The ActBlue Scandal

one thing I know

Five years ago, early in the COVID mess—March or April 2020, I think—I logged into a Gmail account I’d set up for a pen name.

I didn’t have a Substack back then, just a itch to vent about something gnawing at me. So I wrote a piece, slapped the pen name on it, and threw it out into the wild. Comments were disabled, as I wasn’t in the mood for randos and their bullshit. If readers wanted to reach me, they’d have to care enough to email, i.e. troll insurance.

That day, the inbox was quiet—no reader mail. But there was something else: an email receipt from ActBlue, thanking “me” for donating somewhere between $20 and $30 (I can’t recall the exact figure). It listed an address in New York City.

Here’s the kicker: I didn’t donate a dime to ActBlue. And under a fake name, from an address in a city I have, to this day, never once even set foot in? Yeah, no.

I don’t have that Gmail anymore. It existed three or four computers and three phones ago. The recovery process is a dead end—probably tied to a Google Voice number I don’t own anymore, or maybe I never set one up. So I can’t dig up the receipt or post a screenshot. You’ll have to take my word for it.

I remember the creepy vibe it gave me. I pinged my buddy James Lindsay about it—because he really knows his way around weirdness. He told me to report it to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which I did.

I filled out the online form, hit submit, and… crickets. Not shocking, really—early COVID had the world, and the feds, in a blender of chaos.

Fast forward to now. ActBlue’s having its rats-jumping-ship moment, and I’m watching it unfold with a grim little smile. My weird little data point from 2020 fits right in. ActBlue’s a sham—bogus. Lame.

Here’s hoping they implode and never recover.

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