A former Trump-supporting grandma who participated in the Jan. 6th riot is facing backlash for having transformed into a Democrat Karen with a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).
Pamela Hemphill, a 71-year-old Jan. 6th rioter from Idaho, has such a bad case of TDS that she can be seen dancing in the video below in honor of former Special Counsel Jack Smith:
You know you’re in the wrong and history will prove me right! @mrddmia https://t.co/1hJ2LvMck5 pic.twitter.com/VstuAIGPqs
— Pam Hemphill (@PamHemphill79) January 11, 2025
How did she go from attending the Jan. 6th riot to this? And was she ever even really a Trump-supporting right-winger? Amazingly, she was indeed.
According to Boise news station KTVB, back in the day, she used to protest mask mandates, associate with Ammon Bundy, and be an “unofficial videographer” for the state’s far-right factions.
“For a few years, she was sort of the unofficial videographer of the far-right in Idaho,” local podcaster Heath Druzin told the station. “She’d show up and she’d just be filming the whole time, going and asking people questions — sometimes a friendly interview and sometimes a pretty hostile one.”
Then when the time to attend the Stop the Steal rally came in early 2021, Hemphill was all in on it.
“It’s not going to be a FUN Trump Rally that is planned for January 6th, its (sic) a WAR!” she reportedly wrote on Facebook at the time.
In another post that showed her posing with a firearm, she announced that she was “On my way to Washington DC January 6th!”
“Later, prosecutors would place her at the front line of the crowd of rioters who breached barriers on the Capitol’s east side,” according to KTVB. “She slipped across said barriers several times, urging others to do the same.”
She simultaneously “disregarded” the police’s instructions to leave, all while egging on other rioters.
After Pam Hemphill was first to cross the east line at 1:44, she (like Epps) called for others to join. She claimed she had 60 stitches yet outran everyone. She said she was pushed, yet nobody was behind her. She said she didn’t feel safe but returned to the most intense section. pic.twitter.com/y6NqWDO6ok
— (@FreeStateWill) July 11, 2022
After the riot, she pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building, was sentenced to two months in jail, and then suddenly contracted a severe case of TDS.
She now claims the Jan. 6th riot marked “the worst day in our history” as a country. And she of course predictably voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the last election, despite voting for Trump in 2016 and 2020.
“We got to save our democracy because Trump wants to turn this… into a dictator(ship),” she told USA Today last August, echoing the Democrat Party’s egregiously demagogic rhetoric about then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
She now also claims that her past Trump support was motivated entirely by pressure from her family and that the MAGA movement is nothing but a “cult of Trump.”
“I didn’t realize that brainwashing was happening with Trump in 2016,” she told USA Today. “This is how they would talk to me: ‘Pam, you know, the Democrats are trying to take over. They’re getting more aggressive.’ I tend to believe them. You know, I wasn’t doing my own research.”
I want everyone to know I’m extremely regretful about my past behaviors and beliefs being in with the MAGA Cult of Trump! I hope you, your family and friends will understand and forgive me. All I can do now is move forward and try to help others trapped in Trumps brainwashing! pic.twitter.com/v6W6v28j0h
— Pam Hemphill (@PamHemphill79) July 13, 2023
“It’s like a scar that I have to carry for the rest of my life,” she added, describing her participation in the Jan. 6th riot. “It’s gonna be that shame feeling. It’s not like I knew I was breaking the law, and I broke it anyway. However, I still was a part of that craziness, that cult. So it’s like something I can’t brush off.”
And she’s now also proud to say that she won’t accept a potential pardon from Trump:
I’m not going to be bullied by MAGA anymore, as those who went as far as calling my Probation Officer trying to get me in trouble backfired on them, thinking I would stop speaking out, just give me more confidence to continue!
I will refuse a pardon from felon Trump!… https://t.co/WwCAcxduZh— Pam Hemphill (@PamHemphill79) January 12, 2025
But to critics, Hemphill seems like nothing more than a manipulative grifter trying to earn fame and fortune on the backs of others.
“If there was ever a grifter in the MAGA movement, it is her,” one critic recently tweeted. “She perverted her J6 story for money. How does she live with herself?”
“Pam is a habitual liar,” another critic added. “She can’t tell the truth if her life depended on it. She smears and lies to play victim. She’s always been a grifter.”
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