Thread by @dogemperor

Aaaaaaand HERE's the connection with Christian Nationalist shit (there's a reason I keep harpin' Sinema's a Fifth Columnist, and I'm about to go into the deets why--tl;dr at least one MLM is run by Christian Nationalists, and there's a lot of affinity fraud in MLMs)

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https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1456606934778454025

So it turns out that Sinema's been getting money from a PAC associated with Alticor, which is one of the d/b/a's used by AmWay....the largest MLM worldwide, and one I've personally written about re its Christian Nationalist linkages

dailykos.com/stories/2007/7…

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So for those who didn't read article, or read my post: AmWay has an extremely long history (from its founding) of entanglement with Christian Nationalism, and particularly New Apostolic Reformation style Christian Nationalism. Three of its four major downlines,

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of note, serve as cross-recruitment fronts for NAR "cell church" networks; the DeVos family is one of the largest corporate funders (along with the Cathys who own Chick-Fil-A, the Greens who own the Hobby Lobby/Mardel empire, and a few other names) of Christian Nationalism

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AmWay I describe as 'cross-recruitment' because many exit counselors consider the basic structure of "business motivational organizations" in MLMs to effectively be coercive business organizations (essentially business cults, in other words).

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And AmWay hasn't been above some affinity fraud in its promotion. A Christian Nationalist-connected downline was the source of an early QAnon-esque urban legend that insinuated that Proctor and Gamble was run by Satanists and their service mark was a Satanic symbol

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(which Proctor and Gamble eventually sued over, and won, and received damages, but not before they had to abandon a service mark they'd used for over 150 years and had to make public denials on "she-shed" TV shows like "Donahue").

The likely goal was affinity fraud,

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specifically to push people to use competing products AmWay sold, including laundry detergent.

(They've possibly been a source of propagation of a few other odd urban legends in Christian Nationalist communities.)

There's another aspect of affinity fraud too.

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Getting back to Sinema...Not only is AmWay's PAC giving money, so are the PACs for Nu Skin, Mary Kay, USANA Health Sciences, and Herbalife.

All of these MLMs are heavily promoted as ways for women in certain high-demand religious groups to make money...

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In a lot of NAR and Independent Fundamentalist Baptist groups, there's a huge push for Quiverfull and Quiverfull-adjacent theology--basically the idea that a woman is inferior to the husband, and has a set role of birthing and raising as many kids as possible...

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with no agency of their own. Women are actually encouraged to drop out of ministry once married; women are discouraged from having jobs in a higher "station" than their husbands. College even now is discouraged for women (unless it's ministry or nursing).

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In general, women are encouraged to concentrate on Church, Cookin', and Children, and working outside the home is strongly discouraged if there's kids.

There are similar social pressures in conservative LDS families (particularly in Utah, a hotbed of MLMs).

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The ONE exception is...Work At Home Mom ops, which are seen as compatible with "being a Christian helpmeet", and....there is a metric *tonne* of affinity fraud explicitly targeting women in these high-demand (and in many cases, "crossing the line to coercive") groups...

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and one of the biggest is MLMs, basically promoting a way for women to theoretically earn money while "raising a Godly family".

All of these MLMs are known to specifically target Quiverfullers and LDS folks, and they often are heavily cross-recruited...

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in things like womens' "small groups", "Christian Homeschooling" groups, and "home churches" (actually cell church groups that themselves are set up almost identically to MLMs and which arguably co-evolved *with* MLMs).

dailykos.com/stories/2007/8…

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And both MLMs and NAR church structures in and of themselves tend to lead to an awful lot of abuse.

dailykos.com/stories/2007/8…

And we're *still* not done with Sinema's connections to MLMs.

It gets worse. Much worse.

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Now for a reason I keep pointing out "Sinema is a Fifth Columnist", it's worth noting where MLMs give their money. I've already noted that they especially target Christian Nationalists, particularly NAR, as well as LDS.

Sinema is the only Senator NuSkin and Isagenix fund.

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AmWay we've discussed (they're one of four or five companies--along with Chick-Fil-A, Hobby Lobby, and (recently confirmed) In-N-Out--that are Christian Nationalism, Inc.).

USANA's PAC only gives to Sinema and two Utah Senators (again, remember Utah is an MLM hotbed,

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because Latter-Day Saints are one of the groups that gets targeted really hard in MLM affinity fraud).

Sinema is one of the very few Senators that gets money from Herbalife and Mary Kay.

Herbalife and NuSkin are particularly rife in co-recruitment.

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And it Still. Gets. Worse.

Apparently Sinema's own mom was an actual MLM Hun, and one of the ways MLMs abuse people in BMOs is that they legally classify MLMs as independent contractors--and claiming to WAHMs "you own your own business!"

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One of the bills that's been proposed in Congress is the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would do some well-needed reforms to how independent contractors are classified (it'd eliminate some abuses that are rife in IT with worker misclassification;

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also in OTR trucking, in that all too often contractors and OTR truckers are classified as "1099 contractors" rather than employees which exempts companies out of a lot of laws).

And, well, MLMs also abuse the hell out of this, and if this bill gets passed,

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MLMs would basically have to actually reclassify their entire downlines as employees (and actually pay taxes, and provide health insurance under the ACA, and would have to respect rules re work hours and minimal pay rates and the like).

It'd also allow organizing.

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Basically there are laws that protect the rights of actual employees to organize, and it's a legit fear of the MLM industry that if this bill is passed, victims of MLMs (who typically lose thousands) can sue for damages and actual changes (which would KILL MLMs).

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This is a bill that even the *other* Democratic Quisling supports; Sinema is one of three holdouts (along with Mark Warner (D-VA) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ)). And even Warner and Kelly support it in part--Sinema's the sole complete hold-out.

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Sinema's also old enough that if her mom was an MLM hun, it's almost certain her mom sold AmWay; AmWay actually has (among its *other* Christian Nationalist connections) deep connections to Trump (Betsy DeVos is a member by marriage of the family that owns AmWay).

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(Yes, you're reading this right; there's at least one MLM that (if recent news reporting and stuff from the January 6 Commission is any clue) could have been at least a contributor to an attempted coup-de-etat. Just FWIW.)

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AmWay, and its partners in crime via the Direct Selling Association, are also well known for buying legislation that effectively defines people in downlines as independent contractors (and thus cuts them out of most labor laws protecting employees,

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including even such things as minimum wage laws, working hour laws, being required to supply materials for working, and so on).

At least one of the MLMs shoveling money to Sinema (and one notable for affinity fraud in NAR circles), Herbalife, actually has a History here

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in that they had to give the Federal Trade Commission $200 million in a settlement for deceiving customers about their ability to make a profit (MLMs almost always never make profit).

The renewed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also talking action against MLMs.

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But yeah, it's basically stuff like *this* when I speak on folks like Sinema being Fifth Columnists. Sometimes you gotta dig deep, but it's stuff like this that shows where their true loyalties lie.

The sooner the DNC realises this and acts, the better.

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