Democrats say the fundraising emails falsely suggesting he could be executed were tempting more violence.

The fundraising pitch from Donald Trump was neither accurate nor subtle.

It read: “1 MONTH UNTIL ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE! THEY WANT TO SENTENCE ME TO DEATH.”

The message blasted out to his supporters was a reference to the former president’s sentencing scheduled for July 11, when he faces fines or possible jail time after being convicted on 34 charges of business fraud in connection with hush money paid to an adult-film star. A death sentence is not under consideration in the case. Neither is a “GUILLOTINE,” as another fundraising pitch suggested last week.

The incendiary emails are part of a concerted strategy that has allowed the campaign to erase a financial lead that President Biden’s campaign had opened up in recent months, according to people close to the former president who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak for the campaign. But experts in small-dollar fundraising say the solicitations are aggressive even by the standards of Trump’s frequently hyperbolic and inflammatory language.

“I think those are clearly an escalation over and above some incredibly heated rhetoric and some irresponsible rhetoric we’ve seen over time,” said Matthew Hindman, a professor at George Washington University who studies digital emails. “The fact that those messages continue to be sent out tell us about something. The rhetoric has been driven by user response and user donations. If this extreme rhetoric continues to generate funds, it’s going to be rewarded with an even more extreme response next time.”

Non-paywall link

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    15 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The message blasted out to his supporters was a reference to the former president’s sentencing scheduled for July 11, when he faces fines or possible jail time after being convicted on 34 charges of business fraud in connection with hush money paid to an adult-film star.

    Emails falsely claimed that the FBI wanted to shoot Trump during a court-authorized search of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida for classified documents he allegedly unlawfully retained after leaving office.

    Trump’s warning of “ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!” resembles his tweet calling for his supporters to come to a rally Jan. 6, 2021 — “Be there, will be wild!” — that helped inspire violent extremist groups to buy weapons and make attack plans.

    No one has been charged related to the inquiry, but multiple witnesses were asked about who drafted fundraising language and whether anyone raised concerns about the claims being false at the time.

    Trump’s mug shot from a Georgia state court indictment accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 election has become the dominant symbol of his campaign, spawning merchandise from T-shirts to hats and magnets to trading cards.

    When the New York jury convicted Trump in May, his campaign immediately responded with a fundraising solicitation calling him a “political prisoner,” adopting the term he has used to glorify Jan. 6 defendants.


    The original article contains 1,246 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 82%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • @brucethemoose
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      5 months ago

      What is the bot using? ChatGPT?

      I think this is a case where it’s trying to sugarcoat the summary because the rhetoric is too violent.

      Which is really fascinating… Here we have a possible next president of the united states, using rhetoric so extreme it’s literally triggering llm guardrails. That’s so messed up.

      • @Iheartcheese
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        55 months ago

        Thats in your head my man. TLDR bot is not trying to do that. It just isn’t that good sometimes.

      • JWBananas
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        15 months ago

        There is literally a link to the source code at the end of the post.