In the weeks after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, he and his team flooded email and text-message inboxes with false claims that the results of the contest were illegitimate. The messages were almost panicky: The Democrats were committing a crime on a historic scale and the guileless victim of that dishonesty — your favorite president — needed every able-bodied American to take to the ramparts.
But in this case, the “ramparts” were a fundraising webpage and “able-bodied” meant anyone with some cash to pass along. There were three components to nearly every one of these messages: a falsehood about the election, a mention of Trump and a request for money.
As a legal effort, it was a complete failure, with Trump’s claims only sporadically making it to court and then lawyers almost always being asked to leave while laughter hung in the air. As a political effort, it was actually worse, yielding no result other than the disgrace of an insurrection. But as a cash grab? Boffo. Continue reading.