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When Grandma Gets Ripped Off by the People She Adores: The Scam That Breaks America’s Heart

Jacques Pj Provost

2026-06-21 00:21:17

The Never-Ending Text Messages

Egger’s grandmother’s phone has turned into a reverse slot machine. Instead of spitting out money, it sucks it in. Constantly. Relentlessly. Messages come in at all hours—morning, noon, and night. Sometimes several per hour. They come from everywhere. From Republican campaigns. From PACs no one has heard of. From groups with patriotic names that sound official. “Save America. ” “Defend Freedom.” “Patriot Fund.” Names that resonate. That appeal to a sense of duty. That strike a chord with the national spirit. And behind these names? Fundraising operations that use the most aggressive, manipulative, and predatory tactics of modern marketing. Tactics that would be illegal in any other sector. But in politics? Anything goes.

The pattern is always the same. An urgent message. A fabricated crisis. A request for money presented as the solution. “The Democrats are stealing the election!” “We need you NOW! ” “Last chance to save America!” And then the trap. The pre-checked box. That sneaky little box that turns a one-time $10 donation into a weekly or monthly automatic withdrawal. Egger’s grandmother thought she was donating $10 just once. She ended up with a monthly subscription she never wanted. And that was just the beginning. Because once you donate, once your number enters the system, you become a target. Your name gets passed around. Sold. Traded. Among hundreds of campaigns and political groups. And the messages multiply. Exponentially.

Jake Ellzey’s PAC and the Fake Checks

In the case of Egger’s grandmother, the money went to a leadership PAC linked to Jake Ellzey, a Republican representative from Texas. Not directly to Trump, as she believed. But to one of the countless groups that orbit the MAGA universe. A group that used the lure of a “$2,000 tariff refund check” to trap an 80-year-old woman. A check that doesn’t exist. That never existed. That will never exist. It’s a complete lie. Fraud disguised as political fundraising. And it’s legal. Or at least, no one is doing anything to stop it. Because regulators say they don’t have jurisdiction. Because the lawmakers who could change the laws are the very same ones who benefit from this rotten system.

Egger tried to help her grandmother unsubscribe. Again and again. But it’s like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. For every message she unsubscribes from, three new ones appear. Her number is out there, somewhere in the cloud, circulating among hundreds of fundraising lists. Sold and resold. Shared and traded. She has become a commodity. A number in a database. A source of recurring revenue. And there’s no way to escape. “No matter how many times she tries to unsubscribe,” writes Egger, “there’s always another text, another ‘check,’ another disappointed message from ‘Trump.’” It’s a never-ending nightmare. A digital prison whose bars are made of guilt and manipulation.

You want to know what makes me sick? It’s not just the scam itself. It’s the cynicism. The calculated exploitation of loyalty. These people believe in something. They believe in their country. In their values. In their leaders. And we’re turning that belief into profit. We’re cashing in on their patriotism. We’re making money off their backs while they think they’re defending democracy. It’s obscene. It’s repulsive. And it goes on, day after day, because no one has the courage to stop it.

The Scale of the Disaster: Millions Stolen from Thousands of Seniors

Mind-boggling figures

The story of Egger’s grandmother is not unique. It isn’t even rare. It’s the norm. A massive CNN investigation published in October 2024 revealed the catastrophic scale of this phenomenon. More than a thousand reports were examined. Hundreds of complaints were filed with government agencies. Dozens of interviews with donors and their families. And what did they find? A damning picture of the systematic exploitation of American seniors. CNN reporters identified more than fifty elderly, unwitting donors. People who gave far more than they ever intended. Far more than they could afford. These fifty individuals alone donated more than six million dollars over five years. Six million. Money that came from their pensions. From their retirement savings. From Social Security. Money they had set aside for their golden years.

And where did that money go? Primarily to Trump and Republican candidates. Trump’s campaign and its affiliated committees received more than four hundred thousand dollars from these vulnerable elderly donors between July 2019 and June 2024. The Republican National Committees for the Senate and the House raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars more. In total, Republican causes and candidates raised nearly four million dollars from this small sample of donors. On the Democratic side, the money went mainly to progressive PACs, not to mainstream candidates. The Progressive Turnout Project received about 150,000 dollars. Biden’s campaign? Only 10 percent of what Trump raised from these seniors. The numbers speak for themselves. This is a problem affecting both sides, but the scale and aggressiveness are incomparable.

WinRed vs. ActBlue: The Match of Shame

Two platforms dominate online political fundraising in the United States: WinRed for Republicans and ActBlue for Democrats. These digital giants take a commission of about four percent on each transaction. WinRed is a for-profit company founded in 2019 by a former member of the Trump team. ActBlue is a nonprofit organization that has been around for two decades. Both claim that the campaigns themselves choose the frequency and tone of the solicitations. Both wash their hands of any responsibility. But the numbers tell a different story. Between January 2022 and June 2024, the Federal Trade Commission received 803 complaints about WinRed. ActBlue received 120. That’s nearly seven times as many. Seven times as many people complaining about being deceived, manipulated, or scammed.

The tactics used by campaigns on WinRed are particularly aggressive. Pre-checked boxes for recurring donations are everywhere. The text explaining that you’re signing up for weekly or monthly donations is tiny—almost invisible, especially on a phone and especially for someone with failing eyesight. The donation pages are designed to deceive. To confuse. To trap you. There are “upsells”—those checkboxes that automatically add additional donations if you click on them. There are eleven-question surveys that annoy you before asking for your money. There are fake invitations to join advisory boards or focus groups. Everything is calculated to maximize donations. To extract as much money as possible from as many people as possible. And older adults—especially those with cognitive impairments—are the perfect victims.

Let me tell you how I feel when I read these numbers. Rage. A cold rage rising from my gut. Because this isn’t an accident. It isn’t an unfortunate side effect. It’s intentional. It’s planned. It’s optimized by algorithms and A/B testing. They’ve taken the most manipulative techniques from digital marketing and applied them to eighty-year-olds. People who grew up before the internet. Who don’t understand pre-checked boxes. Who trust it when they’re told that Trump needs them. And they’re bleeding them dry. Methodically. Efficiently. Without remorse.

The victims: lives destroyed, savings wiped out

Richard Benjamin and the Illusion of Access

Richard Benjamin was eighty-one years old when he began to believe he was communicating personally with Donald Trump. This Arizona man, a widower since 2018, received so many messages that he thought he was part of a network of political operatives in direct contact with Republican leaders. He eagerly awaited these messages. They made him feel important. Useful. Patriotic. One day, he told his children that Trump had invited him to a lavish reception at Mar-a-Lago. He worried that he wouldn’t fit in at such a posh place, having grown up on a farm. Then he received what he believed to be a VIP invitation to a rally in Arizona. He was excited. He was finally going to meet the president in person. He began making travel plans. He asked his sister-in-law if she wanted to accompany him. Later, he complained to his son that Donald Trump Jr. wasn’t calling him back, even though the president’s son sent him so many kind messages.

Benjamin was old, lonely, and isolated. The pandemic had made that isolation worse. “Save America, help save America”—that was the constant message. And he was thanked for being a true American, a patriot, every time he donated money. That emotional validation was like a drug. A shot of dopamine with every donation. With every thank-you message. He ended up donating about eighty thousand dollars—money he didn’t have. He went into debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. His children were furious at the campaigns, which they believed had manipulated their father and taken advantage of his compromised mental state. “He truly believed, deep in his heart, that Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and other politicians were reaching out to him personally,” said his son Jason. Today, Richard Benjamin lives in a memory care unit at an assisted living facility. He continues to receive text messages and calls from politicians. But he often cannot identify the politicians he has financially supported.

The Engineer Who Lost Everything

There was this 80-year-old communications engineer in Texas. A man who had saved for decades. Who drove an old car. Who bought his clothes at thrift stores. All so he’d have enough money to enjoy his retirement. Then dementia robbed him of his ability to reason. And he began making political donations online. Over and over again. He eventually came to believe he was part of a network of political operatives communicating with key Republican leaders. In less than two years, he became one of the Republican Party’s largest grassroots donors. He gave nearly half a million dollars to Trump and other candidates. Four hundred fifty thousand dollars. The savings account he had spent his entire life building is now practically empty. His son discovered the disaster while reviewing the bank statements. He took his father to a neurologist who diagnosed him with dementia. He spent weeks canceling credit cards and disputing charges. Trying to stop the recurring donations one by one. He finally got refunds from WinRed for his father’s most recent donations. But his father still owes about three hundred thousand dollars.

When the son showed his father the statements, the man was shocked. He had no idea. “This isn’t a man who would give anyone what he considered his life savings,” said the son. But that’s exactly what happened. Because the solicitations were designed to bypass rational judgment. To exploit emotions. To create a sense of urgency and obligation. And for someone whose cognitive abilities are impaired, it’s irresistible. It’s like putting an alcoholic in a bar and telling him not to drink. The system is designed to fail. For these vulnerable people. And no one is doing anything to protect them. Because their money funds the campaigns. Because exploiting them is profitable. Because the politicians who could change the rules are the ones profiting from them.

I’m going to be honest with you. While writing about Richard Benjamin and that engineer from Texas, I had to stop several times. Take a breath. Because it’s too much. It’s too much suffering. Too much injustice. These men have worked their whole lives. They’ve saved up. They’ve made the right choices. And in the end, when they’re at their most vulnerable, they’re stripped of everything. Their dignity is stolen. Their security. Their future. And it’s done in the name of politics. In the name of democracy. It’s a betrayal. A profound and personal betrayal of everything we’re supposed to stand for.

The Forgotten Women: When Death Comes Before Reimbursements

The Taiwanese Immigrant and Her Letters of Apology

She was eighty years old when she died of lung cancer this year. A Taiwanese immigrant in California who had never been involved in American politics until the pandemic left her alone and isolated. So she started donating. To Trump. To a litany of other Republican candidates. More than one hundred eighty thousand dollars in total. She wrote letters to the candidates. Letters in which she apologized for not sending her donations on time because she had to undergo heart surgery. Imagine that. An eighty-year-old woman with lung cancer and heart problems apologizing to millionaire politicians for not giving them enough money fast enough. When she died, she had two hundred fifty dollars in her bank account. Her family had to scramble to pay for the funeral. Meanwhile, the Republican campaigns had one hundred eighty thousand dollars of her money—money that should have paid for her medical care, her final days in comfort, and a dignified funeral.

This woman is not alone. There was that 82-year-old woman in Baltimore who wore pajamas with holes in them because she didn’t want to spend money on new ones. She lived in a 1,000-square-foot condo. She didn’t know she had donated more than $350,000 to the Republicans since 2020. Three hundred fifty thousand dollars. While she wore clothes with holes in them. While she counted every penny. Because somewhere in her mind, she believed she was helping. That she was doing her part. That she was saving America. And no one told her to stop. No one checked to see if she really understood what she was doing. No one wondered whether a woman wearing pajamas with holes in them should really be donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians.

The widow who limited her showers

On the Democratic side, there was this seventy-eight-year-old widow. She was limiting her showers to save on her water bill. She had canceled her long-term care insurance. She didn’t understand why the retirement savings her husband had left her were dwindling so quickly. Then the family was contacted by CNN. And they discovered that she had donated more than two hundred thousand dollars to Democratic political groups and candidates. Two hundred thousand dollars. While she was rationing water. While she was giving up insurance that could have protected her in her final years. That’s the reality of this exploitation. This isn’t partisan. Both sides do it. But the scale and aggressiveness on the Republican side are unprecedented. And the victims are always the same: the elderly, the vulnerable, those who trust, those who still believe that politicians care about them.

There have even been cases where donations continued after death. A man died, and the automatic withdrawals continued. Month after month. No one checked. No one cared. As long as the money kept coming in, everything was fine. That’s the level of dehumanization we’ve reached. Donors are no longer people. They’re sources of revenue. Numbers in a database. Credit cards to be charged automatically. And when they die? We keep charging them until someone notices and stops the payments. It’s obscene. It’s inhumane. And it’s legal. Because no one has the courage to change the laws. Because the money is too good. Because campaigns need it. Because winning elections is more important than protecting the elderly.

These women haunt me. The immigrant who kept apologizing as she was dying. The woman in pajamas with holes in them. The widow who rationed water. They haunt me because they could have been saved. If someone had looked. If someone had cared. If someone had said, “Wait, something’s not right here.” But no one did. Because in this system, no one is incentivized to protect donors. Everyone is incentivized to extract more money. Faster. More efficiently. And too bad for the victims.

The system that makes all this possible: the failure of regulators

The FEC That Does Nothing

The Federal Election Commission is supposed to oversee campaign contributions. That’s its job. Its raison d’être. But when an 89-year-old man discovered thousands of dollars in political charges on his credit card that he claimed he had never authorized, the FEC did nothing. “I am an 89-year-old widower, a retired architect living alone,” he wrote in a 2022 complaint. He said he had been harassed by robocalls and fraudulent mail and that ActBlue seemed “rife with fraud.” By the time the FEC completed its investigation, the man had died. He collapsed “on his way to the post office to send postcards to Texas voters,” according to his obituary. But the agency had no plans to take any action on his complaint anyway. It wrote in a response that the case was “classified as a low priority” for enforcement action based on criteria including the severity of the allegation and the dollar amount involved.

The agency closed another complaint filed regarding WinRed by the daughters of an elderly woman who claimed their mother had lost more than six thousand seven hundred dollars due to “elder abuse” with the same standard response, noting the “low dollar amount involved.” Six thousand seven hundred dollars. A small amount. For whom? Certainly not for an elderly woman living on a fixed pension. But for the FEC, it’s not significant enough. It’s not serious enough. It’s not a priority. The agency stated in a 2023 report that it regularly heard from donors who had been signed up for recurring donations without their knowledge or consent. The report noted that consumers had often tried unsuccessfully to cancel the donations before contacting the agency’s staff for help. Agency officials said that donors’ complaints “strongly suggest that many contributors are unaware of the ‘pre-checked boxes’ and are surprised by transactions that have already been completed and appear on their account statements.”

The FTC Washes Its Hands of the Matter

The Federal Trade Commission criticized pre-checked boxes in a 2022 staff report as an example of “tricks” and “psychological tactics” used by retailers and direct marketers “to get consumers to part with their money.” But the agency told CNN that it had no jurisdiction over the ads used by political campaigns, nor over the operations of WinRed and ActBlue, despite hundreds of consumer complaints being filed. No jurisdiction. That’s the standard response. The perfect shield. The ultimate excuse. Meanwhile, hundreds of seniors are being fleeced. But that’s not our problem. It’s not within our jurisdiction. Someone else should handle it. Except that no one else is handling it. Because everyone has an excuse. Everyone washes their hands of it. And the victims keep piling up.

Currently, pre-checked boxes for recurring donations are permitted in nearly every state despite widespread condemnation of this practice by consumer advocates. Federal legislation introduced in recent years that would have prevented their use died in committee without gaining traction. And while four Democratic attorneys general have investigated the fundraising tactics of WinRed and ActBlue, no action has been taken to date. Individual complaints filed with state attorneys general across the country have not resulted in any apparent action against the fundraising platforms or the campaigns, according to records obtained by CNN. And in what some donors and experts have pointed out as a potential conflict of interest, the very same attorneys general receiving complaints about these platforms have also used WinRed and ActBlue for their own fundraising efforts.

Do you see the problem? It’s a perfect vicious cycle. Regulators say they don’t have the power to act. The lawmakers who could give them that power are the ones who benefit from the current system. The attorneys general who could prosecute are using the same platforms for their own campaigns. Everyone has an excuse. Everyone has a conflict of interest. And meanwhile, seniors continue to be robbed. It’s a system designed to fail—for the victims—but to succeed brilliantly for those who profit from it.

Manipulation Tactics: The Science of Exploitation

False promises and empty claims

The messages that older adults receive are crafted with surgical precision. Every word is tested. Every image is optimized. Every call to action is calibrated to maximize conversions. There are the fake invitations to Mar-a-Lago. Promises to meet Trump in person. Invitations to join advisory boards that don’t exist. Eleven-question surveys designed to rile you up before asking you for money. Messages that claim to come directly from Trump or his children. “Donald Trump Jr. wants to be your friend on social media.” ” “President Trump has personally asked for your opinion.” It’s a lie, plain and simple. But it works. Because it taps into the fundamental human desire to feel important. Special. Connected to something bigger.

For older adults, especially those who are isolated, these messages fill a deep emotional void. Kathryn Locatell, a forensic geriatrician, explains that what Richard Benjamin felt every time he received a “thank-you” message or made a donation is the same “dopamine rush” that many older Americans seek. And the solicitations are designed in a way that intentionally draws older donors into their web, providing “a sense of belonging to an exciting and special club.” “You and I might call these requests for money laughable, but for someone who has lost their ability to judge reality—and who has absorbed all the toxic misinformation out there, on the internet and on TV—it’s a perfectly coherent reality, and they’re happy to join and be a part of it,” she says. “That’s how all their money will be drained away until it’s gone.”

Pre-checked boxes and invisible text

The controversial feature that misleads many donors is a pre-checked box that campaigns use to automatically authorize recurring donations. Donors often don’t realize they need to uncheck this box, so when trying to make a small one-time donation, they unwittingly sign up for weekly or monthly recurring donations. Sometimes it takes months or years before they realize that a campaign has been regularly charging their credit card or withdrawing money from their bank account. Because the text informing donors that they are signing up for recurring donations is often so small—particularly on WinRed’s donation pages—it would be very easy for someone who isn’t really processing what they’re reading to miss it, according to Locatell and other experts interviewed by CNN. Older donors with short-term memory issues might make one-time donations over and over again, not remembering that they donated just an hour earlier.

The donation pages are masterpieces of deceptive design. There are “upsells”—those boxes that look like Trump’s messages and, if you click on them, add two additional donations. There’s text that looks like a hyperlink, giving the impression that you should click there to sign up for recurring donations. But you’re already signed up because of the pre-checked box above it. It’s intentional confusion. Calculated deception. And it works. Records show that some donors ended up being charged more than a hundred times in a single day. One hundred times. In twenty-four hours. Because once WinRed or ActBlue has a donor’s financial information, donations can be triggered by actions such as responding to an online survey, ordering campaign merchandise, or replying with a single word to a text message. The system is designed to extract as much money as possible with as little friction as possible.

You know what really gets to me? It’s that all of this is legal. All these tactics that we’d condemn in any other context—pre-checked boxes, fine print, false promises, hidden upsells—all of that would be illegal if a company did it. The FTC would go after them. States would sue them. Consumers would win class-action lawsuits. But in politics? It’s just another day at the office. It’s just how things are done. And the victims? They have no recourse. No protection. No way to get their money or their dignity back.

The Impossible Battle to Stop Donations

The Nightmare of Refunds

Trying to stop recurring donations and get refunds is like trying to navigate a maze designed by Kafka. WinRed and ActBlue both say they notify donors of each recurring contribution and have guides on their websites explaining how donors or their families can request refunds and cancel recurring donations. But the reality is quite different. Many of those interviewed by CNN said it was difficult to figure out which campaigns to contact, especially because donations were often spread across hundreds of groups. They usually contacted WinRed or ActBlue instead and found the process confusing, difficult, and frequently unsuccessful. In the case of WinRed specifically, many said they couldn’t even figure out how to reach a representative by phone.

A frustrated son who filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office told CNN that he had resorted to tracking down an intern at the company whom he found on LinkedIn in the hope of finally stopping his mother’s recurring donations. He said she had lost more than twenty thousand dollars and that, even after contacting WinRed and canceling her debit card, she continued to be charged. In Washington State, WinRed quickly rejected an 80-year-old woman’s appeal to the state to investigate the platform for “elder abuse”—saying that the woman had agreed to the company’s terms of service, which specify that it provides refunds only as required by law. By the time she filed her complaint, her money was long gone. It was up to her to contact the campaigns for any refund. “With all due respect,” wrote WinRed’s attorney, “there is nothing here to investigate.”

Families Who Find Out Too Late

Calls from CNN reporters seeking information about the donations prompted some family members to rush to their loved ones’ homes to help them review their statements or begin the long process of taking control of their finances. Other families CNN spoke with said it was the unusually high number of political donations—which took precedence over major expenses like electricity bills and taxes—that alerted them that something was wrong. In the case of the 80-year-old retired communications engineer who donated nearly half a million dollars, one of the man’s sons discovered that his savings account had been almost completely drained by these donations. The son said he took his father to a neurologist, where he was diagnosed with dementia, and spent weeks canceling credit cards and disputing charges, trying to stop the recurring donations one by one.

The daughter of an 81-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease told CNN that when she visited her mother at home last month, her mother received a call from the Ted Cruz campaign and a text message with an ActBlue link within minutes of each other. She said her mother was about to donate to both before she stopped her. Her mother’s cognitive decline has become so severe, she said, that her mother believed that whenever someone asked her for money, she had to give it. The daughter, who lives in another city, said she was trying to coordinate her mother’s medical care while also sorting through the credit card debt her mother had accumulated after donating more than $100,000. This is the burden that falls on families. Trying to untangle months or years of donations. Trying to recover at least some of the money. Trying to protect their loved ones from ongoing exploitation. All while also managing their declining health and care needs.

Imagine discovering that your mother, father, or grandmother has given away hundreds of thousands of dollars. That their life savings have vanished. That you now have to pay for their care because they have no money left. And then imagine trying to get that money back. Calling hundreds of campaigns. Filling out forms. Proving that your parent has dementia. Begging for refunds. And being told over and over again that it’s too late. That the money is gone. That there’s nothing that can be done. This is the reality for thousands of American families. And it keeps happening. Every day. While we look the other way.

Andrew Egger's reaction: "You can't escape"

A Columnist Confronted with Reality

Andrew Egger isn’t naive. He has spent years writing about the damage caused by Donald Trump, his policies, and his strange cultural movement—not only to the country as a whole but to the people who support him in particular. “It’s clearer to me than ever that this damage is widespread and pervasive and will outlast him by many years,” he writes. But seeing his own grandmother caught up in this system struck him differently. It was personal. It was his family. And it showed him something he hadn’t fully understood before. “It’s an underestimated feature of our political era,” he writes. “It’s not just that things are bad; it’s that they’re relentlessly bad. You can’t turn it off. You can’t escape it. You can’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake, what’s good and what’s bad, what’s normal and what’s abnormal. Things just keep piling up.”

This Christmas visit showed him just how much all the current problems are actively changing his family’s life for the worse. It wasn’t just his grandmother and the scam texts. It was also his uncle, worried about a young relative who had become a fan of the neo-Nazi podcaster Nick Fuentes. Who now considered himself a white nationalist. Who was full of alarming rhetoric about how white people must learn to see themselves as victims of the system. His uncle was shocked and troubled by all of this and seemed to be asking Egger how to reach someone who had fallen so far down this particular rabbit hole. When Egger mentioned the conversation about Fuentes to one of his sisters, who currently attends a conservative Christian college, she said she had seen a worrying rise in casual antisemitism among her own peers.

The Rejection of Schadenfreude

Egger does something remarkable in his article. Something rare in our polarized age. He refuses to blame the victims. “Perhaps none of this should have surprised me,” he writes. “I’ve spent a lot of time over the years writing about the damage caused by Donald Trump, his politics, and his strange cultural movement—not only to the country in general but to the people who support him in particular. It’s clearer to me than ever that this damage is widespread and pervasive and will outlast him by many years. But I cannot accept the schadenfreude-laden view that anyone who ever pulled the lever for Trump deserves everything that’s happening to them as a result. The fact is, this political moment is making good people miserable. I don’t blame them for that. I blame him.”

That’s a courageous stance. Because it would be easy to say that Trump voters deserve what’s happening to them. That they made their bed and now must lie in it. That they were warned. But Egger sees deeper than that. He sees that his grandmother isn’t a fool. She isn’t a fanatic. She’s a good person who has been manipulated by a system designed to exploit her loyalty and trust. And he refuses to blame her for that. He blames Trump. He blames the system. He blames those who profit from this exploitation. That’s the right target. Because the victims aren’t the problem. The predators are. And until we stop blaming the victims and start holding the predators accountable, nothing will change. Seniors will continue to be robbed. Families will continue to find out too late. And the cycle will continue.

Egger is right. And it breaks my heart that he’s right. Because it would be so much easier to blame the victims. To say they had it coming. That they should have known better. But the truth is more complicated and sadder. These people were betrayed. By the leaders they trusted. By the system they thought would protect them. By a country that decided their money was worth more than their dignity. And we must stop pretending it’s their fault. It’s not their fault. It’s our fault. Collectively. For allowing this system to exist. For looking the other way while it devours our seniors.

The Other Victims: The Rise of Extremism and Hate

Nick Fuentes and the Radicalization of Young People

The financial exploitation of the elderly is only part of the broader picture that Egger saw during his Christmas visit. There was also radicalization. His uncle asked him what he knew about Nick Fuentes. He had learned that a young relative had become a fan of the neo-Nazi podcaster. That this relative now considered himself a white nationalist. That he was full of rhetoric about how white people must learn to see themselves as victims of the system. Egger’s uncle was shocked and troubled. He was searching for answers. How do you reach someone who has fallen so far? How do you pull someone back from the brink? Egger said they talked for a while, but he hardly knew what to say. Because how do you fight that? How do you fight an entire media ecosystem designed to radicalize young men? How do you fight algorithms that push people toward increasingly extreme content?

Fuentes is not an isolated case. He is part of a broader network of far-right influencers who use social media to spread hate and recruit new followers. And it’s working. Especially among young men who feel lost, angry, and left behind. Fuentes offers them a simple explanation for their problems. A target for their anger. A sense of belonging and purpose. It’s toxic. It’s dangerous. And it’s on the rise. When Egger mentioned the conversation to one of her sisters, who attends a conservative Christian middle school, she said she had seen a troubling rise in casual antisemitism among her own peers. It’s not just online. It’s not just in the dark corners of the internet. It’s in high schools. In churches. In families. And it’s becoming normalized. Slowly but surely.

Anti-Semitism Becoming Commonplace

Egger’s sister attends a conservative Christian college. A place where you’d expect to find traditional values. Respect. Decency. But she’s noticed something troubling: a rise in casual anti-Semitism among her peers. Not the blatant, violent anti-Semitism of the past. But something more insidious. Jokes. Stereotypes. Conspiracy theories presented as facts. It’s normalized. Trivialized. Treated as just another opinion. And no one says anything. Because in our current culture, everything is relative. All opinions are valid. All truth is subjective. So why not let people believe what they want? Except that some beliefs lead to violence. Some opinions kill. And anti-Semitism has a long and bloody history of doing exactly that.

It’s another facet of the damage caused by the MAGA movement. It’s not just financial exploitation. It’s the normalization of hate. The legitimization of extremism. The creation of a space where the most vile ideas can thrive. And it’s happening in places we thought were safe. In Christian colleges. In conservative families. In communities that consider themselves moral and decent. Because the poison has seeped in everywhere. It has infected our discourse. Our politics. Our culture. And now it’s infecting our young people. Radicalizing them. Turning them into something their families no longer recognize. And we don’t know how to stop it. Because how do you fight something that’s everywhere? How do you protect your children from an entire media ecosystem designed to radicalize them?

That’s what terrifies me the most. Not just the stolen money. Not just the exploited elderly. But the next generation. The young people growing up in this toxic environment. Who think that antisemitism is just a joke. That white nationalism is just an opinion. That hate is just politics. Because these young people will inherit the world. They will lead the country. And if we don’t do anything now, if we keep looking the other way, we’ll wake up one day in a country we no longer recognize. A country where hate is normal. Where exploitation is accepted. Where cruelty is a virtue.

Solutions That Never Come: Why Nothing Changes

Conflicts of Interest Everywhere

The problem with reforming this system is simple. Those with the power to change it are the ones who benefit from it. Lawmakers who could ban pre-checked boxes use those same tactics for their own campaigns. Attorneys general who could prosecute WinRed and ActBlue use those platforms to raise funds. Regulators who could impose rules say they lack jurisdiction. It’s a perfect vicious cycle where everyone has an excuse and no one takes action. The FEC has recommended that Congress introduce legislation to ban pre-checked boxes. It first made this recommendation in 2021 after The New York Times reported on the issue. It is now late 2025. Nothing has changed. The legislation that was introduced died in committee. No momentum. No support. No hope.

Four Democratic attorneys general have investigated the fundraising tactics of WinRed and ActBlue. No action has been taken to date. Individual complaints filed with state attorneys general across the country have led to no apparent action against the fundraising platforms or the campaigns. And here’s the kicker. The very same attorneys general receiving complaints about these platforms have also used WinRed and ActBlue for their own fundraising efforts. This is a blatant conflict of interest. But no one seems to care. Because the money is too good. Because winning elections requires money. And if you have to exploit a few thousand seniors to get that money? Well, that’s just the cost of doing business in modern politics.

Money Speaks Louder Than Morals

WinRed and ActBlue have collected more than $100 million in fees from federal campaigns and political committees over the past two years alone. One hundred million. That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of incentive to maintain the status quo. Both platforms say that it’s the campaigns that choose the frequency and tone of the solicitations. They wash their hands of any responsibility. But they provide the tools. They facilitate the exploitation. They profit from every transaction. They are complicit. And they know it. But as long as the money keeps pouring in, why would they change? WinRed hasn’t even responded to CNN’s multiple requests for comment. Radio silence. Because they don’t have to answer. Because there are no consequences. No accountability. No price to pay for exploiting thousands of seniors.

ActBlue, at least, has said something. A spokesperson stated that the platform is designed to give “donors complete control” over their contributions. That donors or their families can contact their internal support team with any concerns. They said they’ve trained their customer service staff to be on the lookout for donors who use keywords indicating confusion or cognitive issues and to escalate them to a higher level of service. They said this situation is rare and that employees do what they can to accommodate refunds beyond the standard ninety-day refund window. That’s good. It’s better than nothing. But it’s not enough. Because the problem isn’t just customer service. The problem is the system itself. A system designed to extract as much money as possible with as little friction as possible. A system where vulnerable older adults are the perfect targets.

You know what really makes me furious? It’s not that the system is broken. It’s that it works exactly as intended. It’s designed to do this. To exploit. To manipulate. To extract. And everyone knows it. The platforms know it. The campaigns know it. The regulators know it. Lawmakers know it. Everyone knows it. But no one is doing anything about it. Because the money is too good. Because winning is too important. Because the victims don’t matter as much as electoral victories. And it kills me. It kills me to know that we live in a country where this is acceptable. Where it’s normal. Where it’s just the way things are.

Conclusion: The Price of Our Silence

What We Lose by Looking Away

The story of Andrew Egger’s grandmother isn’t just a story about money. It’s a story about what we’ve become. About what we accept. About what we tolerate in the name of politics. This eighty-year-old woman who worked her whole life, who saved, who believed in something greater than herself, is now being stripped of everything by the very people she supports. And we know it. We see it. We read the articles about it. And then we move on. Because there’s always another crisis. Always another scandal. Always something new to capture our attention. But while we look the other way, thousands of elderly people continue to be exploited. Their life savings continue to vanish. Their families continue to find out too late. And the system keeps turning.

Egger writes that this is “an underestimated feature of our political era: it’s not just that things are bad—it’s that they’re bad without respite. You can’t turn it off. You can’t escape it. You can’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake, what’s good and what’s bad, what’s normal and what’s abnormal. Things just keep piling up.” He’s right. We’re drowning in crisis. Overwhelmed by chaos. Paralyzed by the sheer scale of the problems. And while we’re paralyzed, the predators keep hunting. The exploiters keep exploiting. The victims keep piling up. And we keep looking the other way. Because it’s easier. Because it’s less painful. Because we don’t know what else to do. But our silence comes at a price. And that price is paid by the most vulnerable among us.

The Call to Action That No One Hears

So what do we do? How do we stop this? The answer is simple in theory, impossible in practice. We need laws. Real laws with real teeth. Ban pre-checked boxes. Require explicit consent for recurring donations. Impose limits on the frequency of solicitations. Create special protections for older adults. Give regulators the power and resources to enforce these rules. Hold platforms and campaigns accountable when they exploit vulnerable donors. It’s not complicated. Other countries have done it. Other industries have these protections. But in American politics? It’s apparently impossible. Because the people who have to vote on these laws are the ones who benefit from the current system. And they’re not going to vote against their own interests—even if it means sacrificing thousands of older adults on the altar of political ambition.

But perhaps change won’t come from the top. Perhaps it must come from the bottom up. From families who discover what’s happening to their loved ones and refuse to remain silent. From journalists who continue to expose these practices. Consumer advocates who keep fighting. Courageous attorneys general who are willing to take action even if it means going against their own party. The public who refuse to accept that this is just the way things are. Because this isn’t the way things should be. We can do better. We must do better. For Egger’s grandmother. For Richard Benjamin. For the engineer from Texas. For the Taiwanese immigrant. For the woman in the pajamas with holes in them. For the widow who rationed water. For all those who have been betrayed by a system that was supposed to serve them. We owe them better. We owe ourselves better. And until we take action, their blood is on our hands.

I end this article with a heavy heart. Because I know nothing will change. Not tomorrow. Probably not next year. Maybe never. Because the system is too powerful. The vested interests are too deeply entrenched. Money speaks too loudly. But I had to write this anyway. Because someone has to speak out. Someone has to say that this is not acceptable. That this is not normal. That this isn’t how we should treat our elders. That this isn’t the country we claim to be. And maybe—just maybe—if enough people read this and get angry, if enough families find out what’s happening and refuse to accept it, if enough voices speak out and demand change… maybe something will shift. Maybe. It’s a slim hope. But it’s all I have. And I’m holding on to it. Because the alternative is too bleak to contemplate.

Sources

Primary Sources

Raw Story, “Analyst Melts Down as MAGA Grandma Scammed by Trump Allies,” by Robert Davis, published December 29, 2025. The Bulwark, “When MAGA Comes to Christmas Dinner: A Glimpse of What Trump’s Movement Does to Its Supporters,” by Andrew Egger, Cathy Young, and Jim Swift, published December 29, 2025.

Secondary sources

CNN Investigates, “How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns: A CNN investigation reveals how deceptive political fundraising has misled elderly Americans into giving away millions of dollars,” by Blake Ellis, Melanie Hicken, Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Audrey Ash, Kyung Lah, Anna-Maja Rappard, Casey Tolan, Lou Robinson, and Byron Manley, published October 22, 2024. Federal Trade Commission, complaint reports regarding WinRed and ActBlue, January 2022–June 2024. Federal Election Commission, data on individual contributions via WinRed and ActBlue, July 2019–June 2024.

This content was created with the help of AI.

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