The real reason to push for a large number of donors is math. If someone gives you $999,999 and someone else gives you $1, you can say your average donation is $500,000. That may not sound good, but it sounds a heck of a lot better than one donor giving a million dollars, thereby buying a politician.

All the money comes from a few rich donors, all the money that matters anyway. But that fact has to be obscured, lest people catch on. So the small-dollar donors are courted via email for headcount purposes only. It’s math, basic math, so the ruling class can pretend they aren’t beholden to large corporations and the mega-rich. Deadlines, dollar amounts, and everything else are all for show so you miss what’s really going on.

One of the founding ideals of the United States was that the same system of laws would apply to everyone equally. Two people convicted of the same or similar offense, all things being equal, should receive approximately the same punishment. It doesn’t always work that way; wealth and fame do have a way of making crimes, like murder, go away, but those instances are anomalies. Over the last four years, though, things have started to come unglued. The courts willingly cooperated with the obscene persecution of Michael Flynn. Department of Justice functionary Andrew Weissmann was able to weaponize the judicial apparatus to carry out his personal vendetta against Paul Manafort and President Trump.

Since the summer of 2020, though, it has become blatantly obvious that we have a two-tiered justice system in this country, and your personal politics determines how the courts treat you. //

This no longer exists in the United States. People are prosecuted according to their politics, not their crimes. If you set off explosive devices, try to wreck a train, or give a cop a beatdown and you are Antifa or related scum, you probably won’t be arrested. If you are arrested you will be released without bail. If, by some misfortune, you are ever prosecuted, you are looking at the equivalent of a wrist slap.

On the other hand, if you are a rightwing demonstrator, you will be harried to the ends of the earth. You will be held under a hefty bond, assuming one is even permitted. Even if your behavior was lawful and is documented on video, you will be charged with a crime. If you plead guilty, the book will be thrown at you.

This is not right. This is not a sustainable system in any society.