A disabled veteran and former fake news<\/a> huckster has squeezed $17 million out of American conservatives with a promise to \u201cfund the wall.\u201d The press has covered the crowdfunding campaign<\/a>, and even dug a bit into his shady prior endeavors<\/a>. But I can\u2019t find a single report really analyzing how the man behind this campaign, Brian Kolfage, is benefiting personally. He\u2019s given an audience of disaffected conservatives, frustrated by Trump\u2019s failures, a way to buy the feeling of a successful movement. It\u2019s an unscrupulous way to monetize irrationality and xenophobia, and it\u2019s going to succeed even as the campaign to fund the wall fails.<\/p>\n (Kolfage has sued<\/a> people in the past for criticizing him. With that in mind, I\u2019ll point out the obvious: this piece shares previously reported facts about Kolfage and his campaign, as well as my opinions based on those facts. For example, the numbers below come from the linked public sources. My conclusion based on those reported facts, that Kolfage is an unscrupulous huckster, is purely my opinion. I do not have any reason to believe that he has broken any laws.<\/em>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cCompound interest is the greatest force in the universe.\u201d \u2013unknown, but probably not Einstein<\/a><\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n As of right now, Kolfage\u2019s campaign has raised over $17.5 million that absolutely will not be used to build \u201cthe wall.\u201d By law<\/a>, cash donations to the government go into the general fund, and donors can\u2019t control how it\u2019s used. Kolfage is relatively honest about that, but his proposed solution is obviously not going to work. He is asking Congress to change the law and allow him to earmark the money, but that didn\u2019t go anywhere even under the Republican majority\u2014now that Congress is in recess, the government is shut down, and the Democrats are on the doorstep, it\u2019s futile. Kolfage is putting on a show for his donors, acting out the role of an activist creating a solution, but at the end of the day the money he\u2019s raised is going to sit until it has to be refunded or is redirected to a charity.<\/p>\n Of course, money never just sits idly. It earns interest, and a $17 million pot can easily bring in tens of thousands of dollars a month. It\u2019s not clear who\u2019s collecting that money. Probably it\u2019s GoFundMe, which last week told reporters<\/a>, \u201cThe funds are safely held by our payment processor and we will work with the organizer to transfer funds to an appropriate recipient or refund all donors.\u201d On the other hand, Kolfage\u2019s campaign claims, \u201cWe will hold all funds and not release a single penny until we have all legal aspects covered to ensure our money goes only to the wall.\u201d And the GoFundMe donation page itself explicitly says that Kolfage \u201cwill receive your donation directly.\u201d I\u2019ve asked Kolfage what\u2019s happening with the money, via email and his Facebook page, but he has not responded.<\/p>\n If GoFundMe releases the money to Kolfage, he could easily get rich off the interest alone. I can\u2019t find any statements he\u2019s made about how he\u2019d use the interest, and he hasn\u2019t responded to multiple requests for comment, so presumably he could simply pocket that money. If he just rolled the pot into 1-month treasuries, a safe investment that would let him disburse or refund the principal at short notice, he would still be earning roughly 2.3% interest<\/a>. That\u2019s over $30,000 a month. Assuming he held the money until the next election, because that would be the earliest he could reasonably expect the law to change, he would make well over half a million dollars. <\/p>\n What if GoFundMe hangs on to the money, though? If it can\u2019t be withdrawn by an authorized recipient, in theory they will refund donations in 90 days<\/a>. (I don\u2019t know if Kolfage is an authorized recipient. Their earlier statement suggests that he\u2019s not, but the donation page itself says that he\u2019ll receive the money directly.) Even if they do, it looks like Kolfage is using the GoFundMe campaign to take in money personally, outside of their control. He\u2019s using his GoFundMe campaign page to ask for donors to mail him checks directly, addressed to him personally and made out to \u201cWeFund the Wall.\u201d <\/p>\n I can\u2019t find \u201cWeFund the Wall\u201d registered with the Colorado secretary of state<\/a> or in the Colorado charities database<\/a>, even just as a DBA. It\u2019s possible this is just the label Kolfage is putting on the campaign, and that he\u2019s collecting and depositing checks himself rather than organizing an actual nonprofit entity. That\u2019s not illegal, as far as I know, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Charities use corporate entities for many incredibly good and obvious reasons, and I don\u2019t know why anyone would skip that step with a campaign this huge other than laziness or ignorance. Laziness is a weak excuse for such a massively successful fundraising effort, and it\u2019s hard to believe that Kolfage is ignorant given that he\u2019s a business owner with experience managing lucrative crowdfunding campaigns<\/a>.<\/p>\n How much money has Kolfage taken in personal checks, outside of GoFundMe and its protections for donors? We don\u2019t know. When is he going to refund it? We don\u2019t know. Is he keeping detailed records? We don\u2019t know. Will he have any records he is keeping audited? We don\u2019t know. What\u2019s he going to do with the interest he earns on that money? We don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n Is Kolfage making money with this ugly black hole? Yes, that we know.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the dark side of Let\u2019s assume GoFundMe\u2019s procedures are ironclad and Kolfage can\u2019t get his hands on the pot or the interest. He\u2019s still benefitting from this campaign, including financially. He used to run a \u201cRight Wing News\u201d page, which Facebook recently took down as part of a crackdown<\/a> on pages that were \u201cusing fake accounts\u2026 to drive traffic to their websites\u201d or were simply \u201cad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.\u201d He took the blow in stride, using it to make some quick cash. He used GoFundMe to launch a crowdfunding campaign, demanding cash to do \u201cjump start the legal proceedings against Facebook.\u201d He also redirects visitors to a separate site asking for money without making any promises about how he\u2019ll spend it. He\u2019s raised over $70,000<\/a> just through GoFundMe, and there\u2019s no way of knowing what he\u2019s pocketed with his independent solicitations. <\/p>\n And of course, attention is life for a huckster. Kolfage is According to his Facebook page Kolfage is in DC right now to \u201cmeet with lawmakers and lawyers to get this wall funded!\u201d A Congressional recess doesn\u2019t seem like a good time to find lawmakers in DC, but he says he has a deal and that he\u2019ll announce the details next week. I\u2019m skeptical, but it hardly matters. Even if he refunded the donations tomorrow, Kolfage has already used the campaign to build a huge network of followers who will spend money to demonstrate their loyalty to Donald Trump and his agenda. As long as he doesn\u2019t develop any scruples, Kolfage will have years to monetize their fear and anger. He\u2019s going to make a fortune.<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A disabled veteran and former fake news huckster has squeezed $17 million out of American conservatives with a promise to \u201cfund the wall.\u201d The press has covered the crowdfunding campaign, and even dug a bit into his shady prior endeavors. But I can\u2019t find a single report really analyzing how the man behind this campaign, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11767],"tags":[13716,26284,26283,17253,17252],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-41942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anthropology","tag-benefit","tag-gofundme","tag-huckster","tag-metaphors","tag-violent"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/violentmetaphors.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/wall.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/violentmetaphors.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/fb2.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/violentmetaphors.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/campaign2.jpg\")
\nthe attention economy.<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nmilking it, hard. He\u2019s become more of a right-wing celebrity than ever, with
\ntens of thousands of followers and hundreds of thousands of donations. Most of
\nthem are small\u2014the mean donation to the wall fund is $60, and the mode is
\nprobably $50\u2014but there are a lot of them, and Kolfage is careful to make sure
\nthat his name and face are prominently attached to the campaign. He\u2019ll be able
\nto keep harvesting attention and money from that audience for a long, long
\ntime. <\/p>\n