From: Joe Appel <appel4@gmail.com>
Subject: personal invitation to SDAD2020
Date: February 10, 2020 at 10:52:09 AM PST
Hello there. This is an e-blast, the result of a mass scan of personal contacts present and past. And so please accept my apologies if you receive multiple emails or notifications from obsolete addresses, think it inappropriate that you're receiving this, or just wonder who I even am.
The story goes that in early 1960, the man who would become my father had conversations with a few friends throughout the country, after which they each began making waffles. They ate their fill but reserved one waffle apiece, and this they put in envelopes which each addressed to Richard Nixon, Number One Observatory Circle, Washington, D.C. (his home address at the time, as he was Vice President).
So began the legendary (in my family, at least) Send-Dick-a-Waffle Campaign of 1960, which gathered momentum through the spring and summer as word-of-mouth spread and more friends of friends joined in, each mailing a single waffle on a weekly basis. It is estimated that the Nixon family (if Dick shared with Pat and kids) ended up receiving a total of more than 1,000 waffles.
Although with the benefit of hindsight we, now, are able to see clearly how these efforts led to Nixon's electoral loss in 1960 and more thorough self-annihilation a decade later, it was difficult to predict events at the time. By now the historical consensus is seldom disputed: Send-Dick-a-Waffle's focused campaign was directly responsible for Nixon's infamously sweaty appearance at the (first-ever) televised presidential debate of September 26, 1960. Nervous, rattled, and with the incipient flickering of a paranoia that would grow so massive over time as to yield the fateful decision to bug DNC HQ at the Watergate Office Building, Nixon fell prey to his preoccupation with tracking down the sources of all those waffles. For most Americans, that sweaty brow was portent enough, and we got Kennedy.
Sixty years later, we stand at a pivotal moment in our nation's history. As anyone who watches MSNBC is well aware, the need is now higher, and the call louder, for concerned members of our republic to rise up in a loosely coordinated endeavor that uses the postal service to provide just enough irritation to a man in power to help alter the course of history. Welcome, then, to Send-Don-a-Diaper 2020.
Here's how it works:
· Purchase a pack of diapers. We suggest Newborn size, since these will be the lightest and so incur the lowest postage rates. Also, the metaphorical resonance of Newborn diapers is high. However, if you've got enough funds that you want to consider Huggies Little Movers Size 6, a strong case can be made for the high metaphorical resonance of that size, so go ahead.
· Purchase enough envelopes, of appropriate size, to send a diaper a week.
· Mail to:
o Donald J. Trump, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500
o Return address: Send-Don-a-Diaper, [Your home town, state] Chapter
o Do not place anything in the envelope besides the diaper. No notes, letters, drawings, paperclips, baby powder, etc.
· To cut down on trips to the post office, you could bulk-address a bunch of envelopes and buy postage for all of them, but please stick to the once-a-week schedule for the actual mailing.
· Feel free to mail a diaper when you're away from home: Just change the return address to note the different Chapter of SDAD.
· Record, securely, your efforts in this campaign: date of each mailing, town from which you mailed, any strong emotions that come up, etc. We recommend a notebook with acid-free paper, using a Blackwing 602 pencil.
· We've got a long few months ahead of us. If you start, please don't stop! We're hoping to keep SDAD going through November 3 -- probably beyond, given the good chances the election will be disputed by at least one prominent U.S. citizen. Marathon not sprint.
· THE MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION OF ALL
o For this campaign to succeed, please tell friends you trust, but only do so in the following ways:
2. in direct conversation, either face-to-face or on a phone call
3. by forwarding them this email
o DO NOT USE SOCIAL MEDIA, at all, in any way whatsoever. In 1960, Send-Dick-a-Waffle was effective due to mystery, confusion, lack of traceability; we at Send-Don-a-Diaper rely on the same tools. Our effectiveness would be instantly diluted by an Instagram post or #. If the White House knew Send-Don-a-Diaper were a concocted viral sort of thing, we'd immediately lose all the power we have. This is a David-v-Goliath situation here, and a diaper in an envelope -- not a smartphone -- is our rock in a sling. The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.
If you have any questions, further ideas, or requests to diverge from the protocol enumerated above, please direct these to the SDAD Coordinating Committee. The sole contact for SDADCC is sdadcc2020@gmail.com. Any actions additional to the weekly mailing of diapers to the White House taken on behalf of, or in connection with, Send-Don-a-Diaper 2020 without the express approval of the SDADCC will lead to immediate expulsion of the offending member from SDAD. (You do not want to miss our mid-November banquet.) If this is really going to work, we gotta keep things tight!
Also, feel free to email sdadcc2020@gmail.com periodically with an update on the diapers you've sent.
Of course, you're not quite obligated to join SDAD. But we do hope you will, and gratefully and joyfully welcome you aboard.
Juan
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