• lennybird@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Honestly uninformed people with low critical-thinking skills are very easily swept away with whichever way the winds take them but the article gives clues:

    But Hemphill said she usually votes for whoever her mostly Republican-supporting family recommends. Her family, drawn to Trump’s rallies and messaging, drew Hemphill in as well.

    “I didn’t realize that brainwashing was happening with Trump in 2016…this is how they would talk to me. ‘Pam, you know, the Democrats…are trying to take over. They’re getting more aggressive.’ I tend to believe them. You know, I wasn’t doing my own research.”

    Hemphill said that Trump’s aggressive rhetoric on the border appealed to her at the time because he “had us (believing) that immigrants were criminals and out to take over our nation.” Trump called immigrants from Mexico “rapists” in 2015 and would use words such as “killer,” "invasion"and “alien” in his rallies as a way to stoke fear among his supporters and present himself as the prime candidate to solve the border issue.

    So in this case:

    • Her own gut instinct liked Obama.
    • Then Fox News & right-wing family convinced her Dems were bad and became easily duped into the big lie.
    • Then she got a dose of reality again when she had to pay for the consequences of her actions.

    “It’s like a scar that I have to carry for the rest of my life…it’s gonna be that shame(ful) feeling," she said. "It’s not like I knew I was breaking the law, and I broke it anyway. However, I still was a part of that craziness, that cult. So it’s like something I can’t brush off.”

    Credit to her doing what most cannot, though. (Speaking from a family who flipped from Republican to Democrat following Bush’s first term).

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      100% She fucked up. All of us have at various times on various things. Maybe not as bad. But the fact she can both acknowledged and regret are two things that shouldn’t be so outstanding and rare. But they absolutely are.

      This shit was literally 1930’s Germany schtick. It’s how so many German citizens were radicalized to enable and commit monstrous things. And it’s far from over yet.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      You know, I wasn’t doing my own research.

      Because we all know how doing your own research goes. I mean by all means, but a couple Google searches of fear-mongering terms isn’t it.