Norwich
“FULL OF (EXPLETIVE),” read one all-caps subject line, from early March, using an unprintable noun.
The body: “My two Belgian draft horses are generating manure at a record pace. I’m up to my eyeballs. If you have a strong back, rubber boots, and a shovel, let’s talk.”
Although the request was simple — Manheimer said he really was looking for someone to muck out his barn — it might have been read as a prelude to a larger announcement.
“Help me take a bite out of Trump’s behind…” he wrote to his fellow citizens two weeks later. “Like many, I’ve become disenchanted with our current President and wish an alligator would swallow him whole during one of his Mar-a-Lago golf weekends. Since that’s unrealistic, I decided to take big bites out of his behind myself. Perhaps some of you might join me for dinner? :)”
Manheimer, a 57-year-old direct-mail copywriter, crafts the kind of sales pitches that he hopes will save his email solicitations and paper mailers from the wastebasket and, ideally, earn his clients a check.
“I write junk mail,” he said in an interview at home this week.
Working from his farmhouse in rural Norwich, where he keeps two bulky draft horses and a pair of slobbering dogs, he has launched advertising campaigns for Playboy, Time Life, Fortune, The Nation and Dow Jones, among many other national publications and companies doing mail-order business.
Fueled by uncertainty and horror among progressives following the November election, he has turned his skills to politics. This spring he launched a website, BringItOn.org, intended to organize resistance to President Donald Trump.
“Welcome to your hub for the fight against the racist, authoritarian Trump White House,” the homepage says. “We’ll reveal everything you need to stay current. And we’ll point out what you can do to help — right now.”
Setting aside the environmental regulations that Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, are rapidly rolling back, Manheimer said, “it’s Trump’s dictatorial tendencies that have me tossing and turning at night.”
Manheimer these days is reminded of some of his Eastern European ancestors who died in the Holocaust, and said historical precedent has inspired him to speak out.
“At the time, Hitler wasn’t a sure thing. One wonders how history might have changed if enough Germans spoke out early and often against the ambitious, hate-spewing, beer hall populist,” Manheimer said. “Today those of us who can see through Trump’s facade, and can hear the dog whistles, know we cannot remain silent.”
The writing on BringItOn strikes a similar tone, exhorting the reader to “turn your energy into influence” by perusing the site’s aggregated list of informational resources, as well as its catalog of contemporary “Heroes and Villains” — in the latter group, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway is depicted in a strikingly unflattering caricature.
Suggested action steps include signing petitions, canvassing for progressive candidates, running for office and donating to causes such as ThinkProgress and Planned Parenthood.
Much of the site’s content is collected from other sources, which range from mainstream outlets like The Washington Post to hyperpartisan sites like the Daily Kos. Manheimer’s editorial asides are just that — asides — that introduce readers to someone else’s information.
One link to an article on the Daily Kos references a string of tweets on a purported financial deal between the president and Russia, which in turn reference the unverified contents of a dossier created by a Democratic opposition researcher during the campaign.
Trump has denied the claims in the dossier; intelligence agencies and news organizations who had copies of the report during the 2016 campaign declined to circulate its allegations because they were unable to confirm them.
Mainstream sources are usually trustworthy, Manheimer said — they follow stringent standards to verify the information they print — “but there’s some stuff going on on Twitter that’s really compelling.”
The website mentions that BringItOn is seeking 501(c)(4) status as a nonprofit organization.
Manheimer said the name, BringItOn, wasn’t inspired by MoveOn.org, a liberal website that gained wide influence during the last Bush administration; he simply happens to have owned the web domain for some time.
But other inspirations are evident in the text and design. Along the right side of the page runs a column of statistics akin to the Harper’s Index:
“Amount of invoice Trump handed Chancellor Merkel for money Germany ‘owed’ NATO: $300,000,000,000.”
“Annual savings if the Federal government was allowed to negotiate drug prices: $167,000,000,000.”
“Cost of an angiogram in the US: $914. In Canada: $35.”
And Manheimer in this week’s interview referenced another campaign that likely will be his closest competitor for the hearts and eyeballs of outraged progressives: Indivisible, the organizing website based on a political action guide written by Congressional staffers that adapts Tea Party tactics for liberal purposes.
Time will tell whether Manheimer’s campaign will catch on as those others have.
Dean Barker, who co-founded and from 2006-2011 ran Blue Hampshire, a community blog focused on progressive politics, contributed to a statewide push in New Hampshire to affirm same-sex marriage rights.
Barker this week said he believed that what made his website successful had been its niche focus, its fresh daily offerings — “not just aggregation, links and blockquotes, but commentary and analysis” — and the online home that it gave to a community.
“If a political website can find its focus, be reality-based, and stay up-to-date — no small task! — an audience may follow,” he said in an email. “Or may not, even if one does everything right!”
“I’ll be curious to see if Bring It On finds its way out there,” he added. “At the moment it looks chiefly like a hub of useful links. That’s a worthy goal, but does it bring users back over time? I don’t know.”
A native of New York City, Manheimer moved to the Upper Valley, where both of his brothers lived, after graduating from Wesleyan University in 1981.
He began his copywriting career by accident, working for a Norwich resident who made wooden jigsaw puzzles. Manheimer dreamed up public relations pitches for the business and succeeded in placing articles in national magazines.
“I blasted him around the country,” he said.
Soon Manheimer was writing for other small companies in the area. He went to the library and read about what he was doing, he said, “and discovered I was a publicist.”
After editors at New England Monthly, a now-defunct magazine in Massachusetts, passed around his pitches, he got a freelance job. “And I was off. I became a junk mail writer.”
Over the years he extended his business nationally, earning plaudits from major companies for his ability to sell anything through an unsolicited letter or email. His direct-mail company’s website lists rave reviews from executives of publishing companies around the nation.
Apart from a brief stint behind the scenes on Matt Dunne’s 2010 campaign for Vermont governor, this will be Manheimer’s first major foray into the political sphere.
He has considered the possible disadvantages of this move: jeopardy to his business ties, the likely influx of hate mail. But he also believes that the obligation to speak out is only stronger when the stakes are higher.
“That’s the problem, is people stay silent,” he said.
The reaction so far has been mostly positive, Manheimer said. Local business leaders, friends and acquaintances have sent their praise via email.
But not all have appreciated his efforts. Manheimer forwarded one response to his Listserv post that accused him, in his opposition to Trump, of “drinking the Kool-Aid” offered by the Democratic Party.
“Open your eyes and wake up,” it said, in part, “before you are eating that nice little pill for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!!”
“OK,” Manheimer said. “I said I wanted Trump to be swallowed whole by an alligator. But that’s not —”
He paused, seeming to gather conviction. “But that’s not hate speech!”
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.