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.
And in one case an elderly dementia patient is the republican nominee!
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.
I consider this elder abuse and I am deeply disappointed that both sides seem to revel in this.
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.
We need to go to further and make pre-checked recurring illegal.
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.
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.
How about no to both
That’s hilarious your think Dems have morality.
Do you think republicans have morality?
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
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https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/10/politics/political-fundraising-elderly-election-invs-dg/