There is this faded blue container on my mother’s counter in the house I grew up and my folks still live in. Eight inches or so high, maybe three inches across, matching lid that seals pretty good. You’d assume it was a piece of old Tupperware or something, but actually it was part of some science kit toy something or another from my misspent youth. Used to have stickers on it, but they’ve long since worn off. For the last 20 years at least, it’s been where you would find it right this minute: To the right of the sink, by the paper towel roller, right up against the cabinet that marks the end of the countertop in the kitchen.
This is the scrap container. With no garbage service Up Yonder you don’t want rotting food sitting in the bags in the basement until Dad does his dump run, so into the slop bucket, small as it is, they go. From there, Mom, or a designated someone else, then “feeds the critters” by walking it down to the end of the road and throwing them over the hill, a far piece from the house. For those of you not living rurally in these here United States of America, that’s because the critters that get fed are not critters you want coming right up on the house. From the mostly harmless birds and chipmunks to the destructive raccoons and the outright dangerous bears, distance plus consistency mean everything stays copacetic Up Yonder. The kitchen stays clean, critters get fed, Mom gets her walk in, animals leave the house alone, no one gets hurt.
It’s a good system based on a very old adage: Don’t feed the wildlife, or they’ll keep coming back for more. Let them eat way over there somewhere and leave where you live alone. Kind of a self-evident, universal principle.
So why, why, oh why would anyone give money to a political candidate?
Even a cursory examination of the current political fundraising system that is now a multi-billion dollar industry in America shows it to be mostly a socially acceptable form of legal money laundering. The 2020 elections topped $14 billion spent on politics. The 2022 midterms broke records with almost $9 billion spent. Estimates are that the 2024 election cycle will feature $11 billion spent just on political advertising. Some PACs and fundraising bundlers are starting to actually have more money than they can spend in some markets.
Everyone does it. The Democratic Party has the overarching ActBlue fundraising while the Republican Party has WinRed. Then there are the ever-growing numbers of PACs and SuperPACs. Under that you have the lucrative and sought-after email lists.
Those email lists are what really get someone inundated with email, snail mail, phone calls, and other annoyances. Once you donate money, your name and information goes on a list, which will be sold, shared, and kept in perpetuity as someone who is gettable by the folks charged with getting donations. The new version is you don’t even have to donate money. Every click on one of those “sign the petition!” type emails? Those aren’t actually petitions, they are just mechanisms for building email lists, to bombard the folks who share their information under that pretense to actually donate money the next time. And now they know where you live.
Don’t feed the predators. They just keep coming back for more. Universal principle.
If you want to spend your money on something for a big cause, there are far better options than political organizations. Even a fraction of the billions that will be spent on political media could be better used supporting and expanding good local and state level journalism to keep those politicians in check and accountable once they get into office. If you must spend money on politics, do so at the local level, with candidates and office holders that you actually can talk to and influence. Instead of “non-profit” in name only political and policy organizations, find some non-profits that are working to make actual people’s actual lives better in the diverse places most candidates don’t go and folks other than you might not know about it.
Folks rightfully point to the tsunami of money as part of the problem in politics. But you can acknowledge the beasts without actively feeding them, and thus inviting them even further into your lives and pocketbooks. Fund people and groups that have the communities and folks we live with in mind and as their mission. Starve the political predators of easy money with no strings or accountability attached. And don’t throw your mess out where the critters, woodland or political, will keep coming to your door for more.
Walk that mess over yonder somewhere, and let us all live in peace.
Originally written for and published in The Fayette Tribune