Survey after survey tells us that large percentages of Americans on both sides of the political fence are tired of the established parties and want alternatives.
A lot of this has to do with policy differences, legislative gridlock, political polarization, and the 24-hour news cycle.
But I think it also has to do with spam, endless political emails that punish anybody who has made a political donation in the last few years. Why is the reward for my support an “unsubscribe” homework assignment that never ends?
Recently, I helped an older friend attack an overstuffed email inbox packed with a few years’ worth of newsletters from Office Depot with defunct bargains, notes about shows and concerts long past, and local news bulletins about now-irrelevant events. There was enough of value in there that I couldn’t solve the problem with a swift Control-A + Delete gesture. A middling-slow bunch of sorting by “FROM” and the like helped me to prune back the overgrowth.
The worst part was the political emails—thousands of emails begging for money for candidates in my friend’s party all over the country.
Many of the purported senders were famous political figures who, of course, had nothing to do with the messages.
The subject lines ranged from the hyperbolic (“DO NOT DELETE – READ ON 08/14/2026 ::::::::::: Retired Americans Action”) to the absurd (”I wouldn’t ask if I had any choice” or “please please please say you don’t support this”).
Then there were the subject lines that did not look like political emails (“Regarding your Netflix subscription” or “re: your local Post Office”) but turned out to be.
This is madness because there is no easy way to opt out of receiving these emails. There’s not even a hard way: it’s impossible.
If you hit “unsubscribe” on such an email, then one of two general things happen.
#1. The link takes you to a landing page that asks you to fill in the email address that you want deleted from the database, but entering your email only validates that it’s a working email, and that does nothing to reduce the influx.
#2. The link takes you to a landing page that announces you have been unsubscribed from that sender, but in the process of doing this you have, again, validated that your email is connected to a person with a credit card. At this point, the sender deletes your email address from that campaign but simultaneously shares your email with a seemingly infinite number of other senders that then start barraging your inbox.
I mark ‘em all as spam in the probably vain hope that doing so will catch these obnoxious emails in spam filters.
The politicians who created CAN-SPAM carved out exceptions for political fundraising emails. Of course they did—they’re politicians! Why would they hamstring their own ability to extract money from citizens?
Act Blue on the left and Win Red on the right are platforms that politicians and their supporters use to send all these emails, but the platforms themselves don’t send the emails. There should be a simple, one-stop “unsubscribe” button on each platform that takes your email out of all the different databases, but there isn’t.
Neither the legislative nor executive branches have any incentive to fix this. Perhaps, one day, a class-action suit in front of the Supreme Court will change things, but I’m not holding my breath.
This is like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence in Fantasia where Mickey Mouse loses control of his magic and endless brooms carrying buckets of water flood the castle until the Sorcerer shows up and puts a stop to it.
The difference is that no Sorcerer is showing up to stop the political emailarrhea.
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* Image Prompt: “Create a 4×4 image inspired by The Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence in Disney’s Fantasia, but instead of Mickey Mouse surrounded by angry, water-carrying brooms, the apprentice is inundated by email messages.”
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