What does it say about Donald Trump when his billionaire bosom buddy, Elon Musk, has to trick people, mostly Black people, into canvassing for the Trump campaign?
Source: Samuel Corum / Getty
According to The Guardian, Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort for Trump has come under fire after paid canvases reported that they actually didn’t know who they were canvassing for until they were already on the job, and that they were basically transported paddy wagon-style in conditions that were unsafe and demeaning.
From the Guardian:
Workers recruited by Musk’s America Pac to canvass in the battleground state of Michigan only discovered they were working for the Space X and Tesla entrepreneur to drum up voter turnout for Trump after signing non-disclosure agreements, Wired reported.
“I knew nothing of the job, or much of the job description, other than going door to door and asking the voters who are they voting for,” a canvasser who was flown to Michigan from another state told the website. “Then, after I signed over an NDA, is when I found out we are for Republicans and with Trump.”
The canvassers also said they faced threats to their working conditions if they failed to meet stringent door-knocking targets.
The disclosure comes after the Guardian revealed serious question marks about Musk’s voter turnout effort in Nevada and Arizona amid reports that up to 25% of reported door knocks in the state could be fraudulent.
Not only were canvassers apparently unaware that they were stumping for Trump, but one recruit said he didn’t know Musk was involved in until they “overheard my supervisor and a few others mention Elon Musk” by name. It’s almost as if Apartheid Vader understands that people, especially Black people, don’t like him or his rust-orange-tinted Klan-ish comrade.
Canvassers recruited for Musk’s political Blaxploitation ring also reported being told to knock on 1,000 doors a week and to achieve a 17-22% engagement rate, and if they didn’t meet that quota, they would end up paying for their own accommodations, including travel around Michigan, motel rooms and their flights home.
“What’s gonna happen is, they’re gonna stop paying for these [motel] rooms, and then you’re gonna end up having to pay for it yourself,” a manager is heard telling recruits in a recording obtained by Wired. “You can’t do that with no money.”
Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty
The Guardian noted that none of the recruits featured in the report had valid driver’s licenses, which would mean they were dependent on the transportation provided for them. Those recruits said they were promised they would have rental cars to ride around Michigan neighborhoods with, but, instead, they were driven around in the back of U-Haul vans with no seat belts and were dropped off 40 minutes apart from each other so they could go knocking on the doors of strangers in communities they were unfamiliar with.
More from the Guardian:
A video purportedly shot from inside a van showed mostly Black workers separated from the driver by a cage-like structure. The driver was recorded as telling the workers that he was in pain and having difficulty driving.
“I just had surgery, bro,” the U-Haul driver told the canvassers. “Like half of my foot is cut off.”
Bruh — what in the Kunta Kinte?
It appears that Musk’s political action committee is a step or two shy of tricking Black people into sharecropping. It’s worth mentioning that the news of his alleged exploits in Michigan comes shortly after his PAC came under fire in Pennsylvania, where a judge has summoned him to appear in court to answer for a lawsuit challenging the legality of his $1m sweepstakes giveaway for registered (Trump) voters who sign his petition on free speech. (Because Phony Stark is all about free speech, as long as you’re not anti-Trump, journalists who make him look stupid, or non-profit organizers who reported on how racist Twitter (now X) became under his ownership.)
It’s almost as if Elon Musk’s entire existence in politics is one yuge scam, and his reputation is so shady that he has to hustle victims into working for him and Trump.
Sad.