How To Stop Political Texts For Good and Evil

I’ve never received a dick pic, but I imagine it feels a bit like getting a political text: unexpected, slightly aggressive, and sent by someone wildly overestimating their appeal. 

Political texts started showing up on my phone before Covid. From a political party I don’t belong to. Since I vote for candidates, not parties.

It was weird because I never give my cell number out to anyone. Ever. Someone once sent me flowers and gave my number to the delivery guy. When I called to thank them for the flowers, I also scolded them for giving out my number. Like they’d peed on my rug and liked it.

They never sent me flowers again. But they didn’t give out my number either. I call that a win.

The political party (I’ll call them the Zebra Party) kept calling me Pauline. Who was Pauline? I don’t know how they got my number, but they were very sure I was her. Was Pauline a real person? Did she sign me up? Or did they just think someone named “Pauline” was most likely to open a link trashing the other political party? 

If so, bold choice. Karen or Jennifer would have been safer bets. But maybe they were looking for someone who owned at least one snowman sweatshirt and always had butterscotch in their purse.

Before long, I was getting dozens of texts every day. Many of them addressed to Pauline. Especially during election season. Which, as I understand it now, runs from September through August.

Most of the texts looked something like this:

Joe Schmo’s declaration just sent shivers down every American’s spine!
U.S. citizens need to read this NOW: shhstt.co/shywtty
stop=end

I started to wish they were dick pics.

Dick Pics Are Easier to Stop

I tried many different things to stop the political texts.

1. Report SPAM (7726). I reported hundreds of them to my cell provider like it was my one job: SPAM (7726). Maybe some chick named Tracy saw my mountain of messages, shrugged, then took a three month lunch break that nobody noticed.
2. Number Blocking. I tried blocking the numbers. But that was like trying to block a hurricane with a newspaper. If there are ten billion phone numbers in the USA, politicians must own at least twelve billion of them.
3. Respond “STOP”. I did this several times, but it seemed like to excite them even more.
4. Robokiller & Textkiller. Worthless.
5. File FCC Complaints. I did this a few times and even called once. The woman on the line sounded full of pity as she admitted, “Yeah, texting stop just makes them more aggressive.”

Political texts are exempt from typical FCC rules (it has something to do with the first amendment). They are also exempt from the Do Not Call Registry since all citizens should be able to be harassed by any politician. Campaigns aren’t allowed to use autodialers to send the texts, but nobody can prove they did.

Then a miracle happened. Last year, this text came:

Hello, Pauline. It’s The Whip Foundation following up from an email sent today and a voice message left a few days ago. Would you give us a call at the office the office (919) 555-5555 when you can? 

We have a credit card number for a $500 donation that was written down incorrectly and we are unable to process the donation. 

Feel free to confirm the legitimacy of this request by contacting your daughter Angie. 

Thank you for your support. 

Jim Wagner
Director of Development 

This is my personal cell phone number. Please don’t send any credit card information by email or text message to this number. It is safest to call and give us the information verbally. Have a nice weekend. 😊

Aha! Pauline WAS a real person. Otherwise, this guy would have asked for everything by text, including my social security number, mother’s maiden name, and the make and model of my first car!

So I did a little research. Turns out, Pauline is an 87-year-old woman who lives in a nice house. Her phone number is identical to mine. Located in my home state. With a different area code.

She’s also a registered Zebra. 

Fucking Pauline! I wanted to call her and demand she correct her information with the Zebra party. Maybe threaten her with a ski mask and a toy gun.

I also thought about showing up at her house bearing muffins. But what if she was lonely and wanted to talk for a few hours about her latest knitting project? Still, I shouldn’t have to change my 30-year-old number because just Pauline was careless with hers.

ChatGPT To The Rescue

At wit’s end, I asked ChatGPT what to do. It kept insisting I had a legal case. I learned that if you text “stop” and they don’t stop, you can sue them for $1,500 per post-stop violation. You might also win a lawsuit against them if:

• You Didn’t Consent. The political campaign has to prove you agreed to receive their texts. Even though “experts” say people agree to those texts without knowing it, I know I didn’t.
• They Have The Wrong Number. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) says that if you’re being harassed by someone who has the wrong number (which their mention of Pauline suggests), you may be entitled to $500 per incident.
• They Kept Harassing You After You Responded “Stop”.

How I Plan To Stop Political Texts For Evil

I’d like to know what texting list has my number so they can be held liable. But for now, here’s what I plan to do.

• Save The Texts. I save every text I receive. I even went back through the old texts and collected whatever information I could.
• Screenshot Every Text. I screenshot the texts, saving it with a filename like YEAR_ NUMBER_ type.jpg.
• Screenshot the Link. I screenshot whoever sent it (designated by “funded by” somewhere in the link) by highlighting the link, doing a “Quick Look” on the message and scrolling to the funding source.
• Screenshot My “Stop” Response. I screenshot the “stop” text I send every single time now. Because if I can prove I sent it, that’s theoretically $1,500 in my pocket for every follow up they send. That Virginia woman sent me 30 texts after I tried to stop her.
• Make a Spreadsheet. I save all of this data, including the date, time, number, text copy and other details in a spreadsheet. It has over 500 entries now.

Class Action Lawsuits

Most lawsuits against these jokers are class actions that payout, at best, a few hundred bucks per user. Since I have hundreds of texts from various organizations, I’m not willing to settle for that. However, if a few hundred bucks is worth it to you, find yourself a class action lawsuit and hop on.

I don’t know if my strategy will work. But when they start up again in 2026, I’ll be ready.

Feature photo Andrea Piacquadio