I understand the logic of these messages on some level. They are cheap, and the strategy isn’t all that different from how a lot of scams work—spray out messages and pray someone will bite. You don’t need many people to respond for it to pay off. What I couldn’t understand, though, was how I’d gotten wrapped up in all of this. I didn’t have to look far for the answer. Almost every text contained a link that, after a few redirects, led to ActBlue, the platform Democrats use to process donations. Helpfully, many of those links carried tracking codes—strings of letters and numbers identifying the fundraising appeal, the message being sent, and sometimes where the campaign got the recipient’s contact information.