Washington (AFP) - With his claims that he is a political prisoner and that his enemies want him dead, Donald Trump's campaign mail-outs have begun to read as much like the stylings of a dissident in the Soviet Gulag as the fundraising emails of a US election candidate.
The Republican's communications in the days since his criminal conviction in New York have taken on a distinctly apocalyptic flavor, as he shakes the collection tin ahead of his showdown with Joe Biden in November's presidential election.
"They want me in prison for 187 YEARS," said one incendiary message redolent of the travails of 20th century resistance icons such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or Nelson Mandela.
"I KNOW YOU WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON ME!" screamed another.
On Thursday, after Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in an election conspiracy involving hush money payments to a porn star, the billionaire's supporters began receiving their first urgent appeals for cash.
A message sent by email and shared on social media depicted Trump, fist raised in defiance, alongside the captions, "I'm a political prisoner!" and "WE MUST MAKE JOE BIDEN REGRET EVER COMING AFTER US!"
The communication invited "patriots" to donate $20, $47, $100 or $3,300 to his campaign.
A few hours later, the first text messages arrived.
"They want me behind bars. They want me DEAD," Trump thundered, baselessly accusing Democrats of having orchestrated the various prosecutions he is facing, as he promised voters he would "NEVER SURRENDER!"
$53 million in 24 hours
The strategy has been unambiguously effective, raising over $53 million in online donations alone in the 24 hours following the verdict, according to the Trump campaign.
The torrent of text messages and emails from the campaign to the base has not been staunched since then, prompting a deluge of donations.
It is all part of Trump's strategy to make his legal troubles -- 34 felony convictions in New York, 54 charges to follow and a glut of lawsuits -- central to his duel with Biden.
The strategy is paying off with his core supporters, who are convinced that their standard-bearer is the victim of a witch-hunt.
Betsy Showers, a truck driver in her 50s from Iowa, told AFP she sent $100 to the former president a few weeks ago.
"I'd give him more if I could," said the Trump supporter, who acknowledges that she is contributing to the billionaire's campaign despite sometimes struggling to make ends meet herself.
"I'd rather him have a war chest... so that he beats these people with these bullshit lies," she says. "All of this stuff is made up," she adds of Trump's legal troubles.
Barometer
Far from being a topic avoided in polite circles, big-dollar fundraising is the beating heart of the US electoral system, where windfalls from ritzy campaign events or billionaire donors are celebrated loudly and publicly.
With 2024 shaping up to be the most expensive election cycle in the country's history, Trump and Biden have both spent months bidding to outdo the other with ever more lavish events, sharing laudatory communiques on the robust health of their finances.
But overflowing campaign coffers are not the be-all and end-all, as Trump himself showed when he beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election despite raising about half as much cash.
"The fundraising race is better viewed as a barometer of energy among the most ardent supporters," says Jeff Milyo, a professor at the University of Missouri and an expert in election finance.
"That's why we see the bump in fundraising (from) Trump supporters in reaction to the trial verdict. They are outraged and expressing that through donations," he adds.
Election campaigns are expensive.
The eye-watering sums raised by the candidates goes towards their travel, pays their large campaign teams, funds polling and, perhaps above all, fund TV ads.
But money won't be enough to fundamentally change the race between Biden and Trump, which could come down to a few tens of thousands of votes in a few key states, according to Milyo.
"It will be a close race," says the economist. "And no amount of campaign spending between now and November is going to change that."
