“As we all know, dollars raised online will play a pivotal role in helping Republicans win this cycle. With the RNC now joining President Trump’s campaign in a joint fundraising committee, we’re issuing new guidelines for candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness in fundraising solicitations. Beginning tomorrow, we ask that all candidates and committees who choose to use President Trump’s name, image, and likeness split a minimum of 5 percent of all fundraising solicitations to Trump National Committee JFC,” write disgraced former President Trump’s minions in a shakedown letter to vendors for downballot 2024 GOP candidates.

It gets better. “This includes but is not limited to sending to the house file, prospecting vendors, and advertising. Any split that is higher than 5 percent will be seen favorably by the RNC and President Trump’s campaign and is routinely reported to the highest levels of leadership within both organizations,” lol, emphasis ours on “favorably,” an implicit yet specific threat as you’ll see.

And it gets better still. “Additionally, President Trump’s campaign and the RNC strive to treat our donors with the utmost respect [Holy fucking shit, lol, they actually wrote that]. When using President Trump’s name, image, and likeness, we ask that all campaigns and committees abide by the following messaging guidelines. Language and tactics we ask for candidates and committees to avoid while using President Trump’s name, image, and likeness are…” ugghhhhhh man.

It’s not a long list, but we’ll just paste in a select few:

🍊 “Questioning the readers’ support of President Trump or tying their support to a financial contribution. An example would be ‘If you support President Trump, you’ll contribute now.'” Only the Trump campaign itself can do that, and they do it all the goddamned time.

🍊 “Creating memberships, clubs, or rewards that are not authorized by the campaign. An example of this would be a ‘Trump Gold Club.'” Lololololol. Useless fucking “gold card” for me, not for thee.

🍊 “Using ‘matching’ language or implying the readers’ donation has a larger impact than its face value in conjunction with President Trump’s name, image, and likeness. President Trump’s campaign and the RNC do not use this tactic, and we’re asking all campaigns to avoid this type of language when President Trump is mentioned, or his image is used.” If the Trump camapign actually stopped putting that kind of bullshit in their fundraising emails it was somewhat recently because one sent last January said “Please make a contribution to help me FIGHT BACK against Soros and the Left’s money machine as they attempt to BUY a second term for Biden – 1,200% IMPACT STILL ACTIVE.”

Now maybe you’re asking how they can enforce this since it’s not civilly actionable for downballot Republicans to simply use Trump’s name and likeness without express permission. Instead it’s all just the usual mafia state bullshit, squeezing the marketing vendors (not the campaigns themselves) to police the content. “Any vendor whose clients ignore the guidelines mentioned above will be held responsible for their clients’ actions. Repeated violations will result in the suspension of business relationships between the vendor and Trump National Committee JFC. This includes list rental agreements,” the Trump campaign writes, so it’s not as toothless as you might have imagined… And that’s where the first part about “will be seen favorably” really should be seen as a demand, not a request, for minimum 5 percent of the take for the GOP campaigns these vendors work with.

It’s the perfect racket for an operation as corrupt and dysfunctional as Donald J Trump 2024.