Let's thank these Salem contributors to the Trump re-election campaign

We here at the world headquarters of the Salem Political Snark blog -- located, appropriately enough, in Salem, Oregon -- strongly believe in citizens being actively involved in politics.

One great way to do this is by contributing to political campaigns.

So when a fellow patriot shared with me a spreadsheet of Salem donors to President Trump's re-election campaign, information that is publicly available via the Federal Election Commission, I had two strong reactions.

(1) I'm so clueless about spreadsheets, it's damn impressive that someone was able to combine donations to the Trump Make American Great Again Committee and the Donald J. Trump for President Committee into a single file. Miraculous!

(2) I need to thank these Trump supporters in a blog post for their service to our democracy. 

I believe I succeeded in correctly copying in the names of the 77 Salem residents who have donated to the above-mentioned committees since January 1 of 2018.

If my senior citizen eyes missed a donor, consult the spreadsheet file I worked with. (Note: the aggregated amounts are in a separate tab.)
Download Salem Trump Contributors

Following is an alphabetical list of the reported Salem contributors to the Trump Make American Great Again Committee and the Donald J. Trump for President Committee. 

I've honored the top ten contributors by putting their names in red. Again, this is public information, as a recent Vox story makes clear.

That story describes how donors come to be listed in Federal Election Commission reports: "Once contributions add up to more than $200 during a two-year cycle to a certain candidate, then campaigns have to report them to the FEC, including the amount, date of receipt, and the contributor’s name, address, occupation, and employer."

ALCALA, JORGE
ANDRETTA, DEAN
ATKINSON, MARCIA
BARBIE, EDWIN
BEACH, MICHAEL
BLEVINS, ROYA
BOMAN, CHARLES D [tied #10 contributor $875]
BROUSE, GORDON
BUNDY, DEAN [#3 contributor $1,724]
CANALES, ALFONSO H. MR.
CASE, FLYNN D. MR.
CHANDLER, RONNA L MS.
CHOATE, BARBARA J MRS.
COFFEY, MARY E MS.
CUTLER, EVA MS. [#2 contributor $1,900]
DAMM, ALVIN
DONACA, RONALD L. MR.
DONACA, RONALD M. [#7 contributor $1,275]
DONACA, RONALD M. MRS. [#1 contributor $2,200] !!!!!!!!!!
DUNAGAN, PENNY
ESQUEDA, FLOYD
FARRINGTON, DAN A.
FITZWATER, PAUL
FOSTER, BILLIE S
GILLETT, KIRK
GREGORICH, FLOYD
HADLEY, SHARON
HAMMER, LINDA J. MRS.
HERHARD, CAROL
HEYN, ALFRED
HOCKETT, TERRY
HODGES, MARIS
HODGES, MIKE KELLY
HUNT, SARAH
HYDEN, CONNIE
KAUFMAN, DEAN [#6 contributor $1,384]
KEYT, LINDA
KIFLU, GABRIEL [#5 contributor $1,438]
KOCH, GRANT [#9 contributor $1,058]
KRONSTEINER, LONNIE
LATULIPPE, STEVEN
LATULIPPE, TERESA
LAY, MARY R MS.
LOWERY, SHARI
MARKS, JOHN R. MR.
MATLOCK, CARRIE
MEYER, MURIEL L. MRS.
MILLER, LOUISE
MILLER, MARY
MOFFENBIER, SHIRLEY
NORMAN, JAKE
OLIVER, PATRICIA D. MS.
POPE, ANNE
PURNELL, WILLIAM E.
QUIJANO, NICHOLE
RAGAIN, DENNIS
RALSTON, LINDA MS [tied #10 contributor $875]
RAY, LINDA
RITTER, JOHN
ROGERS, ANN MARIE
ROGERS, LAURIE ANN
ROISEN, LOIS A. MRS.
ROTSOLK, ANTOINETTE
SATTER, ROY
SCHAEFER, ROGER J MR.
SKOROHODOV, LADONNA
SPAFFORD, SHARON
STANLEY, DEBRA
STUBBS, RODNEY
TOVAR, RICH
TRAN, TUE T [#4 contributor $1,546]
VANDERHOEK, SUSAN
WEBB, THOMAS L [#8 contributor $1,125]
WHITE-THORUD, SUSANNE
WILLIAMSON, JANICE R. MRS.
WIX, CAROL M. MS. [tied #10 contributor $875]
WOOD, LOU WILMA 

Comments

[tucson]

So you put up the names of Trump supporters, who in your lofty perspective are evil, mouthbreathing, slackjawed, deplorable, smelly, barely literate, butt-crack showing, white supremacist, gun toting, bible thumping, gay bashing WalMart shoppers, who you hope will be harassed mercilessly by the ever good, kind and sensible far leftists such as yourself who want open borders, free shit for all entitlements, brutally high taxes, murdered full term babies, and a ruined economy dominated by crushing regulation based on delusional science and a civil war to boot. Good thinking Brian. You're so woke, a real swell guy for a raging hypocrite. Go drive your fashionable, politically correct shiny new hybrid vehicle, impossibly hip like you are, into your narcissistic sunset.

[Dmace]

I'm sure most of these folks fell victim to his charismatic reality TV based personality. As anyone with at least two functional brain cells knows history will record Drumpf for being the greatest con man, grifter, xenophobic, racist, child molester, rapist, fraud, liar, crowd hiring, gas lighting, business failure, Russian asset to ever occupy the white house. Also, did I mention racist? I mean really REALLY racist! After all...everyone makes mistakes. :-)

[Penny]

I don't care who does it, and I've seen people from both sides of the aisle do it, but the practice of listing people's names seems kind of wrong to me. We should respect the idea of having some privacy in our political system at least on a personal level. People should feel safe supporting whoever they think is the best not ridiculed or shamed because of it.
We need positive, constructive, and respectable debates and ideas not ridiculing and name calling and endangering people because of thier opinions. Freedom of speech and the press is a right but also something that should be used wisely and honorably

[Skyline]

THANK YOU, Brian for honoring Salem donors to the Make American Great Again Committee and the Donald J. Trump for President Committee.
As you have demonstrated for years, individual efforts CAN make a difference.
These fine Salem citizens stepped up and WON!!!
Great job!

[Teresa Fry]

As you mentioned this is public information and those that are giving you a hard time I guess can't read and understand the law. Interesting information. Thank you.

[Immune]

Big person you are. Maybe you should dox them next and try to get them fired or attacked by your friend Antifa. You are no better than a Nazi brown shirt.

[Trump2020]

You must have missed a list. There are dozens if not hundreds of names missing from your list. Not sure what your intent was but thanks for this public service. Let's get a lot more donations to the Donald Trump campaign!!! #KAG

[Brian Hines]

Immune, this is public information. It isn't doxxing when someone shares publicly available information. These contributors volunteered their information to the Trump campaign, as required by federal election law.

Trump2020, as noted in this post, campaigns are only required to pass donor information on to the Federal Election Commission when contributions surpass $200 in a two-year period. So small donations aren't part of the FEC data.

[Super Dave]

Hope you haven’t had to file a permit for any work on your home. That’s “public information” too, FYI

[Brian Hines]

Super Dave, oh, no! As the reason for remodeling, I put down "meth lab" and "manufacturing facility for fully automatic illegal machine guns." Damn! I had no idea the permit would be public information. My bad.

[Jim Scheppke]

Correction: there were 75 contributors of over $200 in the past two years to date, not 77. Given that Salem has over 167,000 residents this is only .04% of our population that are rabid Trump supporters. That is very comforting to me, and I am glad to live in a place with so little strong support for Trump.

[Marilyn K]

Interesting the anonymous Trump Humpers are so embarrassed about contributing to their chosen political campaigns. I don’t know of any Obama contributors who were ashamed of contributing. Why are people voting for a candidate they’re ashamed for others to know about? Is it a Secret Society of Russian stooges? Thanks for the post, the responses are perhaps typical of Trump supporters.

[Salemander]

Brian, I don't think you understand what "doxxing" means.
"search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent."
Notice the "or".

Super Dave's point is that just because something is "public information" (like an easily obtainable home address) it does not justify you aggregating and disseminating people's information into the public space just because it serves your political persuasions. Dismissing Super Dave's point with a shitty joke does not make his point invalid. What it does it makes you an asshole willing to be as smarmy and slimy as the person you are rallying against. Great job, Salem was their own little liberal Trump now.

[Christine Chute]

The publication of these names upsets me. It may be public information, but it seems like there's no reason for doing this except to invite others to look down on the contributors (because it's clearly something Brian doesn't think is laudable) or to take some unspecified action against them. This feels like bullying to me. I can't think of any positive result from this posting. Brian, can you please explain what you hoped to achieve? I must have missed the point.

[Jim Scheppke]

Christine, I beg to differ with you. I would be proud to have my name published in a blog as a contributor to Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or Kate Brown, etc. What's the difference here?

[Brian Hines]

Christine, let's not overthink this blog post. I thought about writing it only after someone sent me the spreadsheet file of Trump donations since January 1, 2018 totaling $200 or more. It seemed like this would make for a good post.

I believe in transparency, both government and political. Dark money is a huge problem in the world of political campaigns. PACs are able to get anonymous donations, then support campaigns in every way except directly endorsing a candidate.

It's great that the Federal Election Commission requires that the name, address, and occupation of people donating $200 or more to a campaign over a two-year period be publicly reported. I wish this was the case for PACs also.

So making public information more public struck me as a great idea. I do it all the time on this blog. It's curious that some Trump supporters don't want their support for Trump known. I'd be pleased to have my name listed in a group of Elizabeth Warren supporters. I haven't donated yet to her campaign, but I like her a lot, so probably will.

[Brian Hines]

Salemander, here's the Merriam Webster definition of doxxing:

slang : to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge

I DID NOT publish private information about someone. I shared public information. And I had no intent of punishment or revenge. I accept your apology for claiming something that wasn't true in your comment.

[Linda]

Great job, love the information. These are only some of the traitors out there though. I appreciate knowing who my enemies are. Great start and thank you.