"Finally. Someone who thinks like me"

[TexasBushwhacker]

"She was a 52-year-old woman who had worked 20 years for the railroad, had once been a Democrat and was now a Republican, and counted herself among the growing swath of people who occupied the fringes of American politics but were increasingly becoming part of the mainstream. Like millions of others, she believed that President Obama was a Muslim. And like so many she had gotten to know online through social media, she also believed that he was likely gay, that Michelle Obama could be a man, and that the Obama children were possibly kidnapped from a family now searching for them."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/finally-someone-who-thinks-like-me/2016/10/01/c9b6f334-7f68-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html?postshare=7191475363587010&tid=ss_fb-bottom

[Aviation Pro]

1. The WP had to close off the comments to this one...

...the individual chronicled is a new level of stupid, meta-stupid, black hole stupid where intelligence is basically crushed under the mass of stupid, infinity stupid.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

2. The inestimable power of the massive RW propaganda campaign has created this delusional

group of people, many of whom were once relatively sane. These people are addicted to the steady stream of sensationalized lies about anyone is not "on their side."

Sadly, Donald Trump and the RW do not give a shit about these people as anything more than paranoid voters who will support any batshit candidate the RW puts before them.

[radical noodle]

4. THIS ^^^^^^

[rumdude]

3. Yep, Trumpkins are a new kind of dumb

They are the outcasts, the unwanted, the unloved, the mentally broken.

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. They love him and he wouldn't let them shine his shoes n/t

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Interesting read. I was struck by how much of her brain washing

that finally brought her to the brink.of insanity, was through the new media of the last 20 years. The Internet, RW Web sites, TV preachers, Facebook, meme's, etc.
I don't think she's so stupid. At one time she was capable of learning to be a train engineer and was a productive member of society. She's been converted into a nutcase by reading and hearing these lies and conspiracy theories for a couple of decades.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. One of the down sides of the internet

Anyone can put anything up on the internet and some people will believe. People like this woman find each other and it reinforces their beliefs.

[Brickbat]

8. Democrats look down on these people at their peril.

[TexasBushwhacker]

9. I don't "look down" on them

In the case of a woman like this, I'm concerned about her mental health. In parts of the country that are economically depressed, like Appalachia, I'm concerned about how we're going to turn those parts of the country around. Just like I'm concerned about urban areas that economically depressed.

The thing is, as others have said, is the poor whites are voting against their own self interest. Republicans have gotten their support by appealing to their racism and homophobia.

[ronnie624]

10. Acknowledging their existence isn't "looking down" on them.

She's mentally ill. Since when have Democrats 'looked down' on such people? It's generally Republicans who would deny them access to healthcare and make them homeless and so forth.

But she's not a typical Trump supporter. Most of them are social conservatives and/or simply like his jingoistic rhetoric. The tools for fascism, essentially.