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A Fool and Their Money - Partisan Edition

Rhea

Rhea

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This article at Electoral-Vote has an interesting look at scammers:

www.electoral-vote.com

A Fool and Their Money?, Part I: Fields of Gold

Click on the map for the article
www.electoral-vote.com www.electoral-vote.com

It is worth noting that Fox isn't the only right-wing media outlet to be guilty of this. To take another example, if you look at the Rumble page for the GOP candidates' debate, you will see that the sponsors are: (1) a right-wing coffee company, which is a little weird, but OK; (2) a group that sells precious metals to "investors"; and (3) a group that sells survivalist supplies at a hefty markup.

Similarly, Donald Trump is not the only right-wing individual to aggressively fleece the flock. Sean Hannity's $34 million salary apparently isn't enough, so he pitches "Wealth Protection Kits" on the side. Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrichboth hawk useless "home title lock" insurance. Mike Huckabee served, for years, as pitchman for a "natural sleep remedy" that is so dubious the manufacturer just settled a class-action lawsuit.

We did our best to see if there is any lefty equivalent of these things, and we simply couldn't come up with... anything. There are absolutely scammy products that appeal to people across the political spectrum. And there are scammy products whose user base skews somewhat lefty, like pretty much all the stuff put out by Gwyneth Paltrow's company Goop. But we cannot find any grifty product or service that is being pushed hard, and basically exclusively, by left-wing media outlets or by current/former left-wing politicians. If we are wrong, please let us know. And if we're right, well, we don't know exactly what it is about the right-wing media environment, or the right-wing fanbase, or both, that makes them particularly prone to scamming, but we're certainly interested in any theories readers might have.
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And I think the question is very interesting. I ponder about the “low information” lefty voters and wonder why there is no channel targeting them, and no big group of scammers targetiing that channel.


Interested in the thoughts of others here.
 
Now they’re exacerbating their own poverty by sending more money to the begging “billionaire”. And all that pain is caused by ignoring Hunter Biden’s laptop and persecuting Orange Jesus.
Republicans never run out of ways to blame their own ills on Democrats, but most of it is meticulously self-inflicted.
 
Elixir said:
Now they’re exacerbating their own poverty by sending more money to the begging “billionaire”. And all that pain is caused by ignoring Hunter Biden’s laptop and persecuting Orange Jesus.
Republicans never run out of ways to blame their own ills on Democrats, but most of it is meticulously self-inflicted.
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The grifting simply provides yet another excuse for tax cuts!!!!!
 
I remember Newsmax selling Iraqi currency to show support for the invasion and removal of Hussein. Liberals / left-wingers are not immune to being suckered, but online and on the internet, there is a decent amount of legal scams marketed to those that follow the alt-right movement, but even before the alt-right went all alt. They've been having ads for gold coins sold at monstrous fees for a long time now. Prepper kits became more popular on AM radio after a while.
 
Grifters find their marks. Notice where the alternative health market has gone. Joe Marcela, Mike Adams, Dr. Oz, Steven Sundry... All the crackpot snake oil grifters started going hard right between 2010 and 2012. They saw their anti-establishment marketing being heavily promoted in the right wing conspiracy theory world (Jade Helm, DHS bullets, FEMA coffins...). This was stuff that was aimed at Republicans under Bush and in that time the truthers and anti-vaxxers were more lefty. The "alternative medicine" scams were aimed more left prior to that. But the GOP has convinced all those folks that the Democrats are the real Deep State NWO Jewish Space Lasers (whatever your super evil "Powers That Be" happens to entail). Just look at where RFK Jr. is taking his message. So the grifting on the right doesn't surprise me. When I went to visit my ultra right boomer age in-laws at Christmas round about 2009/2010 and saw one of those "Amish Miracle Heaters" I knew where that house was going. It was going to be filled with whatever crap was advertising on Hannity or Limbaugh.

I think a lot of the scammers also have realized that anarchocapitalism is good for business and also that people that believe that everything "official" is some nefarious plot or lie are just a very rich group to target with your better answers.
 
I need to get into prepper kits. Create good trial ones and fill the rest with barely edible food. The whole premise is they'll never use the actual product so who cares what it is stuffed with. Just need a gimmick, like specially anodized aluminum wrapping that is impeneatrable to government scanning
 
I agree with LD... Demographics show republicans, on average, are fucking stupid, deplorable people.... just the kind that are easy to con.
 
I will say this, and probably not for the first time, that I wish it was easier to get my hands on some gold. I don't say this because I want a hoard (although some part of me really does want some tiny gold coins that I can put in my tiny treasure chest), but because I want to make small, pretty, shiny things for people to enjoy looking at.

I really wish it wasn't such a "commodity metal" because frankly, these assholes are inflating the price for actual practical use.
 
Tigers! said:
I still want to know how the fool got their money in the first instance?
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There is general intelligence and then there is partisan intelligence and probably relationship intelligence as well. These are not required to be proportionally related. Smart people can be brain dead politically (or in sports).
 
Speaking of fools and their money. Mike Lindell (of MY PILLOW fame and various MAGA inspired dumbness) is having a fire sale of his stuff at the MN state fair. You can get an autographed copy of his autobiography for only $5!! The autograph=free copy lists for $7.11 on Amazon. Either it is a autographed copy is a bargain, or his autograph diminishes its value.
 
I remain fascinated by the premise that there is a strong and deep right wing scam industry, but, as the authors state,

We did our best to see if there is any lefty equivalent of these things, and we simply couldn't come up with... anything. There are absolutely scammy products that appeal to people across the political spectrum. And there are scammy products whose user base skews somewhat lefty, like pretty much all the stuff put out by Gwyneth Paltrow's company Goop. But we cannot find any grifty product or service that is being pushed hard, and basically exclusively, by left-wing media outlets or by current/former left-wing politicians.
Click to expand...

It makes me very curious what about the partisan mindset makes the grifters so sure of the right wing base, but not the left wing base (and by “base,” I’m implying the I-seek-partisan-news crowd).



I wonder if it’s part of the right wing mythos - that they all think they are self made, or at least self-makeable, into millionaires. That they buy the story that they are one, clever, in-group insight away from being a success. Because it’s the rugged individualist myth. Or the bootstraps myth. And so they are susceptible through that myth to do things that are clever, in-the-know, ship-coming-in opportunities.

Whereas the lefties, with their socialist views don’t trust the individualist myth, so they won’t buy individualist opportunities - they seem too likely to be snatched away before paying off.


I wonder if that is it.

But it’s true, there isn’t a lefty-base outrage-porn media empire. There never has been. One is forced to conclude that it’s just not profitable, because media is always about profit and if there were profit someone would go after it. When lefties get outraged, they don’t buy things to advance their position, and they don’t try to get a ship-coming-in risky but big-dream opportunity. So they are a terrible target for media grifters and their advertising sugar daddies.


It’s very interesting how big a gap there is.
 
This thread just reminded me of Tucker Carlson's "Bromeotherapy" and testicle tanning.
 
Rhea said:
I remain fascinated by the premise that there is a strong and deep right wing scam industry, but, as the authors state,

We did our best to see if there is any lefty equivalent of these things, and we simply couldn't come up with... anything. There are absolutely scammy products that appeal to people across the political spectrum. And there are scammy products whose user base skews somewhat lefty, like pretty much all the stuff put out by Gwyneth Paltrow's company Goop. But we cannot find any grifty product or service that is being pushed hard, and basically exclusively, by left-wing media outlets or by current/former left-wing politicians.
Click to expand...

It makes me very curious what about the partisan mindset makes the grifters so sure of the right wing base, but not the left wing base (and by “base,” I’m implying the I-seek-partisan-news crowd).
Click to expand...
It is all about fear, and right-wing radio only sells and anger and fear.

Right-wing fears authority and government. Lots of money spent on "defense". It is funny that doomsday preppers were a thing, and now doomsday prep products are sold on right-wing radio.

Left-wing fears big business and has a tendency to embrace woo science. Lots of money spent on "natural" snake oils, oddly enough sold by big business snake oil companies.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
It is all about fear, and right-wing radio only sells and anger and fear.

Right-wing fears authority and government. Lots of money spent on "defense". It is funny that doomsday preppers were a thing, and now doomsday prep products are sold on right-wing radio.

Left-wing fears big business and has a tendency to embrace woo science. Lots of money spent on "natural" snake oils, oddly enough sold by big business snake oil companies.
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Yup. You can tell a lot about a site by the ads on it.

Gold, prepper, anything pro-gun -- always right wing.
Woo -- normally left wing.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Gold, prepper, anything pro-gun -- always right wing.
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Maybe we were an exception. EMS and Tactical Medicine have a lot of matériel needs overlapping with preppers. All of our principals and board were leftish - vehemently anti Trump from day one.
Our site didn’t include ads on the top levels; if included at all they’d be buried in product descriptions and the like.
Preppers went nuts for our stuff.
 
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