Cross-posted from “How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns” by @Domiku@beehaw.org in !usnews@beehaw.org


A CNN investigation reveals how deceptive political fundraising has misled elderly Americans into giving away millions of dollars

Excerpt:

But as dementia robbed him of his reasoning abilities, he began making online political donations over and over again — eventually telling his son he believed he was part of a network of political operatives communicating with key Republican leaders. In less than two years, the man became one of the country’s largest grassroots supporters of the Republican Party, ultimately giving away nearly half a million dollars to former President Donald Trump and other candidates. Now, the savings account he spent his whole life building is practically empty.

The story of this unlikely political benefactor is one of many playing out across the country.

More than 1,000 reports filed with government agencies and consumer advocacy groups reviewed by CNN, along with an analysis of campaign finance data and interviews with dozens of contributors and their family members, show how deceptive political fundraisers have victimized hundreds of elderly Americans and misled those battling dementia or other cognitive impairments into giving away millions of dollars — far more than they ever intended. Some unintentionally joined the ranks of the top grassroots political donors in the country as they tapped into retirement savings and went into debt, contributing six-figure sums through thousands of transactions.


I really hate the “interactive” stories like this where they spoon feed you details as you scroll, but about 1/3 down is the actual article.

  • zcd@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    And in one case an elderly dementia patient is the republican nominee!

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    They only refunded 1/3? What a bag of dicks. That’s elder abuse.

    Subscription plans for donations? We truly are on the worst timeline.

    • fed0sine@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Eh, NPR mentions a “sustained donation” during their monthly support pledge drive.

      There’s also Patreon for ongoing support for content, and newspaper/media outlet subscriptions for un less-biased coverage like The Guardian.

      I’m not defending elder financial abuse by any means, only widening the lens with examples.

  • DJDarren@thelemmy.club
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    2 months ago

    Unrelated to US politics, but I genuinely worry about how social media is fucking over the older generations.

    My mother in law is 76, and only gets her news from Facebook these days. On Saturday she told me that Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, has been voted out during the week. Fuck knows where she got that from because it’s just not true. She doesn’t even live in London, but he’s a demon to the kind of ‘news’ sources she’ll read because he’s a lefty who does lefty things.

    It’s mad.

  • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Harris should strongly put her foot down on this. No dem organization should be employing pre-checked recurring donation boxes. If that’s what it takes to win, then we don’t deserve to win. Let the US turn into a militaristic Christian dictatorship before we cheat our own.

    • Orbituary@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      While you’re 100% correct, this is why Dems lose. The GOP doesn’t make thus sort of morality check. They just say, “survival of the fittest,” and move on.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        And that is why having laws prohibiting things like fraud and political dirty tricks and then actually enforcing them, Merrick Garland, you useless piece of shit is essential to preserve democracy.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Not necessarily. I think dems lose for quite a lot of different reasons, and not sufficiently abusing the trust of their own people is not one of them.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That would be ideal. In a less than ideal world, though, we should still remember the importance of ethics as a principle and how some voters at least, do take note of it.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Absolutely do. I wouldn’t call it an organization that puts morality ahead of everything else, but yes, morality is absolutely an important consideration.

        No political organization can govern solely on morality and survive, unfortunately, so I doubt it’ll ever be priority #1. But it can and should be an important factor.

        • basmati@lemmus.org
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          2 months ago

          The guys that blatantly take money from corporations to enact agendas that have destroyed many people’s lives and have doomed us regarding climate to keep gas prices low have morality?

          • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I dunno, I’ve seen quite a bit of investment into green energy recently, along with regulation on corporations. Just the other day the FTC made a new rule to make opting out of subscriptions easier. That is not a pro-corporate position. Now, I’ll grant they’re not communist, they do still associate with corporations. That may be a fools errand in the end, but power is power and corporations have an enormous amount.

            It’s also a bit doomerist to think we’re actually doomed still on climate, the end to that one isn’t written yet.

            • basmati@lemmus.org
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              2 months ago

              That investment into green energy was paired with the largest ever increase in domestic oil drilling permits, while flirting with announcements to tariff Chinese made solar and wind power in addition to the tariffs on cheap EVs from China to protect Tesla.

              To your second point Florida was just hit twice this year by once in a millenia hurricanes, and Floridians want to rebuild and most polling gives Republicans a win in all levels of government there. And Floridia, for once, isn’t that special. If scotus didn’t remove abortion protection Americans would vote for even more rapid climate change, instead of mostly rapid climate change.

              • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Yeah, I’m not super happy about drilling permits.

                Tbf, it probably wouldn’t be too bright to allow China to do to our EV manufacturers (not just Tesla, all of them) what happened to our domestic steel mills. This is a case where I think some tariffs are reasonable.

                Gonna take a lot more than hurricanes to doom us. We are a horrendously robust animal, if you look at our history. QoL decline and ensuing political instability? Sure.

        • basmati@lemmus.org
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          2 months ago

          The world isn’t binary, anyone who thinks criticism of one party is endorsement of another is too stupid to breathe, honestly they’re barely human meat sacks that shouldn’t be allowed out of their cages.

          Luckily you didn’t make that stupid leap in logic, right?

          You’re not a conservative that thinks only using zero sum logic, right?

          • Nelots@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            Thanks for letting everyone know you’re not worth conversing with on the second comment. Nice that you let that out early.

          • Random123@fedia.io
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            2 months ago

            Im glad then. Nah i didnt make that leap ironic enough, I was asking to see if you were thinking in a binary manner.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    I consider this elder abuse and I am deeply disappointed that both sides seem to revel in this.

  • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    While many mainstream Democratic candidates have backed away from the practice, both the Trump and Harris campaigns have recently been using donation pages with pre-checked recurring boxes to raise money, a CNN analysis of fundraising emails and Facebook and Instagram ads found.

    because the two main parties that have stolen our country have no solid campaign platform to run on that would attract voters other than football politics and have to resort to these kinds of tactics