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Comment by wl | Hacker News Reader

My single data point as someone who doesn't sign up for political emails: I get FAR, FAR more conservative spam than liberal.

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Is it the bullying kind, talking down to you to try to get you to donate by shaming you? Or telling you Don Jr is going to be showing his dad this week's top donor list, and he's embarrassed that he can't share your name with his dad. He's embarrassed because he already promised his dad that you were going to donate - don't embarrass Don Jr by not donating right now!

I really have no idea how these pleas can appeal to anyone.

Nah, more like screeds about how liberals are out to destroy your 401k or how Joe Biden is destroying America.

Oh, that's nice. I get ones that are more "concerned mom" targeted about what various elements of "The Left" wish to do to children.

I get spam from both sides of the spectrum. I find it amusing that right-spam is mostly "Democrats are going to destroy your family!" or "Don't let trump down!" and left-spam is mostly "We are so scared because {bad thing has or will happen}"

I myself am further to the left than the dems, so I vote with them. I find their messaging so spectacularly weak. They are always trying to guilt people into supporting through this narrative of "we are weak and about to get crushed, save us." I find it so off putting, I wish we had other viable parties and could get rid of FPTP so we don't have to constantly select between these two.

I wish that the US could wholesale implement Germany's electoral system. The Bundestag is approximately 1/2 directly elected seats from the 300 or so districts, and the other 1/2 are proportionally divided among the parties that get more than 5% of the vote nationwide, and they publish their ranked lists ahead of the election. What this means is that a voter can vote for their local representative on a personality or a pragmatic basis ("hmmm... I can tolerate the SPD guy, and I think he has the best shot of beating the CSU guy...") and then has a second vote that they can use for the party that best fits their ideology, with a bit of pragmatism ("the Pirate Party probably won't clear 5%, but the Greens are close enough to me on most issues...")

The 5% thing is a post-WW2 innovation to prevent a small block who just want to tear everything down from getting into the Bundestag and causing chaos. The AfD did manage to get over the hurdle and stay in the last two elections, but can't get too wild - otherwise, they probably won't make that 5%.

That, and stuff like "sign up now for Trump's very special free money fund!" and such were also pretty common when he was still president. Basically the classic scams that have been around for decades, but with a Trump flavour.

I have signed up for political emails and I can't remember getting spam from anyone, and I do check my spam regularly. My text spam is exclusively conservative though.

Anecdotally, I never get anything that seems like political messaging from the left but I get tons of unsolicited right-wing messages, largely I believe because people sign up for them accidentally using my email address, because they are morons and people who are highly interested in Hunter Biden's laptop are self-selectively morons. My spam folder currently contains about 9 messages per day from state/local Republicans in Virginia. I have never been to that state.

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