# Russian trolls target the old and senile. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 18, 2017, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236 "2017-10-18T16:57:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/41 "2017-10-21T14:33:42Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > My dad, like yours, was a life-long Dem and a smart guy. Then he moved to South Carolina, got old, got on Facebook, and is currently believing every cockamame right-wing piece of nonsense he comes across. He shares and likes and comments on so much bullshit on Facebook, I finally had to block him. It angers me to no end that this shit is out there and that he doesn’t have the ability to filter out nonsense anymore. > > He’ll be 71 next month and he readily admits to me that his memory is going fast. This is why I’ve stopped engaging him in political talk. I choose to remember him as the good, intelligent, thoughtful, kind man he was in his younger days. Now he has become hateful (toward gays, immigrants, Muslims, black people, etc) and irrational. We just talk about chickens and my kids now. I am sorry for the loss of your father. I am also happy for the seventy years you had with such a great role model. Someone made you into the kind of compassionate person you are today. Your father may be losing his grip on reality, but he made sure his compassion lives on in you. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/42 "2017-10-21T17:51:19Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > My dad, too, is a member of this sorrowful club. He wasn’t a lifelong Democrat, but he was smart and a fairly moderate Republican. That said, he has always had a victim mentality, meaning he finds it easy and dispositive to blame anyone/anything else for his failures in life, rather than look in a mirror. > > Made him a sitting duck for Fox “News” and all the lies they propagate. “We’ll scare the crap out of you and then tell you who to scapegoat for it!!” He’s scared of everything now. > > A couple of years ago, he suffered a heart attack and was hurriedly removed from his home for medical care. When I got there, I found the most vile, disgusting and flamboyantly false pamphlet about President Obama on the table beside my dad’s favorite chair. We haven’t talked politics in many years because of the bullshit he buys into, but I honestly hadn’t realized how far down the rabbit hole he was until I found that pamphlet. Haven’t been able to get it out of my head. > > The sickness has taken hold of my beloved stepmom as well. Like they’re zombies or something. She actually defended birtherism to me a couple months ago. > > Leaves me so sad and aghast at what the actual fake news has done to our nation. I warned my parents nearly 20 years ago to stop watching that shit. It is a scary testament as to easy it is to manipulate an otherwise educated mind. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/43 "2017-10-21T18:23:29Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The really sad part of this is that otherwise reasonable people become so filled with rage and anger that it not only consumes them, but they refuse to admit it to themselves. > > Eighteen years ago I came to the realization that I was an angry, bitter man and I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I also didn’t want to die, so I had to change myself, become less angry. Part of that is to avoid things that are designed to make me angry. > > I ask a question of angry right wingers on occasion: Do you like being such an angry person? To a one, they deny being angry, even as they spit back in anger. They project it on me, they project it on others. But they rage and froth while loudly proclaiming that they are NOT angry. > > And yet they are. They’ve surrendered their peace to misinformation and lies. > > But you can’t rescue people who don’t want to be rescued. ☹ I don’t think Fox news only attracts ‘angry’ people with their rhetoric. I am 60 and I am angry. I am angry about where our country has gone in less than a year. I am angry that so many people demand the right to believe flagrant lies coming from the White House. I am angry that 63 million people voted a benign cyst into a full-blown carcinoma. Our America has struggled the last decade or so, but I always had confidence that we could turn the corner and see more prosperity for more of our population. I have been just an old fool, believing in a fairy tale. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/44 "2017-10-21T18:36:07Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Count me as one of the effected too. I dread calls with my dad, and am in a huge depression about whether I can ever go visit again. It’s just non stop nonsense, unjustified blame, and anger. He is not the person I want to remember him as anymore, and I’m not sure I can deal with him at all. I am sure you have made other choices in your life that weren’t easy to make. I understand how you want to remember your dad, but don’t throw away the time that you can have with him just because he is different than you wish he was. Your Dad may also be unhappy because he misses you, and what you used to be to him. His politics might be poisonous, but you don’t have to be. Love him while you have him. Don’t let Trump dictate your relationship with your Dad. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/45 "2017-10-21T18:43:39Z")
> [@LongTimeLurker](#): > > I am sure you have made other choices in your life that weren’t easy to make. I understand how you want to remember your dad, but don’t throw away the time that you can have with him just because he is different than you wish he was. > > Your Dad may also be unhappy because he misses you, and what you used to be to him. His politics might be poisonous, but you don’t have to be. Love him while you have him. Don’t let Trump dictate your relationship with your Dad. Unfortunately, trump has divided many families. I’ve always been the black sheep in my family. My parents are ultra conservative, and most of my siblings follow suit. They sometimes wonder, out loud in front of me, where they went wrong with my upbringing. It made family get togethers a bit tense, and sometimes led to arguments. Since trump came along, it is impossible to go more than an hour without one of them bringing up how evil and despicable democrats are. Because of this, I have spent probably less than a total of 3-4 hours in the presence of my family since trump was elected. Sucks, because I actually do enjoy being around them when they aren’t being political hacks, but that’s all they can be anymore. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/46 "2017-10-21T18:49:25Z")
> [@Happy\_Lendervedder](#): > > I’m with you. I went from talking to my dad on the phone a few times a week, to once every few months. We text on occasion. He told me he was coming to visit last month, and I had the bubble guts for a week ahead of time. He was my hero growing up, I wanted nothing more than to spend my weekends at his house with him throughout my high school years. > > And my parents are an amazing case study. They divorced in the early 80s. In the mid-90s they both moved away from Metro Detroit in the exact same month-- my dad to South Carolina, my mom to west Michigan, both very conservative areas. Both still attend Calvinist churches twice on Sunday and are active in volunteering there on a regular basis. Both remarried, my mom actually married a card-carrying life-long Republican. My mom is extremely modest and “conservative” in dress, style, speech, lifestyle, has never touched a drop of alcohol, her house is entirely beige, has exactly one picture on each wall, etc. My dad, a vietnam vet, drinks, used to smoke, has smoked pot, is prone to extremely salty language, etc. > > However, my mother is an Obama-loving lefty (although she’s too modest to actually label herself anything other than “independent,”) with a few conservative tendencies (gay marriage, abortion), while my dad is a right-wing conspiracy-loving Trump-adoring extremist who hates anything and anyone that isn’t white, Republican, straight, Christian, American. My mom donates her money and time to homeless shelters and food banks in the area, my dad thinks poor people are all lazy and scammers and refuses to help in any way (he was actually disgusted when my wife ran the kitchen for a twice-weekly church dinner for poor people because they were “encouraging freeloaders and scammers”). My mom supports refugees and immigrants and volunteers her time to do Bible study with prisoners, while my dad “likes” posts on Facebook that describe immigrant families being split up under Trump and celebrate Robert E. Lee’s legacy. > > If anyone wanted to actually do a case study on this, man, it’s ripe for the pickin’. I honestly can’t figure out what the hell happened over the past 20 years to make my parents so polar opposite today. The kicker is my mom said my dad and his brother used to argue politics in the 70s-- my dad was the liberal and my uncle was the conservative. Today, the two don’t talk anymore because of politics, but they’ve flip-flopped on ideology. > > John DiFool, there \*is \*a step zero, but for the life of me, I just can’t see what it is when it comes to my dad. What made him prone to these asshole beliefs? I wish I knew. The only thing that ever comes to mind: He’s dealt with a lot of PTSD from Vietnam in his life, and has told me snippets of things he’s realized about himself talking to shrinks. Is this connected? I have no clue. The only thing I would guess at is that your Mom continued to grow with the rest of the world around her, and your Dad decided to make his world as closed as possible. PTSD could be a very real factor in your Dad’s desire to define his world as only black and white. At least he has shared some ‘snippets’ of his life with you, he obviously trusts you as well as cares about you. I can tell by your post that you have made both of your parents proud. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/47 "2017-10-21T18:52:38Z")
It sucks how many of us have lost friends and family to the fox news cult. I generally don’t mind people who have different opinions, but a lot of them live in a fantasy world now where facts only exist if they verify their existing beliefs. They can’t distinguish fantasy from reality and they don’t want to. It is disappointing seeing people who you’d expect to be wise in old age be the most ignorant and gullible. Having said that, Russian Trolls didn’t just target Trump voters. They targeted Stein supporters, Sanders supporters and Black lives matter supporters too. Their goal is to foment civil unrest. > **[How Russia Harvested American Rage to Reshape U.S. Politics (Published 2017)](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/technology/russia-election-facebook-ads-rage.html)** > > A Times examination of Russian-linked Facebook pages used in the 2016 election found that much of the content was taken directly from videos and posts from Americans. Looking back, I can kind of see why the FBI was afraid of communist infiltration into the civil rights movement. The Russians are empowering both the liberal left and the alt right to create divisions. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/48 "2017-10-21T19:02:47Z")
> [@JackieLikesVariety](#): > > \addicted to outrage\ That is how Fox designed their broadcasts. They set up a premise and ramped up a discourse designed to infuriate their viewer. Then they would offer the outlet. The whipping boy that the masses could unleash their faux fury upon, liberals. Fox was nothing more than a daytime soap opera spun around current events. The politics of the Right were the hero’s, while the politics of the Left were the bastard step-child trying to get a piece of their promiscuous parents property. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/49 "2017-10-21T19:03:33Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I think they have so much more time on their hands. It is just a crap-shoot as to which group of extremists gets to them first.IMHO. I don’t know either, it would be a good subject to study. Why are so many white people over age 50 so prone to right wing political brainwashing? Maybe they get addicted to the rage, contempt and fear that right wing propaganda fills them with. I notice this on the left too (our news sites fill us with rage, contempt and fear for the other side too). However what I haven’t seen on the left is a wholesale disassociation from reality, a refusal to trust any news outlet that isn’t propaganda (leftists use a wide range of news sites, conservatives generally only like propaganda sites), or a wholesale embrace of easy to disprove conspiracy theories on a massive scale. There are issues here and there (9/11 truth) but it isn’t like on the right. I feel like 9/11 trutherism was a fringe thing on the left, while on the right blaming Obama for Katrina or saying he was born in Kenya are mainstream beliefs. When I talk to my dad and mom I can take it on faith that if they open their mouths what will come out will be easy to disprove lies and propaganda. I have no idea how it happened. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/50 "2017-10-21T19:20:18Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I agree with what you are saying in a lot of cases, but a couple of responses are talking about people in there 70s, one being only 71, just 10 years older than I am. Most of those people have had plenty of exposure to the internet and modern scams, and are in better physical and mental condition and social awareness than my 91 year old mother was at that age. I think there may be more to the political aspect of this than just the old age. I think it has to do with your position in the existing power structure and whether you feel you are losing. For the most part, it is only white people who do this in my experience. There aren’t a lot of blacks, latinos or asians who become fox news robots. And it is mostly older people over 50 (usually over 60) from what I’ve seen too. Men more than women. Fox news’ audience is 92% white, and the median fox news viewer age is 68 years old. Perhaps it is anger over losing their position of power and priviledge in life. It used to be that whites and men were guaranteed the best positions in society. The best jobs, the best mates, all the power (social, political, economic, etc) now society is becoming multicultural. I don’t know who wrote the quote but ‘When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression’ is pretty fitting. Instead of white men being guaranteed the top of the socioeconomic totem pole, they have to fight to be there. But this is also a double whammy, because a lot of white people aren’t privileged, and they get pissed too when you discuss white privilege. So not only are the people upset about losing their position angry, so are the people who are told they are privileged but who don’t feel they are. Also older people have been indoctrinated against communism, and now they thing moderate liberalism is the same as communism. Anyway, I’m just speculating. But for the most part it is old white people, more often men, who become hate filled ignorant fox news zombies in my experience. Within the existing American power structure, old white men used to be the undisputed top of the socioeconomic totem pole, and now they are sliding down and the growing equality feels like oppression to them. So maybe they develop a victim mentality about it. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/51 "2017-10-21T19:21:10Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Count me in as another who has lost their dad to fear and anger. He retired (from his union job at Ford) in 2008 or so and has been sitting on his couch every day since, watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio. Thankfully he’s not on social media or email so he’s not getting the Russian shit or spreading anything but people who do get the Russian shit are calling up to the radio station he listens to and spreading it to him. > > I watched that _Brainwashing of my Dad_ documentary and was like “Yep, that’s us.” > > I know that a lot of my dad’s anger and frustration comes from his body utterly breaking down and making him near physically useless and in pain all the time. His psyche was definitely ripe for the picking by the right wing anger brigade. > > I try to only be around my parents when my brothers’ kids are around too. They’re happy then. It blows my mind that even in short periods of down time when the kids are visiting, dad feels the need to bring up politics of some sort. It’s sick. Fox news is attractive. Busty blondes wearing skirts that ride up their thighs. That is real news. If you want to do your Dad a favor, find another cable channel that interests him, there are hundreds of channels to choose from. It is sad that your Dad’s politics are nothing more than the bullet points from the Fox Five Live broadcast, aka Trump Tweets. As much as it upsets you, do what you can to point him away from the Faux News, but if he is happy there, don’t be upset. Just be glad he is still around for you. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/52 "2017-10-21T19:34:51Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Many years ago Saturday Night Live had a phony commercial that was a play on those old-people-life-insurance commercials. The joke was that “Old Glory Insurance” would pay off in the event of you being killed by a robot. Presented by Sam Waterston, speaking gently and slowly so old people could understand him, he noted, with as much seriousness as he could muster (he almost loses it later in the “ad”) that it was very important to have robot insurance because “robots are strong,” and “they eat old people’s medicine for fuel.” “So don’t cower under your afghan any longer,” he reassures senior citizens, because Old Glory will be there “when the metal ones decide to come for you… and they will.” > > The meta joke, of course, is the assumption, which you sort of have to have to get the joke, that > > 1. Old people are gullible, and > 2. Old people are easily frightened. > > Old people have been the target of con artists, usually using fear, for as long as there have been old people. How many scams directed at old people are there? A zillion? Senior citizen advocacy groups actually have web pages, literature, and stuff specifically dedicated to this problem. > > [https://www.ncoa.org/economic-security/money-management/scams-security/top-10-scams-targeting-seniors/](https://www.ncoa.org/economic-security/money-management/scams-security/top-10-scams-targeting-seniors/) > > The genius of the Russian maskirovka campaign on Trump’s behalf, and the genius of Fox News, is to take what companies, con men and opportunistic relatives have been doing to years to scam old people of their money, and do it to scam them of their beliefs and votes. Sure, they fool some dimwitted younger people too, just as con men can scam people of all ages. But old people are very vulnerable to scams. Long have politicians sought out the old people vote; someone has finally fully merged true con artistry with politics. +1 Fear, if you can’t win on merit, win by preying upon the weakest part of a human. Make them scared, make them angry, then give them a pseudo fix to the problem you just made up, aka Fox News. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/53 "2017-10-21T19:36:39Z")
> [@LongTimeLurker](#): > > Fox news is attractive. Busty blondes wearing skirts that ride up their thighs. That is real news. If you want to do your Dad a favor, find another cable channel that interests him, there are hundreds of channels to choose from. So, the idea is to make pornhub a news outlet? That could work. A complaint I voiced recently to my friends, when we were talking about how annoying it is that every newspaper and magazine seem to be behind a paywall anymore, was “Why pay for news, when you can get porn for free?” And in that statement, I don’t mean just erotic sexual porn, but porn in the same idea as “food porn” catagory. Stuff that doesn’t inform, stuff that makes you feel good while you watch it, but a bit disgusted with yourself after. Fox news, to me, is “news porn”. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/54 "2017-10-21T20:07:11Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > The answer is, probably not. > > Another component I frequently see among the Fox “News”-addicted is isolation. My dad has made himself a shut-in. He rarely interacts with people except his wife. He spends most of his time in his armchair, watching Fox (especially Hannity). He rousts himself from there to his computer, where he participates on overheated alt-right forums that feed him as many conspiracy theories as he can handle. That’s pretty much his whole life, now. He doesn’t challenge his thinking, he never talks to people who don’t agree with him… Fox News is just the easy out. Attractive people talking about their ‘news’. Alternative Facts are delivered here! There are other cable news channels that don’t show as much leg as Fox,but there are other stations that vet their news and sources. Try to give your Dad other choices for his political education. Fox is easier to watch, CNN makes you think a bit. > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I tend to agree. My dad is only 67 and see my post above. He’s in it, hook, line and sinker. And it has been happening since he retired at 55. Once he stopped working he stopped socializing whatsoever. Not that he socialized at all prior to that but he was around people 40+ hours a week at work. He has always had social anxiety and now, given the chance to stay home and avoid people, he’s taking it. Super un-healthy… Fox News has always pandered to the populace that wants to join their team. An open setting with a couch in the middle, inviting the viewer to take a seat on the couch. If you watch TV for 20 hours a day, you will find Fox News to be more entertaining than most other Networks channels. If you want accurate information about the politics in the region, Don. . > [@wolfman](#): > > Not to derail the thread but this part terrifies me. I have never been a particularly social person. And I got into a habit after college that most of my non-work socialization was at the bar, and I did it for years, several times a week. Lately I have through a combination of desire to stop unhealthy activities, and annoyance at “those stupid kids today” nearly stopped doing that as well. I can see myself on the path toward having no life and being a virtual shut-in myself at all if I do ever retire. ☹ > At least there aren’t any kids to be disappointed in me, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/55 "2017-10-21T21:09:18Z")
I think there’s a fairly strong awareness of mental and physical deterioration among the older parts of our society. So they’re already somewhat apprehensive and fearful of the future already, and that translates into a very insecure feeling that seems to permeate everything. I mean, my parents are 70 and 73, and live in the southwest Houston area. They’re not racist or anything, but they’re absolutely convinced that “things are different these days” and that there are tons of violent criminals and crazies out there just waiting to steal, murder, beat them up, and so on and so forth. To some degree I think this is because the area of Houstonwe grew up in, and that they live SW of (Alief), underwent a rather dramatic transformation over the 40 years or so they lived there. It went from a very desirable upper-middle income suburb in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, to being an entirely ghetto, crime-ridden, run down, low income predominantly black and hispanic section of town. So from their perspective, the area HAS gone to shit, and they didn’t move far enough out of it to realize that _everything_ hasn’t gone that direction. That aside, they still seem unusually fearful, and it shows in their politics. They’re both surprisingly conservative, being most interested in the law-and-order aspects of that political philosophy. Which is interesting, because I don’t think my mother is otherwise very conservative- I could totally see her being all for poverty reduction, equal rights, and so forth, but that fear has overridden that to the point where she’ll vote for Republicans because they trumpet themselves as the law and order party. I suspect this preoccupation with security and order overrides good sense on a lot of other older people as well. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2017, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/56 "2017-10-21T21:16:32Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I suspect this preoccupation with security and order overrides good sense on a lot of other older people as well. Back in the early 1990s my mom and her husband bought a place about 45 miles outside of Denver. The entire area is horse country and the minimum size of the plots is 5 acres. Before the century was up, they installed a gate at the end of their ¼ mile driveway. When I asked why they wanted the gate, I was told that they thought they needed it for security, because of all the drug gangs. :eek::smack::rolleyes: None of the other properties anywhere around them have gates to this day. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/57 "2017-10-22T00:09:54Z")
I have long said that FOX hires attractive women to deliver their “news” because when men are listening to an attractive woman the part of their brain responsible for critical thinking shuts down. ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/58 "2017-10-22T00:37:42Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > So, the idea is to make pornhub a news outlet? That could work. > > A complaint I voiced recently to my friends, when we were talking about how annoying it is that every newspaper and magazine seem to be behind a paywall anymore, was “Why pay for news, when you can get porn for free?” > > And in that statement, I don’t mean just erotic sexual porn, but porn in the same idea as “food porn” catagory. Stuff that doesn’t inform, stuff that makes you feel good while you watch it, but a bit disgusted with yourself after. > > Fox news, to me, is “news porn”. > [@E-DUB](#): > > I have long said that FOX hires attractive women to deliver their “news” because when men are listening to an attractive woman the part of their brain responsible for critical thinking shuts down. Thanks, I really needed to laugh out loud! ---
**Author:** ![LongTimeLurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@LongTimeLurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongTimeLurker)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2017, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/59 "2017-10-22T00:46:28Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I think there’s a fairly strong awareness of mental and physical deterioration among the older parts of our society. So they’re already somewhat apprehensive and fearful of the future already, and that translates into a very insecure feeling that seems to permeate everything. > > I mean, my parents are 70 and 73, and live in the southwest Houston area. They’re not racist or anything, but they’re absolutely convinced that “things are different these days” and that there are tons of violent criminals and crazies out there just waiting to steal, murder, beat them up, and so on and so forth. To some degree I think this is because the area of Houstonwe grew up in, and that they live SW of (Alief), underwent a rather dramatic transformation over the 40 years or so they lived there. It went from a very desirable upper-middle income suburb in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, to being an entirely ghetto, crime-ridden, run down, low income predominantly black and hispanic section of town. So from their perspective, the area HAS gone to shit, and they didn’t move far enough out of it to realize that _everything_ hasn’t gone that direction. > > That aside, they still seem unusually fearful, and it shows in their politics. They’re both surprisingly conservative, being most interested in the law-and-order aspects of that political philosophy. Which is interesting, because I don’t think my mother is otherwise very conservative- I could totally see her being all for poverty reduction, equal rights, and so forth, but that fear has overridden that to the point where she’ll vote for Republicans because they trumpet themselves as the law and order party. > > I suspect this preoccupation with security and order overrides good sense on a lot of other older people as well. Republicans = Vote for me because I will lock up every person that scares you. Democrats = Vote for me and I will try to create a world where we don’t have to lock everyone up that scares you. Guess where the White Evangelicals voted. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2017, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236/60 "2017-10-23T04:55:45Z")
There is something to the racial divide on this issue. I believe the older white man (and I know a few) was feeling un-seated from their places of power, they had indeed held these places for decades. Trump showing up and talking their language, so to speak, has given them a reprieve, they think. Sad part is Trump could care less about their middle class lives or their needs as aging Americans. Who will be around to pick up the pieces? There will be collateral damages, folks, it is inevitable! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russian-trolls-target-the-old-and-senile/799236.md?page=2)