<p>Even in defeat, nothing sells in the Republican Party quite like Donald Trump.</p>.<p>The Republican National Committee has been dangling a “Trump Life Membership” to entice small contributors to give online. The party’s Senate campaign arm has been hawking an “Official Trump Majority Membership.” And the committee devoted to winning back the House has been touting Trump’s nearly every public utterance, talking up a nonexistent Trump social media network and urging donations to “retake Trump’s Majority.”</p>.<p>Six months after Trump left office, the key to online fundraising success for the Republican Party in 2021 can largely be summed up in the three words it used to identify the sender of a recent email solicitation: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”</p>.<p>The fundraising language of party committees is among the most finely tuned messaging in politics, with every word designed to motivate more people to give more money online. And all that testing has yielded Trump-themed gimmicks and giveaways including Trump pint glasses, Trump-signed pictures, Trump event tickets and Trump T-shirts — just from the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the month of July.</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/trump-plans-lawsuit-against-facebook-twitter-1006019.html" target="_blank">Trump plans lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter</a></strong></p>.<p>“The Republican Party has never had small-dollar fundraising at this scale before Donald Trump,” said Brad Parscale, who was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2020 and is still an adviser, “and they probably never will at this scale after Donald Trump.”</p>.<p>The strategy is clearly paying financial dividends, as three main Republican federal committees raised a combined $134.8 million from direct individual contributions in the first six months of 2021, nearly matching the $136.2 million raised by the equivalent Democratic committees, federal records show.</p>.<p>But the endless invocations of the former president underscore not only his enduring appeal to online Republican activists and donors — the base of the party’s base and its financial engine — but also the unlikelihood that the party apparatus wants to, or even can, meaningfully break from him for the foreseeable future.</p>.<p>The stark reliance on Trump’s name to spur small donations amounts to a tangible expression of the party’s inescapable dependency on him — one that risks preventing a reckoning over the losses the GOP suffered in the last four years, including Trump’s own.</p>.<p>The heavy use of Trump’s name has at times been a source of friction with the former president, who has begun ramping up fundraising for his own political action committee, called Save America.</p>
<p>Even in defeat, nothing sells in the Republican Party quite like Donald Trump.</p>.<p>The Republican National Committee has been dangling a “Trump Life Membership” to entice small contributors to give online. The party’s Senate campaign arm has been hawking an “Official Trump Majority Membership.” And the committee devoted to winning back the House has been touting Trump’s nearly every public utterance, talking up a nonexistent Trump social media network and urging donations to “retake Trump’s Majority.”</p>.<p>Six months after Trump left office, the key to online fundraising success for the Republican Party in 2021 can largely be summed up in the three words it used to identify the sender of a recent email solicitation: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”</p>.<p>The fundraising language of party committees is among the most finely tuned messaging in politics, with every word designed to motivate more people to give more money online. And all that testing has yielded Trump-themed gimmicks and giveaways including Trump pint glasses, Trump-signed pictures, Trump event tickets and Trump T-shirts — just from the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the month of July.</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/trump-plans-lawsuit-against-facebook-twitter-1006019.html" target="_blank">Trump plans lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter</a></strong></p>.<p>“The Republican Party has never had small-dollar fundraising at this scale before Donald Trump,” said Brad Parscale, who was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2020 and is still an adviser, “and they probably never will at this scale after Donald Trump.”</p>.<p>The strategy is clearly paying financial dividends, as three main Republican federal committees raised a combined $134.8 million from direct individual contributions in the first six months of 2021, nearly matching the $136.2 million raised by the equivalent Democratic committees, federal records show.</p>.<p>But the endless invocations of the former president underscore not only his enduring appeal to online Republican activists and donors — the base of the party’s base and its financial engine — but also the unlikelihood that the party apparatus wants to, or even can, meaningfully break from him for the foreseeable future.</p>.<p>The stark reliance on Trump’s name to spur small donations amounts to a tangible expression of the party’s inescapable dependency on him — one that risks preventing a reckoning over the losses the GOP suffered in the last four years, including Trump’s own.</p>.<p>The heavy use of Trump’s name has at times been a source of friction with the former president, who has begun ramping up fundraising for his own political action committee, called Save America.</p>