She started down the path towards being an idiot before the pandemic. Every phonecall was some new bullshit that she’d latch on to, and when I calmly tried to explain how actually worked, she’d lose her shit, scream at me, and hang up. The isolation and disinformation campaigns throughout the pandemic broke her brain.
A lot of people lost their fucking minds over the course of the pandemic. My mother (formerly an intelligent and compassionate professional who owned a business in the banking and finance space) got pushed down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole over the course of the pandemic, and became a total and complete fucking moron that only gets their ‘facts’ from far-right blogs, youtube videos, and facebook posts that ‘own the libs’.
I am no longer surprised with the level of enthusiasm these people have for intellectual poison.