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Thread: My mom pulled a photo like this one taped to a letter out of a box of my grandmother’s stuff. It’s of people crowding on top of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate in 1989. 1/
My grandmother wrote some notes on the back of it, cataloguing it as an artifact. The attached letter describes the photo as something spirited away from the front line of the Cold War’s end. The letter’s author is a guy named Tony Rudy of Young America’s Foundation. 2/
Tony Rudy really wants to know the photo made it to my grandmother OK. 3/
Tony tells his story. His family escaped the Soviet bloc before he was born and now he’s a warrior for freedom. Seeing the kids on the wall is special for him, because he knows the horrors of communism. 4/
The rub? Communism is overtaking America! 10,000 professors are Marxists and he estimates 80-90% are at least liberal...which means they’re socialist and they hate America. 5/
The list of grievances is familiar. Colleges are pushing an anti-American agenda, forcing “sensitivity training” on innocents and blocking Oliver North from speaking on campus. 6/
What do they need to stop it? $5000. But $25 will do. 7/
She grew up in rural Louisiana. Never went to college. She lived in a tiny town called Rayne her whole life, although she did some traveling to Israel on group trips. Before she died, she was frequently victimized by mail-in schemes and bank fraud while on a fixed income. 8/
My mom thought it cosmic that this letter surfaced now, when, in her mind, the radical left is ascendant. I was struck by the timeless cynicism of the pitch. I thought of this https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-30/trump-rnc-raised-86-million-online-while-contesting-election 9/
So I wondered whatever came of Tony Rudy. He was about 24 when he wrote the letter. No surprise, he had a career in politics, as a congressional aide and then a lobbyist. In 2006, He pleaded guilty to corruption and fraud. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/washington/former-delay-aide-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy.html 11/
In 1990, my grandmother’s husband had been dead for 10 years and she lived on fixed income. I don’t know that she gave them any money. But the photo was in good shape. Fear will make anyone a mark. This is why the #BigLie is so effective. 12/ https://www.npr.org/2021/01/16/957291939/can-the-forces-unleashed-by-trumps-big-election-lie-be-undone
It is a grift, a long con. And it preys on vulnerable people. We should remember that many people invested in the #BigLie are victims like her. https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article248316415.html end/
