Politics
Trump Tells GOP To Pretend He Is On The Ballot Or Lose The $5,000
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
WASHINGTON, President Trump addressed the first night of the Republican National Committee's midterm convention on Wednesday with a keynote that campaign strategists are already describing as historically unprecedented, and that theater directors are already describing as a workshop.
The core ask was simple. Trump told Republicans across the country to pretend he is on the November ballot, despite not being on the November ballot, as a motivational technique to increase turnout. The request was delivered with the confidence of a man who has never once considered that the request might sound strange.
"I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot," Trump said, to a crowd that had paid several hundred dollars per ticket to be asked to use their imagination for free.
To sweeten the arrangement, Trump promised $5,000 to every American adult if the GOP retains control of the House and Senate, a figure he did not explain, source, or attach to any legislation. The $5,000, like Trump himself, was described as being on the ballot in spirit.
Elon Musk, appearing via video link from what appeared to be a room containing only a single chair and forty-three monitors, called the speech "a masterclass in incentive design," adding that the $5,000 figure was "roughly consistent with what our models would predict for a democracy operating at this efficiency level." He did not specify which models or which democracy.
Republican strategists privately acknowledged that the "pretend" framing presented some messaging challenges. One senior RNC official, speaking on background because he did not want his name attached to the sentence he was about to say, noted that asking swing voters to engage in collective role-play two weeks before an election was "not traditionally where you want to be tactically."
Several attendees interviewed after the speech said they found the request straightforward. "I already pretend a lot of things," said Gary Lubowski, 54, a contractor from Akron who had driven six hours to attend. "I pretend inflation is temporary, I pretend my knees are fine, this is just one more." He said he was confident about the $5,000.
The speech ran forty-seven minutes, of which approximately eleven were devoted to what Trump described as his "incredible" performance in an election he did not win, six were devoted to enemies he characterized as "very sick people," and four were devoted to a tangent about a golf course in Doral that even the most loyal attendees appeared to receive in silence.
The Democratic National Committee responded with a statement calling the speech "a threat to democracy," which is the statement the DNC releases in response to all incoming information regardless of content, and which has at this point achieved the communicative force of an out-of-office reply.
Trump closed by asking the crowd to close their eyes and picture him on a ballot. Several people in the front row did. One of them was a reporter.
The $5,000 has not been allocated.
The story we are making fun of: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6080107-trump-midterm-convention-dallas-dividends/