voting Archives • Bitches Get Riches

How To Protect Yourself Against Project 2025

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 21 Comments

Well here we are, fam. The 2024 presidential election has happened and the outcome was not great.

We took some time to be angry. To be scared. To grieve. We checked in on our community and practiced some highly necessary self-care. Then we spent several cathartic hours scrolling through r/LeopardsAteMyFace. We hope you did too.

Now we’re ready for the next step. For we have chosen to stay and fight. Part of that means embracing our calling as your beloved yet humble Bitches—your opinionated internet aunties—by sharing ideas on how we can prepare to weather the coming storm.

It might not be much of a storm! Could be anywhere from a little light rain to a Category 5 hurricane. But it’s our belief that you should prepare for the worst in such a way that even in the best case scenario, you’ll still end up better off.

This guide includes some instructions specific to a second Trump administration (three words I gag even writing). But some of it is just good practice no matter what happens.

What are we preparing for?

The Trump administration—including his billionaire buddies, cartoonishly villainous advisors, and all the grifters and sycophants in between—has all kinds of goals. Part of this plan is Project 2025, a policy wishlist funded by the Heritage Foundation and written by 140 former (and in some cases, future) Trump staffers (among others). Think of the Heritage Foundation as a real-life, conservative “deep state” with even deeper pockets, helmed by all the extremist nutjobs driving the Right Wing’s most regressive ideas since the Reagan administration.

There’s a lot of cooks in this oppressive kitchen. So for the purposes of this guide, we’re going to use “Project 2025” as an umbrella term for the policy agenda of the Trump administration and broader conservative party.

Change will not come at a consistent pace. We won’t enter The Darkest Timeline overnight, or maybe even at all! And there’s not even a guarantee that all the worst aspects of Project 2025 will come to pass. With any luck, this corrupt administration of toadies, conspiracy theorists, and inept, entitled conmen will get in its own way enough that they make zero progress towards their nightmarish goals!

But we can’t bank on that. Which is why we recommend the following steps before they start checking off items on the Project 2025 to-do list. Shoot for the moon of Suckitude! Even if we don’t reach it, you’ll land lightly among the stars of Things Are Slightly Worse Now.

Are Your Political Campaign Donations Worth It?

September 18, 2024September 18, 2024 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 18 Comments

Something tells me that many of our readers are contemplating political campaign donations right about now. Don’t ask me how I know this. Because I really couldn’t say!

Maybe it’s just my woman’s intuition! Which is definitely not a conditioned hypersensitivity to threatening nonverbal communication under the patriarchy, but cool evolution magic that heightens with my ~*fertility cycle!*~

I'd make more political campaign donations if it was down to Keanu Reeves vs The Devil.

(Wait, is this really my first time using a Devil’s Advocate gif? How can this be, when I have a passionate lifelong obsession with this high camp masterpiece?! Okay, okay… if Kamala Harris wins in 2024, I will remake Bitches Get Riches into a Devil’s Advocate fan blog. And if Donald Trump wins, I will remake Bitches Get Riches into a Devil’s Advocate fan blog. Either way, it will be called A Billion Eddie Barzoons All Jogging Into the Future dot Blogspot dot com.)*

I know we say “the stakes have never been higher” every single election year, but it keeps feeling accurate. Our readers are passionate about the issues and they want to know: does donating to political campaigns actually work? Can it make a candidate more likely to win? Is it worth the sacrifice, if money is already tight?

We’ll do our best to give you some objective perspective! Hoo-ah!

Non-U.S. readers: This advice is framed through my American perspective, but I think the broader take is valuable for anyone who lives in a voting democracy. I would love to get a few international perspectives in the comments!

Don’t Boo, Vote: If You Don’t Vote, No One Can Hear You Scream

November 5, 2018June 1, 2022 Jess Fickett ("Piggy") 18 Comments

The first time I ever voted was in 2004. I had just turned 18 a few weeks before election day, and I was at least as excited to get a hall pass to go to the gym during my free period as I was to cast my ballot. (Welcome to Small Town America! All public elections and blood drives take place in the high school gymnasium.)

I skimmed through most of the ballot. Dafuq did I care who was town treasurer? Old Mr. Farwell had held that post for centuries. SKIP. And town selectmen? Why couldn’t we just have a fucking mayor like everyone else? SKIP. State Senator? SKIP. Representative? SKIP. SKIPPITY. SKIP.

I hopped right down to the main event: George W. Bush vs. John Kerry for President of the United States. I filled in the little bubble next to Kerry’s name.

We all know what happened next. And it’s why you’ll never take the tour of the Kerry Presidential Library in Aurora, Colorado.

I was pretty disgusted. It’s not that I was excited about voting another gray-faced old Lego man wearing a mop wig into office. But I wanted to win! I wanted to feel like my vote mattered. Instead I felt like I’d wasted my free period when I could’ve been bullying my future husband out of his lunch money to buy orange creamsicles from the vending machine.*

Needless to say, Old Mr. Farwell stayed town treasurer. And I completely missed the lesson to be learned from my first election.

Read on, and you won’t make the same mistake.

Something Is Wrong in Personal Finance. Here’s How To Make It More Inclusive.

October 23, 2017February 2, 2022 Lauren Torres ("Kitty") 37 Comments

We recently wrote an article about how raising awareness isn’t enough. Our thesis was that you need to pair awareness with some kind of action. Well, good thing we practice what we preach!

Last time we talked about some of the many ways being white brings unearned financial privileges. We got a ton of great responses from readers—many of them white—who are happy that the talk is being talked within the personal finance community.

Now let’s tell you how we think you can walk the walk. Here are our suggestions to make the personal finance community more realistic, more inclusive, more ambitious, and all-around better.

Let’s get to work.