Elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns

Posted by atlasunshrugged 10/22/2024

Elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns(www.cnn.com)

122 points | 180 commentspage 2

from-nibly 10/22/2024|

The secret band of robbers and murderers robbing someone?! No way!

crooked-v 10/22/2024||

Endless political spam texts are infuriating enough even for the mentally fit. I actively advise people against making political donations now unless they're extremely careful about it, because they will be hounded by political groups for literally the rest of their lives (literally literally, not figuratively literally) if they ever share any kind of contact information.

water-data-dude 10/22/2024||

This year when I checked my voter registration I noticed that the “phone number” field in my profile was not marked as required, and there was a little info icon that said “this is public information” when I clicked on it.

I removed my phone number and the number of text messages diminished (not all the way, but noticeably better). Not a magic bullet, but worth checking.

altruios 10/22/2024|||

What's the difference between a scam text posing as a political fundraising text and a political fundraising text in appearance?

How do you know any of the political fundraising texts with weird links are legitimate?

That's the neat part: you don't.

Animats 10/22/2024||

STOP seems to work.

SoftTalker 10/22/2024||

I believe it's legally required to?

Animats 10/23/2024||

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies only to "commercial" messages. Political ads are technically exempt, as a free speech issue. But because political ads go out via the usual SMS spam services, STOP usually works anyway. The services don't want their outgoing lines blocked.

Animats 10/22/2024||

THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING. YOUR GOP INNER CIRCLE LEADER MEMBERSHIP IS ABOUT TO BE DEACTIVATED.

rat87 10/22/2024||

The top text says Republican and Democratic campaigns but later on it admits

> most often to Republican candidates

and that for Democrats it was mostly left leaning pacs instead of democratic candidates.

And to what extent does the head swindler in chief contribute to this attitude?

> The biggest beneficiary of the small-dollar donations from unwitting donors identified by CNN was Donald Trump

caekislove 10/22/2024||

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ein0p 10/22/2024||

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keybored 10/22/2024|

Where’s the joke?

iwontberude 10/22/2024|

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pc86 10/22/2024||

You have no idea what dementia is.

iwontberude 10/23/2024||||

You must realize that dementia patients aren't blank canvases and their delusions are based on the people they were before the disease struck. If you don't work on yourself before its too late, then you will be exposed by the disease. It's not difficult to understand.

kstrauser 10/22/2024||

I am very sympathetic to this. However, much of that hate is born of fear. When some sociopath deliberately and systematically tells old people that various "they" are coming for them, can we really blame the ones that react in terror with the hope that someone will protect them?

Dementia is an excuse. It may be the only excuse. If someone isn't thinking clearly, we can't get mad at them for not thinking clearly.

iwontberude 10/22/2024||

Fear is not an excuse and I’m not mad at them. Actions have consequences and ignorance is no excuse for people causing harm. They no longer should be allowed to exert influence if they don’t have agency. They must be handled in a way that is beneficial to society overall, and one way is to stop making excuses for them and act to remove their destructive capabilities.