THANK YOU BROTHER, RICIN
For decades now, AARP, which once stood for the American Association of Retired Persons and has been subsequently rebranded as just a set of initials that stand for nothing, has been one of the most influential lobby groups in Washington, D.C. Though AARP was supposed to represent a large and politically diverse cross-section of older Americans, its transformation into an overtly partisan Democrat organization is hard to deny.
Recently, AARP lobbied heavily for the Biden administration’s disastrous and ironically named “Inflation Reduction Act.” AARP’s biggest congressional critic, Sen. Rand Paul, recently noted that of AARP’s 94 congressional lobbying events during debate over the Inflation Reduction Act, only one was held in support of a Republican officeholder. The rest were for Democrats.
As if AARP’s partisan turn weren’t bad enough, the organization has also become a complete sellout. Over half of AARP’s $2 billion in annual revenue no longer comes from dues, but instead comes from corporate royalties, including lucrative arrangements selling insurance to members.
“UnitedHealth pays AARP a significant portion of every monthly premium received from its AARP-branded Medicare plans, amounting to approximately $800 million per year. … This reveals a growing tendency for AARP to prioritize its association with UnitedHealth over the interests of senior citizens,” notes Paul.
If there is a silver lining to the corruption of the AARP, it’s that it is no longer the only interest group representing politically influential seniors. In 2007, Dan Weber founded the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC). Though Weber had himself been a member of the AARP, he was frustrated with the politically liberal direction of the organization, which was far more radical than most members realized. Though initially the organization existed only in Florida and New York, in 2009 AMAC went national and began recruiting members as a conservative alternative to AARP.
AMAC’s national membership appeal was boosted by a couple of major missteps by AARP in 2009. That same year, AARP gave Harry Belafonte a humanitarian award despite the fact that Belafonte was last in the news for saying President George W. Bush was the “greatest terrorist in the world” while speaking out in support of socialist Hugo Chavez’s murderous regime in Venezuela. (A few years later, Belafonte, who does not have a firm grasp on the obvious, would regret that Chavez had used his support as “a cynical ploy to embarrass the United States.”)
Love,
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