The Trump Agenda Survey: Fun with an insane money-beg

A friend of mine has a registered-Republican family member who recently received a “survey” from the Republican National Committee in the mail, and they were kind enough to forward me photos of it. It’s gloriously ridiculous. Here’s the Trump Agenda Survey, prefaced by a desperate, help-us-fight-the-evil-librul-scourge-and-also-give-us-money letter:

It starts off:

President Donald J. Trump needs your advice and support ...

... Turning our country around after eight years of Barack Obama in the White House will not be easy.

I don’t know about that; he’s already gotten a pretty good start at undoing everything President Obama did: he’s spoiling relations with every international ally and turning the US into a global laughingstock; he’s facing an ever-deepening probe into his corrupt dealings with foreign powers; he’s weakening the military by kicking out thousands of qualified and dedicated soldiers; he’s undermining the federal courts by pardoning a blatantly unrepentant criminal; he’s emboldening White supremacists by refusing (or hesitating) to condemn neo-Nazis; he’s damaging efforts to fight climate change and, in doing so, marking the US as the odd country out; he’s trying (and repeatedly failing) to take healthcare coverage away from millions of his own people; and he’s generally acting so cartoonishly terrible that his own party is increasingly rebelling against him. And those are just some of his biggest hits so far.

He’s been in office for seven months.

I wonder every day how long it’ll take the next (competent) president(s) to turn the country back around after just four years of Donald Trump. Assuming he lasts that long – at this rate a mob might form up and toss him off the Truman Balcony at any moment.

The rest of that silly letter goes on about the “liberal onslaught” and their “slanderous attacks and arrogant insults” against Trump and the Republicans. For a party that “won the last election – on all levels, all across the country”, as the letter simultaneously brags and whines about, they sure seem helpless in the face of the minority of Democrats in Congress and state legislatures. If they control the country and still cannot manage to get anything done, maybe the other guys aren’t the problem. It’s that your ideas are terrible and the majority of the country doesn’t want anything to do with them.

But it’s the end of the letter that reveals its true goal: it’s a beg for money. (I’m not alone in drawing this conclusion.) In fact, they mention it three times in the intro letter alone [my highlighting]:

To help the Republican Party continue to rally voters behind President Trump and his bold agenda for American renewal, I am asking you to include a contribution of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, or even $1,000 to the RNC along with your registered survey.

President Trump is counting on folks like you to “put skin in the game” by supporting the Republican Party’s efforts to promote his agenda and counter Democrats who are fighting tooth-and-nail to protect the status quo in Washington, D.C.

Your contribution will make it clear that you are fully committed to helping President Trump work with Republicans in Congress to Make America Great Again.

[…]

I hope to receive your completed Trump Agenda Survey and contribution of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, or even $1,000 within the next seven business days. Thank you in advance for our patriotic activism and generosity.

Sincerely,
Ronna McDaniel
Chairwoman, Republican National Committee

P.S. President Trump needs the advice and support of patriotic men and women like you who helped carry him to a sweeping victory last November. Please complete and return the enclosed Trump Agenda Survey along with a contribution of $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000, or whatever amount you can spare within the next seven business days. With your help, President Trump and Republicans in Congress can prioritize and pass the policies and reforms we need to put American back on track to winning! Thank you again.

I think they got their template from TV scamvangelists. And the best part is the survey’s actual “support reply form”:

12. Will you make a commitment to stand with President Trump and Republicans in Congress as they fight to put our nation back on track to Make America Great Again?

☐ Yes! You can count on me. I am pledging my support with a contribution to the Republican National Committee of:

☐$25   ☐$50   ☐$100   ☐$250   ☐$500   ☐$1,000   ☐Other: $_______

☐ No, I cannot make a commitment today, but I support our President and his Agenda. I am returning my survey document with a contribution of $15 to cover processing.
☐ No, I do not support President Trump and Republicans in Congress.

Basically, the options are: a) Give money now, b) Give slightly less money now, or c) You hate Trump.

Man, they really did get this from scamvangelists, didn’t they?

The actual questions are a hoot, too. They’re so blatantly leading the whole thing is objectively a farce. But a few are especially revealing.

6. Should President Trump issue an Executive Order to suspend government unions so that his Administration can quickly move to fire federal employees found to be unnecessary, incompetent, or unresponsive to their mission of serving the American people?

Taking union-busting to a whole new level – the federal level, specifically. Also, if Trump were so concerned with “unnecessary, incompetent” government workers, why fill his own cabinet with unqualified cronies who, by the looks of it, are there primarily to lick his boots?

7. Do you support efforts to eliminate the federal Common Core education curriculum program for K-12 public schools?

Of course, the Right-wing opposition to Common Core has little to do with the reforms’ effectiveness (early results show promise, with slightly increased graduation rates and college-readiness). It has much more to do with getting the government – specifically Obama’s policies – out of their children’s education, because the gubmint is evil and stuff.

9. Do you believe that Democrats in Congress have any intention of working in good faith with President Trump and Republicans to address the pressing issues facing our nation?

As opposed to all the good faith the Republicans showed towards working with the Democrats and Obama throughout his entire eight years? There’s a reason Republicans became synonymous with “Party of No”. Just ask fucking Mitch McConnell about his “top priority” of yore to deny then-President Obama a second term, even as Obama was bending over backwards nonstop to try and appease the intransigent Republicans.

And now they’ve got a racist, verbally incontinent orangutan in the Oval Office who could hardly drive the country into the ground harder if he were doing it deliberately, and a majority of Republicans are sticking by him and his proposals even as they’re constantly forced to denounce the latest insane things he’s said. And they’re complaining about Democrats being unwilling to work with them?

Chutzpah, thy name is the GOP.

11. Do you believe that the so-called “Mainstream Media” will give President Trump fair, unbiased coverage of his policy proposals and leadership?

It’s funny how all the media has to do to make Trump look like a stupid lying asshole is point a camera at him. He joins Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh in the hall of people whose words are their own worst enemy.

Interestingly, there’s one key plank of the Trump-Republican platform that isn’t mentioned in the survey (as other conservatives have noted): their hate-on for Obamacare. I wonder if that has anything to do with their repeated failures to pass any sort of repeal bill, particularly in light of the revelations that such a bill would invariably throw the entire healthcare system into chaos, strip coverage from 10–30 million (depending on the bill) and cause premiums to skyrocket for the rest, essentially killing thousands of people per year? Plenty of Trump-voters are only covered thanks to the Affordable Care Act right now (even if they don’t always know it), and I doubt they’d appreciate being left to hang just to score political points against the Democrats.