. I’m BEGGING…you have 1 day before our price goes up. **”

Which bring me to today.

This morning, at 10:01 am, I got the bad news. “YOUR REPUBLICAN MEMBERSHIP HAS BEEN SUSPENDED,” the NRCC informed me. “As of today, you will no longer receive a 2023 Republican Membership card.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

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