The ugly truth about the right-wing grift machine has been revealed

[Nevilledog]

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Tweet text:

Greg Sargent
@ThePlumLineGS
I talked to historian @rickperlstein, who puts Trump's big-lie fundraising scam in the context of decades of grift on the right.

"It's impossible to understand where the ideological con ends and the money con begins," Perlstein tells me:

washingtonpost.com
Opinion | The ugly truth about the right-wing grift machine has been revealed
At the nexus of the right wing "ideological con" and the right wing "money con."
9:31 AM · Jun 14, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/14/jan-6-hearing-trump-fundraising-grift/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/9IaRG

In addition to building a damning case that Donald Trump and his co-conspirators hatched a premeditated scheme to steal a presidential election they knew he’d lost, the Jan. 6 committee has exposed the latest chapter in a story that’s at least half a century old.

We’re talking about the sordid, ongoing phenomenon otherwise known as the right-wing grift machine. For decades, the peddling of hallucinatory tales of impending doom aimed at conservatives has overlapped with the crassest of money-grabbing schemes.

The Jan. 6 committee has documented in vivid new detail how Trump and his allies wielded the stolen election lie to raise up to $250 million from Republican and conservative voters. Yet the “Official Election Defense Fund” that was supposed to be the repository of these funds appears not to exist. Much of that money, the committee says, was channeled back to political outfits run by top Trump allies.

Historian Rick Perlstein, who has written many books about the American right, is uniquely suited to place this story in the larger context of the modern conservative movement’s predilection for such grift.

*snip*

[onecaliberal]

1. Can we finally dispense the notion that these people are remotely concerned about

Governing or helping anyone but the rich get more powerful and more rich:

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. There is no better market

for cons than American right-wing voters. A proven product that will buy anything that endorses their warped world view.

[wiggs]

3. Literally: dems and brown people will take away your bibles, guns, and freedom and

will force communism and gay agenda on all the patriots....

...unless you give us money.

[spinbaby]

4. They seem to be uniquely gullible

Trumpism, MLMs, prosperity gospel, “miracle” supplements, etc. all seem to appeal to the same crowd.

[crickets]

5. Eye-opening.

Nice turn of phrase here:

One of the canny things that the Jan. 6 select committee is doing is establishing a direct connection between the Republican Party’s parliamentary and paramilitary wings.