© Bloomberg PoliticsSupporters of Donald Trump pledge to vote for him during a rally in Orlando, Florida on March 5, 2016
Yes, seriously.
After reports circulated last week of a non-disclosure agreement required of volunteers for the candidate's phone bank located in Trump Tower in Manhattan, the Daily Dot finally managed to procure a copy on Monday. Its contents — though not shocking, considering Trump's litany of complaints against the media — reveal telling control issues, if not outright paranoia.
According to the Daily Dot:
"In addition to forbidding volunteers from disparaging Trump, the contract also includes a sentence that demands volunteers prevent their employees from criticizing Trump, thus making volunteers responsible for the free speech of others for an indeterminate amount of time."Again. Yes, seriously. These far-beyond-Orwellian strictures found their way into contracts for unpaid volunteers. Now, imagine what fun a Trump presidency might entail.
"I guess he doesn't know about the First Amendment," New York City employment lawyer, Davida Perry, told the Daily Dot. "This is really shocking."
For journalists, activists, constitutional advocates, and every civilian in the so-called free world, shocking might be the understatement of the election season.
Aspects of the arrangement aren't unusual for non-disclosure agreements, but those contracts typically apply to employees, not volunteers.
"There can't be a contract without consideration," Perry told NBC News. "His campaign isn't giving the volunteer anything in exchange for their agreement to not speak about what they see or hear."
Perry added that the concept of a campaign creating a contract such that volunteers are unable to discuss the campaign without being sued is "outrageous" and "highly unusual for the political process."
© Trump 2016Black and white
Of course, the entire 2016 presidential election season is nothing if not atypical. Trump has drawn the ire of throngs in his crackdown on legal protest, bashing of the media, and general brashness tinged with outright xenophobia. His apparent aversion to even mild castigation and inability to accept deserved criticism makes the attempt to censor negative comments by volunteers not all that astonishing.
Nonetheless, his latest trick to avoid potential haters likely has no legal basis in reality.
"It's overkill," Professor Samuel Estreicher, director of the labor program at New York University School of Law, told NBC News. "I don't think it's enforceable. I don't know why he's doing it."
Perry, however, theorized to the Daily Dot:
"He's apparently so afraid that people would say something bad about him after spending some time on his campaign that they have to sign some sort of agreement."It would arguably appear the election for United States president will boil down to a choice between an unapologetic warhawk, who is also an habitual liar, in Hillary Clinton — or a paranoid, demagogic, megalomaniac who can't stand the heat, in Donald Trump.
Reader Comments
It has to be some kind of measure of how utterly screwed, brainwashed snd impressionable a person is if they actually imagine they and their country can be rescued by a disgusting animal like Donald Trump.
Narcissism, isn't that the word to describe the Donald? And this contract seems like something straight out of the Hillary operational manual, and given his soon CIPAC check-in, is there really any difference? Ah, yes, the Donald is much better for ratings, isn't he?
have any nice things to say about any of them. I don't know how anyone could rationalize voting for people who are basically proven mass murders, who voted for wars, supported on going wars, and on an on.
When was the last time this nation had a President that wasn't directly responsible for deaths of millions?
Isn't it about time we stopped voting for the worst people on the planet.