Progressive Politics

From a financial perspective it's not really a secret -- big money is backing the far-right and conservative media and political sphere. Systems like GoFundMe and others are ripe targets for grifting of course, but they're also ripe for manipulating public opinion. Do you have an agenda and lots of money? You can easily afford bot services and then split your pile of money up among dozens, hundreds, thousands or more different accounts to give the impression that a cause like this is more popular than it is. Or you can use your social media influence to manipulate people into donating on your behalf. And of course the bonus is that it emboldens and encourages those who actually do believe this shit to speak up and participate, amplifying the message even more.

And aside from all that, there's just a subset of people who are out of touch but who truly believe that danger is imminent and lurking around every corner. They're getting fear based messaging from social media, Fox News, and elsewhere that's got them literally thinking that illegal immigrants are hiding in the bushes ready to murder them the moment they step out of their car. I know people whose world view is so skewed towards fear that they genuinely think it's dangerous to go into the city of 40K population for a doctor's appointment. They think people are getting murdered left and right on every street corner every minute of every day. And no amount of reassurance from a more sane and measured perspective seems to change that.