It was the banging sound downstairs that woke me up. Someone was trying to get in. It was dad--I could tell by his demented yells to “let me in” that he had gone out without his keys and forgotten to bring his cell phone. Mom was in the backyard sunning herself by the pool. Still in my nightie I rushed down the stairs and opened the door--his blue bloodshot eyes stared out at me from his flour white pasty face. He was wearing oversize khaki shorts and long black compression socks, a baggy white t-shirt and a MAGA hat.
“Forgot my keys! Thanks dear” he said
“Glad you are getting some exercise” I said
“What?” asked my dad
“Glad you are getting some exercise--turn up your earphones”
“What?” he asked again
That’s the way it went with my old man. Deaf and demented and just the kind of person GL loved. A guaranteed vote for him and any of this authoritarian cronies in the Congress and a bit of money to spend on him, his campaigns, his legal bills and of course his range of merchandise that had now expanded upon hats to include gold plated sneakers, framed photos of him with you (all done through the magic of AI and a $100 contribution.
Still breathing heavily, I sat him down on his favorite (Fraser style) TV armchair and fetched him a glass of water. As he stretched out his legs on the automatic extender chair and after a moment asked him point blank how much he was giving to the GL campaign.
“A lot” was his reply.
“Like your pension?”
“Yes”
“Like how much of it?”
“You need to ask your mother”
I called Mom from her lounge in the back. She had a dreamy half gone expression that she reserved for me when I was home. Like things were going to be OK now. Like we were back together as a family again.
“I have no idea how much he gives to GL” she said with a laugh when I confronted her in front of dad
She looked long and hard at him like she was going to find the answer in his idiotic stare.
“It's hopeless--I know it's a lot--they were so impressed with his donations that they were prepared to fly him up to some black tie dinner at their mansion HQ in Florida and he could take me along. I had to tear up the invite before he saw it otherwise we would have been on the flight together and shaking hands with GL.”
“Oh no-he’s that far gone” I said, not hiding the alarm in my voice. Dad had just tossed his head back and was in deep snooze mode.
“I can’t stop him--maybe you can?”
“I’m going to try. I just came back from a city that was basically being burnt to the ground -where I was nearly robbed and kidnapped and who knows maybe even raped by three of his thug supporters. This man is a menace to us all. He is causing division. Just like January 6 when he doesn’t get his way--the electoral victory that he was determined to be his.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked, more nervous now --the blissful look long gone from her face.
“Follow the money?” she pondered the point like it was a quote in Latin
“Follow the money. That’s what Woodward and Bernstein did and how they exposed Watergate--
“Watergate?” she said as if it was a name like Shangri La
“Nixon --the reason why he had to resign” I replied
“Oh that’s right--Nixon was a bad president” she mouthed
“You voted for him mom--just like you voted for GL--time to start thinking about who these guys are and why they are so crooked and judging by this morning’s headlines he has bullied his way into the presidency
“I need to talk to you later. First I need to do some research.”
I returned to my bedroom and hauled out my laptop and did some Google fueled research--I found out that GL devised a new way to hook followers particularly seniors -through a website nicely called “Senior Saviors” -an mailing to VETS, voters who had previously donated to the GOP that put them on a special VIP list that would repeatedly used phantom donation matches that would serve to double their donation if they ignored the message
The whole thing was one big grift--I read about elderly GL supporters dying of cancer and in their hospice beds receiving calls from GL HQ and being fleeced for the last cent they had. What did dad owe was my most pressing question but to find out that answer I needed to know who was behind this grift. I started doing some Googling --the rabbit hole I fell down was deeper than I anticipated. "Senior Savers" had a slick website, echoing the flier's rhetoric, with a donation button flashing like a neon sign. Curiosity gnawed at me. I dug deeper.
The trail led to a prestigious law firm downtown. The firm's website boasted of their pro bono work for veterans and the underprivileged. Diving further, I discovered a network of similar "charities," all with gaudy websites and identical donation pleas. Each one linked back to the same law firm.
My initial suspicions morphed into a bad feeling that crawled up my spine. I called the firm, hoping to connect with someone who ran the Senior Savers program. The cheerful assistant became frosty when I mentioned them.
"We don't have any program by that name, ma’am--we only deal with legitimate legal matters," she snapped, then slammed the phone down. I then decided to move on a different track based on the fact that GL had just won a second term. The betting was it was also going to be the final term for American democracy. While they were still high on their victory they would be willing to spill the beans as to how they outraised Biden--despite GL’s 91 felony counts and half the funding going to pay his legal fees. I posted on a few message boards that only Republicans use that I was a film producer (not untrue I had produced some documentaries for some networks for a few stations that have since gone out of business) and that I wanted to “tell the true story of GL’s great fundraising machine that made the historic victory possible”
Two high rankers who felt that their contribution was not fully recognized came forward. One I checked out was a volunteer graduate student with a thin resume (as I checked out on Linked In) the second was a woman--women in my experience tend not to varnish the truth. Her name was Rita Jordan and she was in a former life a criminal defense attorney until she attended a GL rally and was overwhelmed by the “power of his message” - whatever that meant. She was from a family of strident GL supporters--her mother wore a “GL in 2024 -2034” spelled out in rhinestones and a matching baseball hat. Eager to take credit for her mastery of X a variety of social media tools --particularly targeted Facebook ads to suburban housewives concerned that their schools were being taken over by pedophiles and lesbians--( a campaign of disinformation that she also helped to manage) she did not want to talk about Senior Savers saying that “he was not a team player” I pressed her for the name because as a “committed GL supporter disloyal people needed to be called out “. I then added cheekily “To make an effective documentary it had to have some bad guys to hate it make her contribution stand out even more” with that I let her GO besotted brain go with the promise that I would be back in touch.
After many failed phone calls I found the recalcitrant architect of Senior Saviors in a small town just outside of Richmond Virginia. After picking up the phone and finding out that I was from the media he refused to speak to me. I had to sort out a suitable cover to penetrate Mr Gillispie’s defenses. After discovering his address I decided on a ruse--that I was an FBI agent investigating a series of complaints about fraud. To execute my plan I booked airline tickets to Richmond and picked out a suitable undercover FBI outfit--not a trench coat but an impressive expensive navy suit and matching boots. Just in case he asked some fake FBI ID which I managed to find on the almighty web. When I knocked, a young vibrant woman opened the door --she looked like a girlfriend who had stayed over--her hair was a bit disheveled and she was wearing what looked like a male bathrobe. Her hair was a copper color and her face reminded me of Goldie Hawn--thin with large blue eyes and prominent mouth and black eyeliner.
When I said I was Detective Jenkins from the FBI she motioned me in as if she had been expecting me.
“He’s upstairs working. Would you like some coffee?”
“Yes please “ I replied
“Your name?
“Jamie Dawson”
You said you were from the FBI?
“That’s right and what’s your name?”
“Carla Gillispie”
“Good afternoon Carla”
“I will tell him someone from the FBI is here— we don’t often get visitors-
“Particularly from the FBI i expect”I replied trying to keep things jaunty
“Thanks --tell him nothing to be alarmed about--We don’t usually make house calls
“That’s a relief I will go upstairs to tell him Make yourself comfortable”
I sat in an armchair facing a large screen TV in a room sparse with furniture
A few minutes later a tall middle aged bearded man came slowly down stairs pointing what looked like a small caliber revolver at me.
“Hi Janie--I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here but its time to get the fuck out of here” he barked —eyes aflame and finger on the trigger.
Despite having my heart about to gallop out of my ribcage I knew the way I was going to survive this was to not show fear or anger.
“That’s quite a welcome” I said followed by a short nervous giggle
“Please don’t David—she is from the FBI”pleaded Carla
“Get going now” snarled the bearded man
“I’m with the FBI just making a courtesy visit” I said brightly as if I was talking to a child. I then flashed him my fake ID
He took one look at it-
“That’s as fake as three dollar note” he said
“Well please yourself--I may have to bring some more people to the game” I said, still trying to maintain a light tone.
“David--don’t be a fool --sit down with her and see what she has to say” implored Carla
“I’ll give you five minutes but don’t tell me any FBI cock and bull stories. I know the FBI--I have friends who work at the FBI and you ain’t the FBI'' he said in a softer southern accent.
“Let me reintroduce myself --I am not from the FBI --I am the daughter of someone who gave most of his life savings to your Senior Saviors Schema.
“Not any more” he quickly snapped back
“OK--tell me more but first can you place the gun down.
Glen placed the gun on a coffee]e table beside him and sat on a dining room chair opposite me. He seemed to be breathing a bit easier as he went into an explanation as to how he was first hired by the campaign as a telemarketer and rose up through the ranks to head up the Senior Saviors scheme that was just designed for the most loyal of GL supporters. He opposed putting the extra box that few of the seniors could see that would double their donations and insisted that they removed it. But the money gushed in at such amounts that they refused to take it down or as he had advised return the money. As GL’s legal bills continued to mount they became increasingly reliant on the new source of funds and he was eased out of his position. After he threatened to tell the media about the scam they marked him as a person who needed a ‘promotion’ in GL slang that was to be placed on a list for the GL loyalists to “deal with.”
“Suffice to say I had some hospital bills at the end of this process and we lost the house and the baby through the stress we suffered. This is rented accommodation right now. Carla makes some money at the local grocery store and I do DoorDash. The GL hoodlums have not followed us here so far. That's why I carry a gun and why I reacted the way I did with you.” he said.
Carla was quietly sobbing in the corner.
"They called it fundraising," she muttered, eyes downcast. "Now I see it for what it is. Stealing from folks who can least afford it."
What can we do now? Now that GL has won
“Not won just declared victory” Glen corrected me
“A distinction without a difference at this point. He is going to rule the US like a punch drunk dictator.”
“Yes he promised revenge and we will get it--there will he assasination lists, detention lists, hit squads, people will be silenced as will large media companies and social media will be threatened with sanctions unless they change their algorithms and allow GL back on their platforms and his brand of hate speech and that of his followers.”
So you know the play book
“I helped write the playbook.” Glen corrected me.
“GL would get us all--the top fundraisers and communication guys and gals in a room very often to lecture us on why and how he intended to govern. He would talk about hate as not necessarily the best emotion to use to govern but the most useful in that it helped unify people and gave them purpose. The country was too addicted to entertainment and to liberal ideas that allowed people to feel that things like open borders were OK as were Gay and Lesbian lifestyles. We would go down the tubes as a country if we continued on this path and more important than that, Democrats who believed in wealth sharing and social safety nets for immigrants and minorities would get back into power. You have to give them something to hate, someone to hate, a religion and a country to hate to get their attention moving in the right direction.”
“What a fucking night mare” I muttered“Its a nightmare that has come all too real “ Carla agreed Carla wiped her tears, her resolve hardening as she looked up. "But we can't just sit here and let this happen. We need to do something. We need to fight back."
Glen nodded in agreement. "We have to resist. We can't let fear dictate our actions. We knew what GL was capable of, and now it's up to us to stand up against it."
"But how?" I asked, feeling a sense of helplessness creeping in.
"We start by organizing," I said in a voice I hardly recognized. "We reach out to others who feel the same way we do. We mobilize communities, we protest, we speak out against injustice."
Glen leaned forward, his expression determined. "We use our skills and resources to counter their propaganda. We expose the truth behind their lies. We support independent media and platforms that refuse to be silenced."
I felt a glimmer of hope "It won't be easy," I said, "but we have to try. For the sake of our country, for the sake of our future."
Carla nodded, her eyes shining with determination. "We can't let them win. Not now, not ever."
And with that, we began to plan our resistance, knowing that the road ahead would be long and difficult, but also knowing that we had no choice but to fight for what was right.
.