Why is grifting your supporters so common among conservatives?

[Spider-Dan]

Here is a recent article from The Failing New York Times about Trump donors that were scammed out of thousands of dollars.  An excerpt:

Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaugh’s dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trump’s campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500.

It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution — federal records show it was his first ever — quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen. When his utility and rent payments bounced, he called his brother, Russell, for help.

What the Blatts soon discovered was $3,000 in withdrawals by the Trump campaign in less than 30 days. They called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud.

“It felt,” Russell said, “like it was a scam.”

But what the Blatts believed was duplicity was actually an intentional scheme to boost revenues by the Trump campaign and the for-profit company that processed its online donations, WinRed. Facing a cash crunch and getting badly outspent by the Democrats, the campaign had begun last September to set up recurring donations by default for online donors, for every week until the election.

Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.

As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a “money bomb,” that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.

The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.

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To reiterate from the article, the company that processed the donations for the Trump campaign is a for-profit company called WinRed.  Their equivalent on the Democratic side is a non-profit company called ActBlue... and ActBlue doesn't charge the kind of fundraising fees that WinRed does, nor did they have these kind of unauthorized recurring payments.  (Full disclosure: I have made multiple donations through ActBlue over the years.)

This extends beyond campaign donations, too.  If you watch Fox News, or listen to conservative talk radio, you'll witness a non-stop deluge of attempts to bleed conservative supporters dry.  From celebrities endorsing sham supplements, to people hawking prepper kits, to those urging the listener to buy gold (at ridiculous markups)... it's a pattern of grift that you simply do not see on MSNBC or other liberal outlets.  (Let's not even get started on the megachurches.)

Why is it that the right financially exploits their audience so much more than the left?  I realize that conservatives skew older than liberals, and scamming elderly people is a bedrock of American capitalism, but that doesn't seen like enough to explain why this isn't nearly as common on the left as on the right.

[Fau Teixeira]

Churches have been milking suckers for the past thousand years.

Lets just say that the right is predisposed to it.

[Dave Gray]

If I'm to try and answer this honestly, I think it's because their basic strategic message (and religion has this, too) is that "they" (the world at large, the elites, the well-connected, the establishment, the sinners, the Jews, Hollywood, whatever) are lying to you and we uniquely can be trusted to give you the truth.  And that style of marketing ties in really well will peddling bullshit.

The medical establishment is lying to you but you can trust us that this shark extract not authorized by the FDA may help with cancer.
The government is lying to you about risks, so here is a prepper kit so you can take care of yourself when society crumbles.
The banks are lying to you about the stability of the economy, so here's gold coins that will stay valuable when things fall apart.
The sinners are lying to you about morality, so send me money to plant seeds that will grow into your wealth.

It's all offshoots of the same message styling.

[Tenshot13]

The eternal question of "why are republicans so stupid vs why are democrats such pussies"

[Dolphster]

Fear mongering has been the best marketing tool since the beginning of time.  Religion and Conservatives are probably the biggest proponents of this tactic, but it isn't without representation from the liberal side of the aisle either.   What I find most interesting is that even with all of the advances in science, understanding of the world around us, etc.....fear mongering is still such an effective tool.  

[Sunstroke]

HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE...ETERNAL DAMNATION!!

Oh, and...God loves you!

[CF DolFan]

Fear mongering has been the best marketing tool since the beginning of time.

I agree with this comment but you seem to go astray. If you think only "X" does this then you are sadly mistaken. People take advantage of others' fears all the time and politicians of every race and party do it. It's a manipulation tool that's as old as time itself and is also a big advertising tool.

[Dolphster]

I agree with this comment but you seem to go astray. If you think only "X" does this then you are sadly mistaken. People take advantage of others' fears all the time and politicians of every race and party do it. It's a manipulation tool that's as old as time itself and is also a big advertising tool.

My very next sentence after the one you quoted includes...."it isn't without representation from the liberal side of the aisle either"

[Dolphster]

HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE...ETERNAL DAMNATION!!

Oh, and...God loves you!

Praise the Lord and pass the collection plate!

[Dave Gray]

My sister told me today (I haven't confirmed it as true) that they had to pay back these cases and they used the "stop the steal" money to do it.

They paid for one grift with another.

[Spider-Dan]

If I'm to try and answer this honestly, I think it's because their basic strategic message (and religion has this, too) is that "they" (the world at large, the elites, the well-connected, the establishment, the sinners, the Jews, Hollywood, whatever) are lying to you and we uniquely can be trusted to give you the truth.  And that style of marketing ties in really well will peddling bullshit.

But there's also a long history of anti-establishment sentiment on the left, too. (Is there anyone more emblematic of being against the establishment than hippies?) Even so, for some reason the market to scam the left for money isn't nearly as lively as it is on the right.

[CF DolFan]

My very next sentence after the one you quoted includes...."it isn't without representation from the liberal side of the aisle either"

Sorry ... I apparently didn't read through the whole comment.

[Spider-Dan]

The eternal question of "why are republicans so stupid vs why are democrats such pussies"

This isn't really even the question.  It's not like there's a lack of stupid people on the left or wimps on the right.

I'm wondering why conservative audiences, specifically, are more receptive to grift than liberal audiences.  There's no shortage of dedicated partisans on the left, but you just don't see the kind of pervasive scamming that you do on the right.

[Dave Gray]

I don't know, I think that there are grifts on what could be considered the left, with stuff like homeopathy, any kind of new-age bullshit, psychics and mediums...that kind of stuff.

[Sunstroke]

A couple of answers to the many questions in this thread.

The reason more far righters fall for the grift than the far lefters (hippies)...HIPPIES HAVE NO FUCKING MONEY!

The reason it is so easy to con a far righter... You just tell them that the worst made-up lie in their head is the truth, and that only you can save them, their families and their God, so give liberally (sorry...just "give more") or you let down your family, your country and your God.